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Alicia Witt Details Unique Creative Process on Longlegs
Like her co-stars, Longlegs star Alicia Witt let her entire dynamic with Nicolas Cage play out exclusively on camera.
Speaking to ComicBook, Witt revealed that her character of Ruth Harker and Cage’s Longlegs only ever interacted on screen, as she and Cage never had creative discussions off camera.
“It was purely on screen,” Witt said. “And that’s as it should be because you see our relationship happen in real time. Without giving any spoilers away, the moment that Longlegs and Ruth interact, that’s really me meeting Longlegs for the first time. That is really special.”
Witt’s Ruth finds herself in a unique position within Longlegs. As the mother of Maika Monroe’s Lee, Ruth grows concerned with her daughter for pursuing this dangerous serial killer case and reminds her to say her prayers, which Lee often neglects.
“I felt like every bit of preparation I had done as Ruth to imagine what her reaction might be, to know who she was going into that moment, my job as an actor I think is always to do the work and then show up on set and let it be, let it unfold,” Witt continued. “It’s so much about the symbiosis between the actors. To see Nic show up as Longlegs for the first time, I always like moments like that to happen on camera. I was careful to not look very much at him until the cameras were rolling. You only need to glance at this face to know that that man is really not right. The reaction kind of took care of itself.”
Longlegs slithers into theaters on Friday, July 12th.
