Kathryn Newton Talks ‘Freaky,’ Her Serial Killer Look, and ‘The Society’ Cancellation

At the age of 23, Kathryn Newton likely wasn’t expecting to be called upon to play a middle-aged serial killer. Then the opportunity to star in Freaky—the new Blumhouse horror-comedy available on premium on-demand as of today—came along. Directed by Christopher Landon and produced by Jason Blum, who Newton previously worked with on 2012’s Paranormal Activity 4, this horror-comedy is a slasher twist on Freaky Friday: Millie (Newton) is a timid high school student who accidentally swaps bodies with the town serial killer, the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn). The real Millie (now played by Vaughn) has to convince her friends to help her stab the real butcher (now played by Newton) with a magic dagger in the next 24 hours in order to reverse the swap.

It’s very much in the spirit of Landon’s popular Happy Death Day films, and based on critical and fan reactions so far, Freaky is on its way to becoming another hit. That’s in no small part thanks to Newton, who flips between a charming, awkward teenager to a psychotic, ferocious murder at the drop of the hat. Newton chatted with Decider about working with Vaughn, finding her empowering serial killer look, processing Netflix’s cancellation of her show The Society, and more.

Decider: I saw in a different interview with you that you had originally passed on Freaky when it first came to you from Jason Blum and Christopher Landon. What happened there?

Kathryn Newton: Jason Blum just told the funniest story I had ever heard in my life in that interview. I was completely not ready for it. He tells the story way better. The long story is too long for this interview. But the short story is that I walked into that office knowing I was going to walk out doing Freaky, and that’s exactly what happened. [Laughs.] From the very beginning, I always wanted to be a part of this movie, and I wanted to work with Jason Blum again and Chris Landon again. The script was incredible. From the very start, I thought it was so fresh. You saw the movie—it kind of destroyed all the tropes that you’ve seen in other high school movies, other horror films. But we also play homage to them too. It was just a perfect movie. Then they attached Vince Vaughn, and I was like, this just went to another level, another caliber. He’s an amazing actor. I was just so lucky that they thought of me from the beginning, and it really turned into something that I’m proud of.

What was it that happened in that meeting?

Jason Blum is a really funny person, and it’s just funny that my agent was on the phone. He called him in the middle of the meeting and he was screaming, “She’s not going to do the movie.” And he was like, “She’s doing the movie.” And of course, I did the movie. Of course, I did. [Laughs.]

What did you find most challenging about playing two characters in one movie?

The biggest challenge was maybe when I had to be bloody, and then I had to go clean up and be Millie with pretty curly hair. That was kind of difficult, just the continuity. But Chris Landon is a genius. He knew exactly what he was doing every step of the way. For me as an actor, it was really easy to jump back and forth between The Butcher and Millie because he was so grounded in the story he was telling. On a movie like this, there’s a lot of chaos. There’s a lot of blood. It’s very fun, but you need someone like Chris Landon to help it stay grounded. He was so invested, and he gave so much love to this character Millie. He has his own personal backstory that is just like Millie’s, in a way. I really thought that all of us came with that heart. And that’s what made it so good.

Did Vince Vaughn have any advice for you on playing a middle-aged man? 

Well, Vince had so many great ideas. It was really collaborative. I got a lot of inspiration from him. It wasn’t tips, necessarily. The first time we met—which you probably know, because I’ve said it—was in a dance rehearsal. But why that was so important is because we were immediately looking at each other, and immediately blown away by how much we were both invested in making this movie great. Because we were clearly down to make a fool of ourselves. Then, for the next couple days after that, the next week or so, or two weeks I feel like, we had lots of rehearsals with Chris Landon where the three of us would sit in a room and talk about who these people were. And together, the three of us created two people.

