'Smile 2' star Naomi Scott brings a pop star's nightmare to wicked, gruesome, jaw-dropping life

On paper, the film is high concept, but in both writing and performance, it’s actually grounded and frighteningly relatable. Again returning to that concept of being both in the spotlight and yet invisible, it’s a feeling both queer individuals and pop stars know all too well — and it resonated for Scott, too. “[Skye’s] going through something, and things that I think people can relate to, to an extent, but in a very unrelatable context. And so there’s both simultaneously this connection that you have with Skye and this distance — you’re observing, but you’re also really with her,” she tells PRIDE. That connection to Skye’s vulnerability, Scott’s ability to wring every ounce of pathos from every moment, and filmmaker Parker Finn’s choice to make her emotional turmoil the lynchpin of the film, often filming her seemingly within inches of the actress’s face, pulls the viewer in, making them equal parts "in it" with Skye and complicit in observing her psychological spiral.

Feeling yourself pulled into the film, seeing your own anxieties, fears, and life experiences represented on screen through the lens and metaphor is exactly what returning writer and director Finn was after with Smile 2. When pressed on how he wants audiences to interpret the demon, he’s quick to push back. “I love being able to create something where audiences can project upon it. I think that that’s always really important to me. I never want to overly put my thumb on the scale for anything,” he tells PRIDE. “I am always trying to explore things that are on my mind that I’m interested in, and I feel like I was trying to make myself the first audience member for it, but to create something that is relatable and hopefully universal for people to feel that.”

The world that Skye exists in is also innately queer. In casting, we see in the inclusion of the aforementioned Gage and out actor Miles Gutierrez-Riley (Agatha All Along) who stars as Skye’s mother’s gay assistant Joshua. But also there is essential queerness to all of the close relationships in her life, the Mommy Dearest flavored dynamic with her momager (Rosemarie DeWitt) or the intimacy of her friendship with Gemma (Dylan Gelula). While entirely unremarked on textually the film creates a queer tapestry as its backdrop.

Watch PRIDE's full interview with ‘Smile 2’ director Parker Finn below.

While Smile 2 is sure to be a crowd-pleaser, the creeping sense of dread, funhouse-like jump-scares, and gleefully nasty plot twists and turns are exactly the experiences you crave in the fall. But, like the best of the horror genre, there’s no shortage of deeper commentary happening under its hood. It serves as a mirror and a viewport into our cultural and personal anxieties. There’s a veritable kaleidoscope of ways to interpret the meaning of the demon, whether that’s trauma, guilt, or even internalized homophobia, and Finn is all too happy for people to bring their own experiences and exegesis to the film. “My favorite horror films [are] the ones that linger with me. I love things that go bump in the night, obviously. But it’s that internal, human psychological element, that feeling of exploring something that’s uncomfortable, uneasy, something we might all be feeling, but putting it through the lens of genre allows you to sort of look at it from a different angle, and engage with it in a different way,” says Finn.

If there was ever a moment for the catharsis of watching horror and experiencing fear in a contained and safe way it’s now. The world feels like a particularly frightening and unsafe place and the countdown clock to the most consequential — and for many people, in particular queer and trans persons, existential — election of our time. The general sense of anxiety and unease is at an all-time high. Add to that the fact that spooky season is in full swing, it truly couldn’t be a better time for Smile 2 to grace the big screen and wriggle its way into our psyches. It also helps that we are, as Finn says, in a “renaissance of horror” with thoughtful, transgressive films dominating the genre. “I love how so much horror right now is being thoughtfully made, and films that have something on their mind, I think is really important,” he says. “I think that we can have cultural conversations, that horror gives us a way in that maybe wasn’t so obvious before that, and it allows you to take something that could be very heady or hard to talk about and create this like really exciting experience that has catharsis. And I think that catharsis is so important to me, both as a viewer and a filmmaker.”

There is something profoundly cathartic about witnessing Scott’s raw and unhinged performance in Smile 2. I would put this performance in the same category as Toni Collette’s in Hereditary or Demi Moore’s in this year’s body horror shocker The Substance. It is that unleashed.

It was that commitment to character that drew Scott to the role in the first place — that and being a fan of Finn’s previous work. “I watched the short film in 2020 and was a fan of that,Laura Hasn’t Slept. I watched [Smile] in the cinema, was a fan of that movie, and felt like Parker is a filmmaker who really prioritizes character,” she recalls “As an actor, that’s very exciting, because the character isn’t just used as a device to push the plot forward. The movie is the character and that’s what makes him a great filmmaker.”

The two met prior to production to discuss the film and Skye’s journey. Scott was eager to take on the challenge of the physicality of the role, but also her psychological complexity. “I was like, ‘Wait a second, this sounds so up my alley. I need to do this movie.’ And then, of course, reading it and feeling like, yes, this really does deliver on the promise of it being a character piece, and just falling in love with Skye and all the things that she’s going through,” she says. “It really runs the gamut of her being kind of numb at the beginning of the movie with a lot of going on under the surface, and then obviously that just begins to really peel away and reveal what’s really there.”

There is so very much to peel away metaphorically — and viscerally. There’s an alchemy to bringing that to life on screen, a dynamic between actor and director, and Finn shares why Scott was the perfect partner in making the film. “It all starts with casting the right person in the role. Naomi is this absolute force of nature. For this role in particular, she has this incredible gravitas, where I believe her as this mega pop star, but then you turn around in the next moment, she’s breaking down. Hitting rock bottom is so vulnerable, so human, so raw. The fact that she can do both while also singing while also doing choreography is incredible,” he gushes. “The way I like to work with my leads is to be partners in crime. We’re doing this together, it’s all about this curation and making sure that we are on this journey together. And that’s what made Naomi such a wonderful partner in this, is that we really felt locked in together.”

Still, watching Skye break down both mentally and physically, it’s hard not to wonder how the actor behind the performance was faring. Thankfully, Scott shook it off like a glittery tassel coat. “The honest answer is, it doesn’t touch me. I’m very protective of myself and of the performance aspect,” she says, although she admits there were certainly moments of exhaustion on set. “I did have amazing support around me and people around me, and I left it there. Then just watched Love is Blind and I was fine,” she jokes.

While the actress thankfully walked away unscathed, audiences are in for a rattling and terrifying experience when Smile 2 hits theaters this Friday, October 18 — one we can’t recommend highly enough