Just when you thought there couldn’t possibly be another installment in the Alien franchise, “20th Century Studios” goes and releases Alien: Romulus. In fact, it was among the only “blockbusters” of Summer 2024 apart from Twisters and Deadpool & Wolverine (and no, Alien: Romulus still couldn’t even manage to topple the latter movie from its number one spot at the box office—such is the power of Marvel). So, in some sense, Earth was “clamoring” for a movie of this nature…being that Hollywood refuses to make anything new when it comes big-budget fare. Though they were at least “adventurous” enough to tap Fede Álvarez (known for another “quiet” movie: Don’t Breathe) as the director and Cailee Spaeny as the lead, Rain Carradine. The “Ellen Ripley replacement,” if you will.
Unlike Sigourney Weaver stepping right into Ripley’s shoes after a bit part in Annie Hall and the lesser known Madman, Spaeny actually had a few films under her belt before taking on such a weighty role—having already done so with the back-to-back release of Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla and Alex Garland’s Civil War. And yes, she’s been in a blockbuster before, even if it was one that landed with a thud: Pacific Rim Uprising. Later, she took a wrong turn with The Craft: Legacy in 2020 before correcting things with How It Ends the following year. In short, Spaeny has run the gamut of roles before Rain in Alien: Romulus. Which takes place two decades after the destruction the USCSS Nostromo that audiences witnessed in 1979’s Alien. The alpha and the omega of Alien movies. Which is, in part, why Álvarez is so committed to paying homage to it—in addition to remaking Ripley through Rain (another “R” name—and one that Ross Geller famously mocked when Rachel Green suggested it for their baby, replying to her with his imitation of a person with such a name: “Hi my name is Rain. I have my own kiln and my dress is made out of wheat”). Of course, everybody knows that no one can (or will) ever hold a candle to what Weaver did for the part of “leading lady” in Alien, and yet, they can try to present a new-fangled “badass” version of her. Only Rain doesn’t quite come across that way, instead exhibiting the sort of vulnerability and reluctance specific to the current generation. A generation that could never convincingly say, as Ripley does in Aliens, “I can handle myself.”
Rain’s intrinsic fear of, well, everything is revealed from the outset, when her ex-boyfriend, Tyler (Archie Renaux), has to vehemently convince her to join him and the “crew” he’s assembled to enter an abandoned ship with cryostasis chambers that will allow them to defect from the godforsaken planet they’re stuck working on in favor of Yvaga—a planet where the sun actually shines (side note: the planet they’re on has plenty of dystopian Blade Runner flair). The crew consists of Tyler’s sister, Kay (Isabel Merced), his cousin, Bjorn (Spike Fearn) and Bjorn’s adopted sister, Navarro (Aileen Wu). Of course, it isn’t that they really need Rain to come along, so much as her adopted brother, Andy (David Jonsson)—who just so happens to be an android old enough to know how to interface with an abandoned spacecraft that’s of “Andy’s generation.” Or close enough for him to understand it.
Still, Tyler does a good job of sweet-talking her into getting some balls by reminding her that Weyland-Yutani is never going to let her leave no matter how much she works, having just fulfilled her contract only to be told that she’s being sent to the mines now (essentially a death warrant), informed she must remain on the planet to work for another “five to six years” before she can again be given the consideration to leave due to a shortage of workers. Thus, as usual, this installment of Alien continues to serve as an undercutting commentary about the callous exploitation of the working class by their oppressive employers. And while Rain might be “Gen Z enough” to lack the same amount of grit as Ripley in the face of adversity, she’s not Gen Z enough to demand a “flexible work schedule” and a “work-life balance” if she’s to be expected to continue working for Weyland-Yutani.
After all, one of Alien: Romulus’ key goals appears to be to maintain as much of the status quo as it can from the previous films, including pronounced “homages” (even to the less beloved Alien Resurrection, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant). Obviously favoring Ridley Scott’s Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens, what with everyone still thrusting so much undue hate upon David Fincher’s Alien 3—even though it yielded one of the most iconic images from the franchise: a xenomorph up close and personal with Ripley, who turns her face away from its dripping, drooling open maw. In fact, that’s the image Álvarez borrows from for his “nod” to Alien 3—even though, in this case, it doesn’t really work because Rain isn’t pregnant with an alien queen and, thus, there’s no way the alien would take its sweet time about appraising her instead of just snapping her up in its jaws.
