The Conjuring Universe adds another terrifying installment with the upcoming film The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. Ed and Lorrain Warren investigate the supernatural phenomenon behind a murderer's claim of demonic possession. The film is based on the real-life trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson. The proceedings were historical, marking the first known court case in the U.S. to use demonic possession in the defense.

Charlene Amoia, known for her roles in How I Met Your Mother and Birds of Prey, plays Judy Glatzel, the mother of the young boy who is tormented and possessed by a demon in The Conjuring 3. CBR had the opportunity to speak to Amoia regarding the anticipated horror film. She discussed her character, working with Conjuring veterans Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson and teased some spooky phenomenon that occurred on set.

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Charlene Amoia

CBR: Do you want to talk a little bit about your character on The Conjuring 3?

Amoia: I'm not sure if you've read up on the movie at all yet, but it's based on a real-life story in 1981 in Connecticut with a family who was being tortured for a good period of time before the Warrens came in and helped. In the movie, we show my son who got possessed and at some point the demon -- well, I don't know if I can say this. Jeez. But it affects our family and our extended family.

One of the cool things about this project was I was able to talk to -- so, the girl that played my daughter -- the real-life version of her. Her name is Debbie, who actually just passed, and her husband, who Ruairi [O'Connor] plays in the movie. I got the real-life account, which is the first time I've had that opportunity in filming something, to actually talk to the people and hear what they have to say before actually developing the character and all that.

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Considering you haven't really done much in the genre, what was one thing that surprised you about working on a horror film?

You know, horror films are obviously very dark and frightening, and the set isn't necessarily that. We are dealing with very dark material, but yet in between takes, there's a lot of laughing and fun that is being had. One of the cool things that happened was when we were filming in the house, we had a bishop and a few nuns come by and baptize the home. That was cool. And he ended up speaking at the library in town on possession because he had a lot of experience with exorcisms.

So, again, to have more accounts of these things and the reality of them, even looking at the audience I was in that day in the library, like looking at people that were seemingly struggling with this stuff, was eye-opening. So, that was really interesting. I ended up having dinner with the bishop, and one of the nuns was his wife and a couple of the other nuns -- one was a motorcycle rider -- and just hearing their stories. One of them came into it because she was under some sort of oppression/possession and was so relieved through the work of the exorcism that she decided to dedicate her life to it. So, to hear all these stories and the list just goes on. Yeah, it's kind of frightening. I know when I was doing the movie, I was scared of the content [laughs].

Conjuring 3 Lorraine Warren

That's interesting. I know Vera Farmiga had some experiences on The Conjuring 2 with strange phenomena. Did you have any spooky stuff happen?

Yeah, there were a couple of things. When I would read the script in my room at night, sometimes the lights would flicker. Never happened before, you know? [Laughs] It's the same place I always stay. Also, the first week I was being picked up by a car, and the guy inadvertently drove us to a graveyard and was like, "I don't know why Maps brought me here." I'm like, "Yeah, it's because we are working on a film about spirits." Yeah, that was funny [laughs]. It was a fun way to arrive to set.

So, we just didn't know what to expect. I think even the reason I was in that car is I had a car but was there was a problem with the breaks. So, I was just kind of hyper-aware of the little occurrences that were happening that were out of the ordinary. Luckily everybody was safe. Everybody is fine, but the bishop did give us all holy water. I still have it, actually, a little jug of it. He prayed over me. So, I was like, "Okay, cool."

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Do you want to talk about your experience working with Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga?

Yeah, definitely. So, my husband in the movie, the father, is played by Patrick's brother -- his real-life brother -- Paul [Wilson]. It was pretty jovial hanging out with them on set. Vera is fun. She can do characters. It was funny watching her do like voices and random things. She studied the actual [Lorrain Warren], and you can just see how good she is at impersonation and how fun it was to watch that live.

In between, we will be doing a scene where I have to cuddle my son because he's upset, but in between takes, we are just goofing off. It was fun. They were very nice. It felt very welcoming. I mean, everybody on the set. The producers too were really nice to get to know. I had some really good conversations with them.

