Mckenna Grace – The Bad Seed

By starrymag | September 9, 2018

By: Patience Kapfer

 

 

Q) What are the recent projects you’re working on?

A) I’m doing another episode of “Young Sheldon” pretty soon, I’m very excited about that because personally I’m a big fan of the show. And I can’t say the other thing, but I have something very exciting coming up.

 

Q) Can you explain the premise of The Bad Seed?

A) Yes. Well, it’s about a little girl named Emma who lives with her dad (Rob Lowe) because her mother passed away. She seems like a really good kid. She seems like a really nice perfect little angel. Then, whenever these awards come up she thinks she’s going to win the big award. Whenever somebody else wins it, she goes a little psychopathic. Because secretly the entire time she’s been a psychopath, she’s been the bad seed. She’s very manipulative and she manipulates her dad and she manipulates people. She’s just very crazy. It’s basically about a little girl who’s a psychopath.

 

Q) What made you want to be a part of the movie?

A) Well, I’ve always wanted to play a bad guy, I don’t know why. And it’s always hard to do a remake because it’ll never ever live up to the original movie because the original movies are always the best. So I wanted to take on the challenge. I knew that it probably wouldn’t be everything as the original, but I sure as heck was going to try and I think that I did pretty good. And I talked to Patty McCormack, who played the original Bad Seed, and she taught me how to do a lot of stuff that she did in the original. I think we all did great and I think it’s going to be really awesome.

 

Q) How was Emma originally described to you?

A) I just kind of understood her because when I got the audition I watched the original and I was like, “Oh my gosh,” because Patty McCormack is a legend. She is amazing.

 

Q) What did you do to get into character each day? With such a dark character, how were you able to shake her off at the end of the day of filming?

A) I watch a lot of horror movies so I understand a lot of the bad guy characters and where they come from. Well, not really where they come from, because Emma was just bad for no apparent reason. She was just evil. So, I watch a lot of horror movies with my dad because I love them and so I could understand how to play a bad guy. I looked up a lot of stuff and on a show that I was filming at the same time as The Bad Seed, “The Haunting of Hill House”, I was playing a dark character for a month anyway. It’s not too too dark, but it was a dark show and my character was pretty dark. But at the end of the day I had our driver Kenny – who’s the best – our driver Kenny is amazing. We collected those little hopping chickens together, so it was pretty easy at the end of the day to just go back to Mckenna.

 

Q) How does it feel to star in a movie that previously had such a cult following? In what ways is this version of the movie like/not like the original?

A) It’s so much darker than the original (a lot darker than the original) and it’s amazing and it’s kind of scary. In the original, it was not too scary, but ours is a lot darker. I mean, anyone who is a giant fan of the original is going to be like, “This isn’t like the original,” but it is in some ways. But if you’re a giant fan of the original, then I can understand where you’re coming from because it is a lot different. Like they switched it to where one of the parents passed away and in the original both of the parents were alive, but it was starring the mom. In this one we have the dad. It’s different, but the same. I personally tried to incorporate things that Patty McCormack did in the original, like she taught me how to skip like where Emma did. It was so hard. And how to tap your foot because she does this weird thing where she’s tapping her foot a lot whenever she gets angry. There’s this one scene where Patty McCormack flips out and I tried to incorporate that into a scene where I got to flip out.

 

Q) Talk about working with Rob Lowe as a costar and director.

A) Oh my gosh, he’s amazing! I love Rob. I think it was his first time directing and starring and it was crazy because we would be doing a scene and then he’d be like, “Hang on!” And then he would have to run back, watch the monitor and then come back and give all of us notes and take notes himself. And then we would do the scene and we would have to do that every take and it was crazy. It was hard, but it was also really fun. And Rob Lowe is so amazing just as a person. He’s so nice and we still talk. He’s been wanting me to come and help him name Koi fish. He has Koi fish! That’s so awesome!

 

Q) What was the most challenging part of the role and the movie?

A) Hmm. I’m trying to think. It’s been a while. I had a scene where I had to yell at Rob and I did not like that because I love Rob. I was doing another dark thing, but I wasn’t evil in that and it was just kind of hard being evil because he’s so opposite from me like, “So, I’m going to go and try to murder someone now, that’s great.” It was also kind of hard not to laugh during certain takes because I would have to go stone faced and I’d be like, “Oh god, don’t laugh, don’t laugh.” And Luke [Roessler], who plays Milo, and I had a very brutal scene that I had to do with him whenever it was his actual birthday. So I had a very brutal scene where I did something awful to him and it was his birthday. So, I’m like, “Oh my god, I’m sorry,” because he’s so nice and we’re friends. Trust me, there were probably a few takes where I did crack up. It’s so hard to just go stone faced, so whenever I’d get home I’d be like, “Okay, stone faced. Okay, stone faced,” go into the mirror stone faced. Then, I’d start laughing and I’d be like, “No, stop laughing me!.” I’d have to practice “a basket of kisses” in the mirror because I’m a psychopath and I don’t show any emotion so I was practicing emotion in the mirror and I kept on laughing so hard.

 

Q) We loved you on “Designated Survivor.” What did you personally take away from your time working on the series?

A) It was really cool. It was really cool getting to work on there. One thing that I took away from the show that doesn’t really have to do with acting was I learned a lot of Kiefer [Sutherland] songs and I sang with him, which was really cool. I did just learn a lot by watching the way that he acts. I mean, because he’s a professional. He’s just really good at acting.

 

Q) You’ve had the chance to be in a political drama, comedy, and now something more suspenseful. What is it about this type of genre that draws you to these roles?

A) It’s fun to play different characters and tell different stories and to see all of the ranges you can do, to test yourself to see how far you can go. One of the reasons I really like doing a lot of different characters is because Meryl Streep is such a chameleon and I really want to be like her someday. I really want to be like Meryl Streep one day because she’s amazing.

 

Q) You are a part of social media. Do you enjoy the fan feedback you receive to the work that you do?

A) Well, I love talking to people and meeting new people, but I don’t have any social media on my phone. It’s on my mom’s and we do it together. Whenever we feel like we’re going to post something we go through the photos together and we decide what to say. Whenever we comment on something we go through it together. I don’t really like social media because I feel like in some ways that it’s ruining people because you know it might be tearing some families apart or something. Because sure the internet is amazing and so is social media, but in a lot of ways it isn’t. So, my mom doesn’t really let me have social media, well not on my tablet.

 

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?

A) Thank you for supporting me and it means a lot, like a lot a lot a lot to me. And never forget to be yourself and follow your heart. And keep believing in yourself and never give up. Oh, and stay weird! Because weird is a good thing, weird is a very good thing.