The deceptively funny M3GAN -- coming to theaters Jan. 6 -- focuses on the titular lifelike doll constructed by a brilliant young inventor named Gemma (Allison Williams). While she's trying to perfect the doll despite the open concerns of her employer David (Ronny Chieng), she's also forced to confront the sudden death of her sister. Gemma finds herself serving as the unexpected guardian for her niece Cady (Violet McGraw), who quickly forms an attachment with M3GAN.
As M3GAN continues to evolve in some increasingly unsettling ways, Gemma finds herself dealing with a creation that will just as soon bust out some impromptu dance moves as hack people to death with any weapon available. During an interview with CBR, M3GAN star Allison Williams dove into why a horror film that embraces comedy is more true to life than a nonstop thriller and how Furbies were quietly far scarier than they first appeared.
CBR: Starting off, I wanted to say congrats on M3GAN! I've got to admit -- I wasn't expecting it to be so... well, fun!
Allison Williams: "Fun" is my favorite adjective to hear about it. It's because you're not expecting it. You're expecting that it is gonna be a serious kind of... It's James Wan. It's Blumhouse. I'm gonna be terrified. Then you come out of it, and you're like, "I giggled more than I thought I was going to!" Clearly, that's kind of the ideal combination. Especially in this genre, I think it's the best.
I did want to bring that up because I love how it blends horror and comedy together.
That's [Director Gerard Johnstone]. That's got Gerard written all over it. He has such a specific tonal expression, and I think he just hit these notes that are just so... At first glance, you're like, "How can these two scenes exist in the same movie? How can a spontaneous performance of a song in a moment where you're really not expecting it be next to a moment where a little girl is grieving her parents? How is that in the same movie?" We're like, "It is. Here's that movie!" I think that's all to [the credit of] Gerard and to the script that [screenwriter Akela Cooper] wrote.
It's such a delicate balancing act between the horror and the comedy, too, and it really finds that line. As a performer in something like that, how do you approach that?
That tonal shift, I think that life more closely mirrors that wild shift than one beat the whole time. You know, our days just aren't like that anymore. Especially if we go from, like, we're scrolling through our Twitter feed, we're looking at stuff that's funny and whimsical, and then we see something horrible in real life. We are just good at flying through those transitions now in a way that we didn't use to be as much... We all need much more therapy than we're getting. It's the sort of thing M3GAN was built for, sadly.
I've got to ask, did you have any of those talking kinds of toys as a kid? A Teddy Ruxpin or something like that?
No, I didn't. I'm going to have to Google that.
Oh, get ready to be quietly terrified.
I felt that way about Furbies. Like, they're so cute! I wanted one so badly, and so did my little brother. We both got them and were promptly terrified. I don't even know where they went. I hope they are not anywhere in our house. I don't ever want to stumble upon a Furby when I'm not expecting it... The one that we had, when my Dad sat down on our couch... He wasn't expecting the Furby to be there. It was like the middle of the night or something, and it went "Cock-a-Doodle-Doo!" and then "hee hee hee hee." My dad was like, "Nope, gone. You are out of here."
M3GAN comes to theaters Jan. 6.