While many have compared the horror/mystery “Longlegs” to the Oscar-winning masterpiece “The Silence of the Lambs,” including writer/director Oz Perkins himself, the star of the film, Maika Monroe recently shared how she carried a different cinematic influence throughout production. Speaking for an interview with Polyester Magazine, Monroe opened up about the effect the script had on her, as well as the performance she tried to channel in her approach to FBI Agent Lee Harker.
“When I read the script for the first time, I really thought I knew where it was going and then it really took some turns,” Monroe said. She later added, “I didn’t want anyone else to play this role. That doesn’t often happen for me.”
In terms of inspiration, Monroe drew on Rooney Mara’s performance as Lisbeth Salander in the U.S. adaptation of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” The 2011 David Fincher film follows a similar serial killer plot to “Longlegs,” but Monroe didn’t necessarily utilize specifics of Mara’s performance more than she tried to embrace being misunderstood and finding her place and purpose in solving heinous crimes.
“They aren’t really similar people of course, they are both awkward and uncomfortable with everyday life,” said Monroe in describing Salander and Harker. “They are isolated. But then when working on the case, she is suddenly so alive, and that’s something that happens with Lee in ‘Longlegs’too. That’s where both of them feel the most comfortable.”
The benefit Mara had in crafting Salander is the longform novel source material that spoke to the inner-workings of the character. While Monroe was only working off of Perkins’ script, she believes he provided more than enough to get a handle on the world of “Longlegs” and how Harker operates within it.
“Reading the script, it was very easy to imagine the world, it was so detailed,” Monroe said to Polyester. “[Perkins] adds so much, he includes what the characters are thinking, which is not what I’m used to reading. That was quite cool. Initially I got a sense, and the next steps were trying to figure out her mannerisms and her cadence of speaking. He gave ideas but I wanted to find something unique in her, something that people haven’t seen. It was very fun, probably one of my favorite roles.”