Elsewhere, some of the exact same lines from previous Alien movies are used as “callbacks” designed to provide “fan service,” though it often feels a bit too heavy-handed. Take, for example, Rook: the same (or a similar) model as Ash (Ian Holm, regenerated from beyond the grave) saying, “I can’t lie to you about your chances, but you have my sympathies.” Or Andy echoing Bishop’s (Lance Henriksen) aphorism, “I prefer the term artificial person myself.”
Indeed, Andy gets far more venomous discrimination for being a “synthetic” than Bishop ever did—mainly from Bjorn, whose prejudice stems from an android not saving his mother from death in the mines, instructed to help twelve other miners instead by its supervisor, sacrificing the lives of two for the greater good of the dozen. It hardly makes Bjorn’s level of contempt justifiable, with the supervisor being the one to place his rage toward, if anyone.
And, speaking of rage, the perfect opportunity for it to arise (though it never quite does) within Rain comes after another cheesy callback to Aliens, when Tyler teaches her how to use a prototype of the M41A Pulse Rifle the same way Corporal Hicks (Michael Biehn) taught Ripley to use an actual M41A Pulse Rifle. The latter reacts with far more titillation and gusto to learning than Rain, who still comes off as an overly cautious, scared little girl about the whole thing. In part, that “little girl” vibe compared to Ripley is likely because Spaeny is twenty-six to Weaver’s thirty-seven (when filming the indelible gun scenes for 1986’s Aliens). Granted, Weaver wasn’t much older than Spaeny in Alien, filming it when she was twenty-nine. Even so, she looks older in her twenties than Spaeny does in hers—in that way that all people who were in their twenties “back then” look older than people do now (chalk it up to “healthier lifestyles.” Though mental health has ostensibly been sacrificed as a trade for physical health…).
What’s more, because of the generational divide between the first two Alien movies and the present Alien: Romulus, it’s inherent that Weaver, a product of the time when the films were made (no matter how far into the future it was intended to be), would come across as, let’s say, more tenacious and less fazed by the proverbial horrors—including the ones specific to a human-killing race of aliens. Her coolness under pressure intermingled with unflinching badassery that also exudes an impenetrable “don’t fuck with me” air is something that no Gen Zer (whether on the “geriatric” side of that age group or not) ever stood a chance at emulating, let alone recreating.
Which is why, ultimately, the hardness of Ripley (even in name alone) can’t be usurped by Rain, a moniker that radiates the kind of hippie-dippy aura the aforementioned Ross Geller was talking about. Some might argue that this is a good thing, that it’s long been time for a heroine with “softness” and delicacy anyway. That women don’t always need to imitate the roughness of men in order for their strength to be taken seriously. Sure, that might be true—but it’s not true for an Alien movie.
The Xenomorph in Alien: Romulus.Courtesy of 20th Century Studios
Like the Terminator, Alien is a franchise in which no new installment stands a chance of being the best. The fight here is for third place, behind Ridley Scott’s chilling original and James Cameron’s action-packed sequel. Most of the subsequent efforts have catered to different tastes, leaning more towards cerebral science fiction (Prometheus), bleak character drama (Alien3), or goofy action schlock (Alien vs. Predator). With his first swing at the franchise, Alien: Romulus, director Fede Álvarez makes the daring choice to aim at the dead tonal center between Scott and Cameron’s twin masterpieces. The result is an adrenaline-fueled slasher movie in space that sacrifices the subtlety and creeping dread of the original for more shock, gore and thrilling, fist-pumping violence. It’s a shallower product than either of its inspirations, but it also has its own, distinct energy. It doesn’t totally jettison the franchise’s 45 years of baggage, but when it does, what’s left is a damn good monster movie.
ALIEN: ROMULUS ★★★(3/4 stars) Directed by:Fede Álvarez Written by: Fede Álvarez, Rodo Sayagues Starring: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Aileen Wu Running time: 119 mins.
