This article contains spoilers from Weapons.
Aside from stars like Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, and Benedict Wong, there’s one name on the Weapons cast list that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Although she’s been purposefully kept out of the conversation so far, Amy Madigan is the secret weapon of Weapons, the new horror movie from Barbarian writer/director Zach Cregger. However, merely mentioning her presence feels like some kind of security breach.
The actress, 74, attended the Weapons premiere at the United Theater in Los Angeles at the end of July, but she skipped all red-carpet interviews. She also politely turned down any kind of pre-release interview request from press outlets, including Entertainment Weekly. It seems related to a concerted effort to preserve the movie’s secrets for theaters.
The opening sequence gives us the premise: a child narrator explains how one morning, on a seemingly random Wednesday, 17 out of 18 children in Ms. Gandy’s (Garner) Maybrook Elementary School classroom woke up in the middle of the night at exactly 2:17 a.m. and ran out of their homes, never to return. The only one who didn’t vanish was the young Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher), and the reasons continue to confound everyone in town.
Jay Clendenin / Shutterstock for Warner Bros.
Amy Madigan at the L.A. premiere of ‘Weapons’
All the twists and turns lead us to Madigan, whom Cregger cast on the spot at their first meeting.
“It’s such a narrow bullseye, right? You need somebody who is naturally sparky and hilarious and also ruthless and laser focused and intimidating,” the filmmaker tells EW in a non-spoiler-focused interview ahead of the movie’s release. “And Amy can do anything. She has that Chicago Midwestern spark that just oozes off of her in a wonderful way, but at her core, there’s something reptilian that she can access.”
Recalling their meeting over lunch, he says, “When I was driving to lunch, I was like, Don’t offer her the role. No matter what you do, don’t offer her the role at lunch. Between the breadsticks and the main meal, I was like, ‘This part is yours. You can have it!’ I just could tell, I could just smell it on her that this was the right way to go.”
(If by some chance you made it all the way to this portion of the story without seeing the above spoiler warnings, now’s your last chance.)
Warner Bros/Youtube
A screenshot of Amy Madigan’s Gladys in the trailer for ‘Weapons’
Madigan, who previously dabbled in horror with Antlers and The Dark Half, plays Gladys, Alex’s supposed great-aunt on his mother’s side, who comes to live with the Lillys when she gets sick. By the very next day, she’s taken over the entire family.
It’s never so explicitly explained, but Aunt Gladys, with her smeared lipstick and wild red-haired wig, uses some kind of voodoo-like Satanic ritual to control the actions of anyone she pleases, as long as she has some kind of personal item of theirs. The ritual leaves the victims in a comatose, puppet-like state, responding immediately to her every command. It also seems to revitalize her health, as if she’s syphoning off their life force.
When she’s done with Alex’s parents, she pressures the young boy to find her new victims to maintain her health. So he turns to his classmates. He steals items from their cubbies at school and gives them to Gladys to bewitch. She works her evil magic to summon them from their slumber, compelling them to leave their houses and run into their basement.
Brolin and Ehrenreich tell EW how they both knew Madigan ahead of this movie; the former outside of work and the latter from the movie Rules Don’t Apply (2016). Seeing her around set was “absolutely freaking me out,” says Brolin, who plays Archer Graff, a father of one of the missing Maybrook children.
Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.
Julia Garner’s Justine Gandy and Josh Brolin’s Archer Graff in ‘Weapons’
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“First of all, she’s the sweetest woman, but it was terrifying seeing her getting out of the makeup trailer, getting a coffee or something, and going to crafty [craft services],” Garner recalls. “She’s just so lovely and she’s so brilliant in this.”
Abrams, who plays James, a homeless Maybrook drug addict, agrees, “The makeup is just really frightening.”
“I remember being on set when I wasn’t working and watching her film a scene at a dinner table with Cary, who plays the young boy, and just being like, ‘Oh my God! I’m really thankful that I get to watch this performance right now,'” Abrams adds. “This woman is just amazing.”
Weapons is now playing in theaters.
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