Naomi Scott had no idea what she was in for. It was several years after her breakout performance as Jasmine in 2019’s Aladdin and she had just received a script by director Parker Finn about a new character he had created – a tortured pop star named Skye Riley.
Skye’s journey was harrowing, Scott soon discovered – a woman haunted by an unknown entity that only she could see. And while she was perhaps the most famous person in the world, from the first page to the last, there was no one on Earth more alone.
“Parker told me he wanted to take a big swing, but he didn’t tell me what it was. It wasn’t until after the fact that I realised – oh, this is the second Smile movie,” Scott tells The National.
That was reason enough to be excited. Smile, Finn’s 2022 directorial debut, was a viral sensation. Praised by critics and audiences alike, the film became one of the 50 highest-grossing horror films of all time on a modest budget, cementing Finn as one of the genre’s key contemporary figures overnight.
But Finn knew he couldn’t repeat that success without the right star. Unlike most horror franchises, which rely on a recognisable villain and interchangeable heroes, Smile films are character studies. They’re explorations of trauma and the way that those in pain pass their pain onto others.
“There’s just something uncanny about Naomi,” Finn says. “She has this intense X factor that’s hard to define, and she went through a lot in her life – going from a secure life in East London to extreme fame with every experience along the way.
“And when we sat down, it became very clear she has this intense hunger to do something that is going to snap people’s necks. She wanted to do something that no one saw coming, and that was very interesting to me.”
The first film followed Sosie Bacon as Rose Cotter, a doctor with a troubling personal history and few people in her life she could really lean on. Her troubles are compounded when a demon attaches itself to her after she witnesses a violent event, refusing to leave her alone unless she perpetuates the violence. Smile 2 devilishly twists that paradigm. Instead of a person with no love in her life, we follow a star who everyone adores – but do they really?
Finn says: “That level of celebrity puts you on an island. There are all these expectations put on a person like that. In a weird way, she has no agency. She’s a prisoner of her public persona and of all the people who are depending on her. It’s the polar opposite of what we did with Rose, and that was really interesting to me.”
For Scott, believably playing a pop star was the easy part. Scott grew up with two pastor parents, getting her first experience in live performance while singing in church. But Scott, who hadn't done a theatrical film in nearly five years, never pushed herself as an actress to the level that Smile 2 required. It was far more than practising her creepiest grin in the mirror – she had to put herself through an emotional gamut.
“Parker kept saying to me, this will be the most exhausted you’ve ever been in your life. To the point where it became a running joke – I didn’t believe him. But he didn’t lie at all. I knew it would be hard, but it was so much more intense than I imagined.
“I learned a lot about myself through this process. I had to find a way to use levity to help me through it and to set the tone on set. There was so much blood, sweat and tears that we put into this movie – we needed to add some laughs for ourselves, too.”
Part of why Scott felt so comfortable giving her all was the level of trust she had in Finn. “He’s one of the most passionate people I’ve ever met in my life," she says. "He just lives and breathes this, with endless energy, and really trusts you. I was surprised by how much fun we could have, while still feeling like I was able to give everything I could in terms of this performance."
Finn, meanwhile, remains a student of the game. The first film was inspired by the work of directors Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Todd Haynes, as well as the classic ghost stories of English writer M R James and modern films such as Ringu.
“For the emotionality here, I had some other films swimming in my brain this time," says Finn. "Black Swan was in there on a performance level, especially psychologically, as was Perfect Blue – an anime film that I love. And unexpectedly, I kept thinking about Rachel Getting Married, and what director Jonathan Demme did with Anne Hathaway – a woman reemerging into her life and carrying pariah baggage with her.
“There’s a lot that Smile 2 has in common with the first, but this film metabolises a lot more disparate influences. I think people are going to be left surprised at what it has in store. I wanted to create an off-the-rails journey with enough emotionality that felt worth sinking your teeth into it all. People might feel familiar with it all after the first, but I wanted to use that against them, too.”
Smile 2 is in cinemas on Thursday across the Middle East