I always thought I was going to have to imitate Vince Vaughn and copy him, but it wasn’t that at all. It was definitely creating a character, The Butcher. We talked about his backstory and what he might be like. Then that created a physicality. That grounded us so we were able to go back and forth quickly. We both put in all of our ideas, and from that point on we were able to just go for it on set. The best thing was being able to ask Vince questions, though, if he was in the scene as Millie and I had to be The Butcher. I would ask him, I’d be like, “Do you think I would walk like this? What do you think I would do here to make this more—do something special?” Those kinds of things, you’re usually on that journey by yourself, or you can ask your director. But it’s really cool to be able to talk to an actor. He was on the same wave as me.

What did you feel like the big contributions you put in towards creating the character of Millie or The Butcher?

I really connected to Millie. I’m way more Millie in my real life than The Butcher, obviously. For me, I feel like the story’s about a girl who doesn’t believe in herself. It doesn’t matter what she looks like. It doesn’t matter what other people tell her about herself. It’s very much how I was: you don’t realize your greatness. Everybody has something special inside when they’re growing up, but maybe you’re bullied for it. Maybe you have really curly hair, and you’re made fun of about it in eighth grade. Then you grow up, and it’s like everyone wants your hair. It’s that simple thing that everyone can kind of relate to, and I think the movie’s about being your own hero in life. It’s like a coming-of-age story: she becomes who she really is, and it just takes becoming a serial killer to figure that out. She always looked down on herself, which we all do. So I was very excited to tell a story that I felt like I could relate to, and that if I was in high school or any age, you can see yourself in it. I brought a lot of myself to it, and I just tried to keep it real and honest. I hope that that resonates with people.

Were you at all involved in creating your serial killer look? That red leather jacket—iconic, instantly.

You never know, right? We all wanted it to be iconic because we wanted to stick out. For Millie, it was easy. I was like, “She’s going to be a grandma. I want her to wear her grandma’s sweater. I want it to feel like she’s wearing hand-me-downs.” That’s a lot like me. But with The Butcher, we were like, “What would a guy wear?” It was scripted that it was probably lace and a lingerie slip dress and heels. When I got there and we started doing rehearsals, Chris and I were like, “There’s no way that a dude would put on heels. At all.” We put on the corsets, I tried on all of the sexy stuff. We were like, “Nope. This isn’t right. The Butcher wouldn’t do that.” So I was like, “Well, what would a dude wear? Something simple.”

The leather jacket came at the very last minute. Our costume designer, Whitney Anne Adams—so, so special. I tried on a thousand black leather jackets. Every kind of style, pleather, leather. Even denim, I think, black denim. The jeans were really important. I didn’t want to wear skinny jeans. Because, I don’t know, I just was like, “No skinny jeans.” Then we had this one red leather jacket—just one. I was like, “Well, this is pretty great.” Everyone was like, “This is the one.” Because when you watch the movie too, the colors of the film, they’re so bright. I think it was just a really nice composition as well. For me, I’m a fan, I like to cosplay, I get inspired by what I see in movies. I was hoping that if someone ever wanted to be The Butcher for Halloween, that it was an easy costume to get inspired by. And then of course, who doesn’t want to wear red lipstick?

What was your last cosplay?

Sailor Moon. Killing it as the Sailor Moon cosplay. That’s my favorite. [Laughs.]

It’s interesting to hear that you guys didn’t go the super sexual corset route—that’s often what you expect, from horror-comedies like this. It was refreshing that everyone still acknowledged your character looked powerful and awesome without that.

I think that goes back to what I was saying about it doesn’t matter what you look like. Even when I wore the clothes as The Butcher, I didn’t feel like it was a sexy outfit at all. It was just jeans and a jacket. But it’s how Millie carries herself as The Butcher that I think stuns her. It’s the confidence that she didn’t know she was capable of having. You don’t even know how strong you are until you try. I think it’s kind of that more so. I think it was written that way because that’s what we were all thinking would happen, but it always changes on the day. That’s the fun thing about making a movie, is even as an actor, I can rehearse a scene a million times in my room by myself. Then I get there on the day and I’m in the scene with Vince Vaughn, and you know it’s going to be different. That’s the magic of having creatives on set and behind the camera. That’s how it comes together. It’s really not one person who makes a decision like that. I wouldn’t have picked a red leather jacket, you know? I don’t know what I would have done without everyone’s input. But together, I think that we got something really special.

