Leading up to the release of the fantasy thriller The Watchers, Dorkaholics was invited to speak with Georgina Campbell (Barbarian, Bird Box Barcelona, Krypton) about her role as Ciara in the film.
Neil Bui: Tell us about your character Ciara and what drew you to Ciara.
Georgina Campbell: The whole script I really loved. And then Ciara was just a character I haven’t really had the chance to play. She felt very fragile, and I felt like she was quite traditional and from a different time in her ideas of what a woman is and what a man is, and very reliant on her husband. And I just haven’t been able to play a character like that. And so it was really fun to be more vulnerable and I didn’t even have to do any stunts or anything. She can’t do anything, that’s exciting. She just runs. I really enjoyed playing her.
Neil Bui: There’s parts of the movie where she has to dance for the watchers, and as she’s starting I’m like ‘oh is she going to like really break out into a great routine?’
Georgina Campbell: Yeah, no she doesn’t. That was a really interesting part because it was written in the script that she’s meant to do ballet and I can’t dance. But Ishana was like ‘okay, go and do this ballet class with this woman who came in.’ We didn’t have long to practice this dance and we started doing the ballet and she was like ‘okay, all right, let’s just strip everything back.’ So then it kind of became this amalgamation of her giving me ballet moves, me kind of making up what I can. And then in the end I think it works because it’s kind of creepy and like she doesn’t know how to dance and there’s like a great kind of reaction I think from Dakota’s character that’s like what is happening here, like all these people have lost their minds. So I feel like her is not being good at dancing works.
Neil Bui: Definitely, the unsettling part. At first I was like ‘oh wait, what is the twist in this movie?’
Georgina Campbell: The twist is Ciara’s a bad dancer.
Neil Bui: You mentioned Ishana, what is it like working with her on her directorial debut?
Georgina Campbell: It was really exciting, it’s always nice working with first time directors because they’re so passionate and it’s their first film so it’s their baby. They’ve usually been spending a lot of time before thinking about it, planning it. And she came in with so much energy. She knew exactly what she was doing. She was very visually interesting. She was shooting it in a way that I haven’t shot many films before. So it was very exciting and she also has a great love of theater. So a lot of the scenes really played out like a scene in a play, like without much kind of cutting into it and things like that, which was lovely.Â
Catch The Watchers in theaters starting June 7, 2024.
