How to Make an Unforgettable Serial-Killer Thriller with Nicolas Cage: Maika Monroe and Osgood Perkins Chat 'Longlegs'

Let's call it the "Nicolas Cage plays" effect: when those three words combine, almost anything can follow and viewers will be obsessed. Dracula, himself, an expat Aussie surfer, a man that no one can stop dreaming about, Superman, a truffle hunter and a dad milking an alpaca are just some of the recent ways to end that sentence. In Longlegs, the pivotal phrase wraps up with the movie's title. It's the key name in the case that a just-out-of-the-academy FBI agent has been assigned. Nothing can prepare audiences for Cage's performance, however, even if you've seen him in everything from Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Vampire's Kiss to Wild at Heart and Face/Off, and then Mandy and Willy's Wonderland. Little can prepare you for this instant-classic and supremely unnerving addition to the horror canon, either.

In making Longlegs, Maika Monroe and Osgood Perkins were well-equipped, though, thanks to a decade separately linked to the genre as an actor and a filmmaker, respectively. The former came to prominence with 2014's It Follows, a follow-up to which is on the way. The latter made his directorial debut with 2015's The Blackcoat's Daughter, then added 2016's I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House and 2020's Gretel & Hansel to his resume. Perkins is tied to horror by blood, too, as well as from his work on-screen, where he was stepping into a young Norman Bates' shoes at the age of nine. His father is Anthony Perkins, aka the elder Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, plus three sequels — one of which he helmed himself — in the 80s and 90s.

Cage, Monroe, Perkins: that's a helluva pedigree for any movie. Longlegs doesn't squander it. Whether it's opening in 70s or unfurling its bulk with pitch-perfect 90s details, Perkins has whisked up a can't-look-away cinematic nightmare — one with a namesake that takes some thematic cues from Darth Vader in a way, he tells Concrete Playground. That's a connection that likely no one would make if he didn't join those dots himself. That said, it also speaks to the impact of a figure that lingers over an entire feature while deployed judiciously. The trailers for Longlegs are just as careful with their teasing, and Perkins was with Monroe as well: on-set, she saw Cage as Longlegs properly the first time that Agent Lee Harker, her character, does.

Mentioning the best-known villainous force in a galaxy far, far away is also an aptly leftfield clue for a movie that does indeed play out like a puzzle, not just for Monroe's Harker and her boss Carter (Blair Underwood, Origin), but for everyone — and a feature that can never be accused of making obvious choices. Perkins has also described Longlegs as a "horror movie mixtape", and it fits a flick that's about unsolved murders, detectives chasing the culprit, the occult and Satanism, mysterious codes, unsettling dolls and creepy barns, each adding to the components waiting for audiences to piece together.

The response so far in the US alone hasn't just been warm, but hypnotised and huge. Neon, the US distributor that's also brought Parasite, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Possessor, Titane, Spencer, Moonage Daydream, Triangle of Sadness, Infinity Pool, Anatomy of a Fall, Ferrari and Perfect Days to screens in America, broke its box-office record for a debut weekend when the movie opened there a week before Down Under. The only film that beat it in takings: the all-ages-friendly minion power of Despicable Me 4, so the exact opposite of this haunting thriller.

Now it's Australia and New Zealand's turn to meet Longlegs — and we chatted with both Perkins and Monroe about it, including about where inspiration came from for Perkins for a character as immediately unforgettable as Longlegs, plus Monroe's career path to the movie. Also covered in our round-table discussion with the duo: the genesis of the film's story, Monroe's reaction when it initially came her way, building a presence like Longlegs with Cage and Perkins' route to the genre.

On What Inspired the Character of Longlegs

Osgood: "For me, it starts with Darth Vader, and everything goes forward from there. And when I say it starts with Darth Vader, it starts with the quality of 'ohh, the villain is really the star of their own story, the star of their own situation. They're doing the best that they can with what they've been dealt'.

And so with someone like Cobble, with Longlegs, the idea is not how do you make him sinister, but what about him isn't sinister?

The sinister parts and the sort of evil parts and the kind of villainous parts is de rigueur. That's got to just be part of it. That's mandatory. Where you pull and stretch the rubber band is like, well, where is he pathetic? Obviously he's powerful, but where is he weak? Obviously he's invested — well, where is he unsure?

So when you start to create these binary positions, much more can exist between those poles. If you have a villain who's like this all the time, and that's not — you don't see a lot of that anymore, but everybody has their pluses and their minuses.

