Lights Out is among those movies that don’t happen often, but when they do show up, they’re so much fun to watch. Jaime King plays Detective Ellen Ridgway, a woman who is not to be trusted and not afraid to tear down anyone in her path for answers.
One of the things that is so intimidating about her is that she will invade your space, stare into your soul, and do whatever it takes to get what she is looking for, and King plays her in such a menacing way. When speaking with her, I asked about bringing those powerful moments to life in the movie and where she found the fun in a character like Ridgway.
“Entrances are something that are lost these days. The entrance of a character is extremely important,” she said. “I remember, because we had no rehearsal time, as soon as I got to that set, I took into account every single space and I was like, ‘I just wanna be at the door. I don’t wanna be in it. I don’t wanna be outside of it. I wanna be in the door.’ And I chose that she would smoke and so I was smoking in the house, which is so like, ‘Ooh,’ you know? But that also I wanted to play with the idea of when you look at male/female dynamics that normally it’s women are just running around, doing whatever men ask them to.”
She went on to talk about how Ridgway explored those dynamics: “But that she could just sit there in the doorway and have them go do that thing. And at the same time, if you’re really looking at me, she has to get this thing done. And then the moments with the scene that I had with her outside, actually kind of shook her. She was like, ‘What?’ Because when I went in and I started touching her jewelry and getting really close to her, she was just not expecting that. I think as the other actor, you’re expecting da, da, da. But what was happening inside of me, mother to mother, was basically like I really felt mother to mother. And also this is something that I’ve gotta get done and I’m going to do it.”
You can see our full chat here:
Lights Out is available on VOD now!
(featured image: Harmony Gerber/Getty Images)
