SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers about the ending of Smile 2. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!
Skye Riley, the haunted main character of Smile 2, was an extremely demanding role for actor Naomi Scott. Playing the protagonist in a horror film in general requires a lot of emotional energy and adrenaline, but Skye being a pop superstar meant that the performance also included all the stresses of singing and dance choreography (not to mention all of the water chugging!). Overall, it was not an easy movie to make – but for Scott, it’s the big climactic scene where Skye has a terrifying showdown with a demonic version of herself that stands out in her memory as the greatest challenge of the production.
As captured in the video above, I had the pleasure of interviewing Naomi Scott earlier this month at the Los Angeles press day for Smile 2, and I took the opportunity at the end of our conversation to do a dip into spoiler territory. I’m always fascinated about the filming process for scenes where actors have to play opposite themselves, and for Scott, her experience making the new horror movie was an extreme one. She told me,
I think that was the most difficult four days. And I don't know if it's because you are in a small space and there was kind of – at some parts there was smoke, at some parts there were... it was just, I think that was the hardest four days of my career. But again, also because of the switching between and how we had to do that very quickly, and it was just a lot.
In the Smile 2 scene in question, Skye Riley makes a desperate attempt at ridding herself of her curse by traveling to Staten Island and meeting up with an ER nurse named Morris (Peter Jacobson). She is taken to a freezer in a former Pizza Hut, strapped to a table, and given a drug that is intended to temporarily kill her – but in the middle of the process, she looks to the ceiling and sees herself hanging down with a seatbelt suspending her (mirroring her condition following her near-fatal car accident). The Demon Skye drops down and in a face-to-face confrontation with the pop star, it explains that she is in no way in control of her own mind anymore.
The sequence was apparently shot during reshoots, and it was both physically and emotionally intense for Naomi Scott. In addition to having her abdominal muscles get a workout as she hung from the ceiling, she also requested permission from writer/director Parker Finn to go all-out in her performance as Demon Skye. She continued,
There were moments, I won't spoil anything, but there were moments that require, and you'll know what I mean, a lot of core stability in terms of just some upside-downness going on. But that was during a reshoot, and when it came to playing a certain part of Skye's self, I didn't have an idea of what it [was], and I looked at Parker and I went – because it wasn't like when we were shooting – and I went, 'Should I just go for it and just really lean in?' And he was like, 'Yeah, why not?' I kind of did, and afterwards I said to him, 'I don't know!' I really kind of threw some shit at the wall there. But hopefully it works!
While I can’t speak for everybody, that particular sequence pushed me into the back of my seat watching Smile 2, and weeks later, I’m still in awe of its intensity. It most certainly does work.
If you’re still trying to figure out what to do with yourself to properly celebrate Halloween 2024, Smile 2 is now playing in theaters, and even if you have already seen the critically acclaimed horror sequel, you may want to head back to your local cinema for a rewatch, as Parker Finn has promised that there are things you missed the first time around.