So, there's a scene -- that I think you see in the trailer, so I can talk about it – where my son, his real name is Julian [Hilliard], is on a waterbed. Watching this scene was really upsetting because -- I'm watching this real mom too because I'm watching and getting upset. He's screaming and crying, and I'm like, "Oh my God." But he was having a blast doing this. He was getting water splashed in his face, and this maternal thing comes out in you where you're like, "I don't know. How do we do this to this child?" But he loved it, so that's the cool thing that kids really have a sense of play. They don't really get all messed up doing it, which I'm really grateful that it was the experience and not a traumatic experience for this kid.

Both The Conjuring 3 and Birds of Prey have well-established, beloved fandoms with DC Comics and The Conjuring Universe. Was it more challenging approaching these roles knowing fans have such high expectations of the films?

I never thought about fans' expectations of the films. It's probably a good thing because, man, that could be a lot of pressure. I know when I was looking at the DC film because there are comic books where you can read backstories for these characters, which was really rich to have to draw from. In that character, too, there are lots of variations of my daughter's backstory, so -- I don't know if you're familiar with them -- but there were some backstories that were more traumatic than others. Yeah, I appreciate that I've been able to be in a couple of films where there are such strong fanbases because that's what makes these things so special. Yeah, comic book and now doing this.

Honestly, I get really scared of horror films. I saw The Conjuring 1 years ago when I was doing an independent film -- they wanted us to watch all these things in the genre -- and I was terrified for a long time. Just remembering like, "Hey, do you want to play hide and clap?" And getting your feet pulled from the bed if you're sleeping in a bed alone like these are things you think about when you're not able to fall asleep [laughs]. You know, movies can be real experiences, so it's cool to be a part of that. But when I watched [The Conjuring 2], I remembered how much the first one stayed with me. And I felt like when I watched The Conjuring 1 that it was the best horror movie I'd ever seen too because it was such a good script. It wasn't campy. It's such a good movie aside from the genre. But I had to watch the second one at first on mute [laughs]. I was like, "I don't know if I can handle having nightmares again."

I actually rewatched the first one last night because I have a link now to see the third one, which I'm going to watch today. I haven't watched it yet. But it's a little bit different than the script -- the initial script-- there were reshoots and some changes, so I'm pretty excited to see what's happening. So, as an actor, to be cast in something you really respect as being really well done in the genre is very exciting.

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Obviously, The Conjuring 3 and Birds of Prey are completely different films, but was there anything you learned on Birds of Prey or any of your other projects that helped you in The Conjuring film?

I always ask myself like, "Why is this role in my life right now?" Sometimes it will just help me get into it deeper and looking for parallels, like if this character has fears that are grandiose or supernatural, but where in my life do I have some of these challenges. That's something I learned along the way. When I'm doing my research, one of the things I do to ground me is, "I'm doing this project right now for a specific reason and what is unique about me that I can bring to it."

Charlene Amoia - Live-Evil

It looks like your not leaving horror completely behind. You're going to be staring in an adaption of R. L. Stine's Fear Street. Can you tell us anything about that upcoming project?

The cool thing about Fear Street is there are three movies, and they're releasing them consecutively one month after another, which I think is really cool. Growing up, I didn't have that. When I was a kid, I was super into the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, so just to be able to have a continuation of the story. In [Fear Street], we are dealing with a different time period in each one. So, I thought that was fun as well. In the first movie, my scene kind of opens the movie. It's similar to Scream, where you see what's going to go wrong. So, thankfully, I didn't have to do anything horrific. I played a pretty pretentious woman that isn't all that likable [laughs].

But R. L. Stine wrote those. Also, I just shot a Disney+ show that was also based on R. L. Stine's comic book called Just Beyond. So, I'm really excited about that as well. It's for kids. It's kind of scary for kids but not really that scary. [Stine] does a really good job with that stuff. I got to play a really comedic, over-the-top, quirky, zany principle, dealing with some kids' bad behavior. It was just kind of a coincidence that I got to do a couple of [Stine's] projects back to back.

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