And I guess even a serial killer is ultimately still a person who shit's happened to, not good. And when you pluck them out of their habitat, they're probably pretty pathetic."

On What Came to Mind First When Perkins Was Conjuring Up the Film's Story

Osgood: "It's what I think would be fun about something like this. And usually that comes in through music, and imagery evolves as you work with other people. The first thing that happens is the dialogue and the way the movie sounds and what people are talking about, and what words they're choosing to use.

I'm a big words guy. I don't believe in thinking about writing. I only believe in actually writing. Those are very different entities for me.

So it starts with the words, and it starts with words that I like, and it starts with the title like Longlegs that I like. And then it starts with the way that he talks and the things he chooses to say, and it grows out of that."

On Monroe's Initial Reaction to the Movie When the Script Came Her Way

Maika: "I read a whole lot of scripts, and it is few and far between that you read something that just grabs you immediately. The writing was so good. It was so vivid.

And, probably similar to audience members watching the movie for the first time, I really thought that I had a grip on where it was going and understanding, and I was like 'okay, awesome, a nostalgic crime-thriller'.

And then a little past halfway through, all of a sudden it turned into a whole other beast, and it just felt so unique and fresh."

On How Much of Longlegs, the Figure, Was on the Page — and How Much Came Together During the Shoot

Osgood: "We worked together on it, and of course there's the contribution of hair, makeup, special effects makeup, wardrobe, production design. Everybody's gratifyingly pulling towards the same goal, which is to make something cool, something that has a music to it, something that has a pulse or that vibes stronger than anything else around it. That's the whole trip that we're on.

And with Nic, with the character of Longlegs, most of it is on the page when he gets it. The way he looks is written. And then we've got to figure out a way to make that look right.

So it becomes about literally taking one piece at a time. Like the chin, it's too much, it looks like Dick Tracy, so take it down by half. I don't need these scary things around the eyes because that makes it look a little too like Halloween costumes, so let's take that down. Let's look at this — the hair should be poufy. We're talking about glam rock, so let's exaggerate that a little bit.

It just becomes about taking all the little pieces and sewing them together. And luckily for me, I have a collaborator in one of the great all-time movie presences who's really as focused and deliberate and deep as you want them to be."

On Monroe's First Proper Meeting with Longlegs

Maika: "It definitely felt intense, and pretty much we would do a take and I would just step out of the room — and I would go in if there were notes or something, but I just think it was nice for us to keep our space.

Then after we finished filming that day, it was actually his [Cage's] last day. We were sitting across from each other and they were taking some still photos, and we just started chatting. It was the first time I heard his actual voice, and he was just saying to me 'I'm just such a fan. I love all your movies'.

And I was just like sitting there like 'is this really happening?'. It was crazy. It was very surreal."

It Follows

On What Monroe Makes of Her Career So Far After 15 Years On-Screen and a Decade on From It Follows

Maika: "There's just so many ups and downs, and there's no rhyme or reason to this industry. You book this big movie and you're like 'this is it. This is going to be it'. And it isn't. And then you do this tiny film, and all of a sudden it turns into to something that was never expected.

I think at the end of the day, I am just so insanely grateful. I have to step outside and sort of look at where I'm at.

And if I were to talk to my 13-year-old self, I would have never believed this, that I'd be sitting here right now and just the people I've been able to work with — it's just surreal and just very lucky.

On Perkins' Path to Directing Horror Movies

Osgood: "I think like any kid who grows up and sees their dad doing the thing, there's either the raging impulse to do the same thing and to try to find out, do a little bit of a detective search on your dad by trying to go in their footsteps of — and I think for me, it was certainly part of that.

The horror genre to me is just the most delightful. It's the most delicious. It's the most profane and absurd, romantic, poetic, endless, concealed genre of all of them. It really contains everything. It contains love. It contains comedy. It contains adventure and science fiction, and it's all sort of embedded in there.

So I don't necessarily think of myself as a horror director, because I don't know that I think of myself as a horror fan. I can't remember the last horror movie I paid for to see in the theatre. I don't really care about it, it's not really interesting to me.

To me, I'm more looking to do something expansive, and the horror genre allows for all realms of thought and expression. And there's so many little signifiers that you can connect to, like serial killer or procedural crime, or it's an axe murderer or whatever it is — you can go in and people have an idea about it, and an emotion attached to it. And then you can create your own thing based on the model."

Longlegs opened in Australian and New Zealand cinemas on Thursday, July 18, 2024. Read our review.