Carrie Preston was more than nervous to take on the role of a villainous counselor at a gay conversion camp in the horror film “They/Them.”
“I was terrified,” she told Page Six in a recent interview. “I thought, ‘oh my goodness, I cannot say these things. These are horrible things to say.’
“But then I thought, ‘Hey listen, this is what the film’s about. It’s about the horrors of this thing that this woman is doing.’ So the film doesn’t really work if you don’t have that, so I was very happy to be invested in it.”
The slasher film —which also stars Kevin Bacon as Preston’s husband, Anna Chlumsky and Theo Germaine — follows a group of LGBTQIA+ teens at a conversion camp who must fend themselves from a mysterious killer.
“I usually don’t get to play the bad guy,” the actress, 55, explained. “I usually play the quirky character or the sweet character, that kind of thing. So, I always like an opportunity to do something different, something that stretches me.”
The “Claws” star describes the film as an “LGBTQIA+ empowerment horror film.”
She continued, “It uses the horror genre to shed a light on the real-life horrors of gay conversion, which sadly still goes on in this country in terrifying numbers. So it captures that but it’s also just a really fun, slasher film.”
Preston is also playing Kevin Bacon’s wife in “Space Oddity” which just so happens to be directed by Bacon’s wife in real life, Kyra Sedgwick. She jokes that Sedgwick nor her husband, “Lost” actor Michael Emerson, have anything to worry about.
“They do not,” she said with a laugh. “Michael and I are really tight, we’re totally in love. Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick act like newlyweds. I think we’re good.”
Preston and Emerson have been married since 1998, while Bacon and Sedgwick have been going strong since 1988.
And if that’s not enough, Preston has also just finished directing an episode of “The Good Fight” in which she plays the recurring character, Elsbeth Tascioni.
“I have so many people come up and say, ‘(Elsbeth) You’re me,’ or ‘You’re my sister’ or ‘You’re my mom.’ Whatever it is. Somehow that character has struck a nerve and I certainly love playing her,” she told us.
“They/Them” will premiere on Aug. 5 on Peacock.
Share this article:
Source: Read Full Article