Jason Blum has mentioned that he would like to make a sequel. Have you guys discussed plans for Freaky 2? What might that look like?

I mean, you never want to talk about that until the movie’s out. [Laughs]. You never want to jinx it. But with horror films, it’s always nice to do a sequel. I like franchises, personally. I was in Paranormal Activity 4, but I had gone to those every year at midnight with my friends. And I love doing that. As an audience member, I think it’s just something to fall in love with and keep going back to. Kind of just like home. If this movie does well—which, I hope it does—then maybe they’ll explore it. But I think that they have been talking about it, and they have some really great ideas for a sequel. Which, obviously, would be insane. It’s just an honor to hear people talk about that. That’s really cool. You never know. When we did this movie, no one knew that it was going to be good. Just to hear people’s responses to it already, it really means a lot.

Any ideas of those ideas that you can share with us?

I don’t think so. Not if I don’t want to get a call from Jason Blum and him be like, “You’re not going to be in the next film now.” [Laughs.]

Netflix canceled your show, The Society, rather abruptly. How are you feeling about that, now that you’ve had a few months to process the news?

[Sighs]. Oh my gosh. It’s so funny, Alex Fitzalan just messaged the group chat yesterday. Someone requested a Venmo for $5 and it said, “I want $5 for the time I wasted watching The Society, because I don’t get a Season 2.” We were just dying, it was so funny. I don’t know who that was, but I told Alex, “You better give him the $5.” We’re really sad still. The whole cast, we would be filming right now. It’s amazing to see everyone doing well, though. Toby Wallace just won Best Actor at the Australian Awards for his movie Babyteeth. Gideon Adlon has her Blumhouse movie The Craft out right now. I hope that we’re all 50, and we get together and have our Friendsgiving together again. Or just work together on something. The fandom that this family that we’ve created will last forever. I’m so grateful to have that. While I’m sad that I don’t get to find out how Allie gets her power back—because you know she’s the queen, and she would’ve been the queen again—I’m grateful that I had that experience. When [the cancellation] happened to me, I just sat down and I was like, “Well, okay. This is just what it is right now. I’m just going to have to say thank you and be open to something new.” Because it was really sad when that happened. We’re all sad, but what are you gonna do? You’ve got to hope for something better.

Did you guys have a Friendsgiving?

Yeah. When we were filming, I had a big farmhouse in Boston. It was unbelievable, I lived on this amazing farm. We had lots of dinners—we would make pasta from the tomatoes from the farm and all of this really fun stuff. We had one Thanksgiving that was incredible, and that was just so special. I’ve never done that before. I’m always having Thanksgiving with my family and stuff, but I think we didn’t have a long break, so we just all came to my house. Everyone lived in Australia, so nobody was going home for the holidays. We all just came to my house and sang songs around the table. Literally danced around the table. Just hung out. That’s what’s so special about making a project on location, too. You get so close. Like on Freaky, we all went to go see Post Malone. I took the cast to go see Post Malone the first week of filming as a bonding experience, really just a great time. That doesn’t always happen on projects. The Society, it was also our age. We’re all in our 20s, so it was like, we’re all just figuring it out. We don’t know anything yet. It was a great learning experience. I think I have friends for life, I really do.

Last question since I’m being told we’re out of time:  We’ve heard rumors that there might be a Detective Pikachu sequel coming—any news on that front?

Yeah! I know, I’ve heard rumors too. I saw that announcement. I think that it’s kind of like the same thing as Freaky. You never want to talk about sequels, because you never know. But I think that they were working on one. So I’m just hoping that they do it, because I want to go back to Ryme City, and be with my sidekick Psyduck again. I wonder how he’s doing, you know? What’s it like in Ryme City with COVID? I hope they’re okay.

Where to watch Freaky