The setup for Romulus is reminiscent of Álvarez’s own calling card film, 2016’s Don’t Breathe. A group of twentysomethings born into poverty on a corporate-owned mining planet seize on an opportunity to escape their miserable lot. It should be a simple heist—slip aboard a derelict spacecraft, steal the equipment they need to journey to a nicer planet, get out before it crashes. But the vessel isn’t as empty as they’d presumed. There are terrifying monsters onboard intent on either gutting or impregnating them. Will any of these young hard cases live to see their better tomorrow?
Leading this ensemble is Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine, the heist’s most reluctant participant and our obvious Final Girl. Spaeny gives a reliably solid performance, but the real star of the show is David Jonsson as Andy, a glitchy android who she sees as a brother. Andy was programmed to protect her when she was growing up, but now she’s become his caretaker. Their relationship is both charming and discomfiting. Andy adores Rain, but he’s programmed to. He’ll do what’s best for her at every turn, with a smile on his face, but is he also being exploited? It’s an interesting new wrinkle to the Alien franchise’s meditation on artificial intelligence, which has been depicted as either sinister or benign. As Andy, David Jonsson gets to play a little bit of both. The emotional core of Romulus is the way Rain and Andy are each transformed by their nightmare in space, and how it forces them to reevaluate each other.
Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson in Alien: Romulus.Murray Close/Courtesy of 20th Century Studios
This isn’t to say that Alien: Romulus is a predominantly cerebral or even emotional experience. Far from it. After roughly 40 minutes of establishing the characters and setting up potential future calamities, Romulus becomes an unrelenting thrill ride that fulfills every last one of its wicked promises.
Romulus leans harder into being a monster movie than any of its predecessors, and Álvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues seem committed to using the entire monster. Too many Alien sequels speed through the most viscerally terrifying part of the xenomorph’s bizarre life cycle, the “facehugger” stage represented by a skittering arachnid that latches to a victim’s head, forces its ovipositor down their throats, and implants them with their ultra-violent offspring. Romulus, by contrast, gives these little bastards nearly half the movie, allowing them their own chase and stalking scenes. As in Don’t Breathe, Romulus doesn’t move on to its next threat or premise until the last one is completely exhausted.
Cailee Spaeny in Alien: Romulus.Courtesy of 20th Century Studios
Álvarez shows admirable restraint in the introduction of the more famous eight-foot-tall adult xenomorph, treating it as an obscure new threat rather than an iconic character whose action figure stood on your cousin’s windowsill. There is a (hopefully, justified) assumption that this will be many viewers’ first Alien movie, and the effort to wring maximum suspense from the premise is valuable even to a longtime fan. The film does eventually make the typical third-act shift from horror to action, but until then, “scary” is prioritized over “cool.”
Nevertheless. Romulus still indulges in some of the worst impulses of the “requel” or “legacy sequel.” An original Alien cast member is digitally resurrected for a small role, and they look absolutely awful. This is the first new Alien film under Disney’s ownership of the franchise, and it seems as if they simply cannot resist employing this technology at every opportunity, regardless of whether or not it adds any value to the story. There are a few other cringy, incongruous nods to the franchise’s legacy that distract from what is otherwise a fully satisfying and self-contained space slasher.
The past decade has convinced audiences to expect less from Hollywood blockbusters, not just in terms of quality, but from how much of a story is told in each movie. At multiple junctures, Alien: Romulus teases a development that seems like a hook for a sequel or spin-off, but Álvarez doesn’t wait until the inevitable next Alien to play all of his cards. Romulus leaves nothing on the table. It is, for a change, an entire damn movie.
Could this be a portent of the franchise’s future? Might the xenomorph—the perfect movie monster—become less like Michael Myers and more like a zombie or vampire, a terror that can be used to tell a variety of horror stories rather than as a foil to a handful of protagonists or as installments in a dense mythology? This possibility is as exciting as the film itself.
It’s the middle of May 2024 and that means we’re nearly halfway through the year. What has this year been like in video game news? Tons of layoffs (sad), lots of new games (glad), and some weird outliers, as usual. This week, we saw set photos and official shots from The Last of Us season two, dove back into the GameStop stock market, and asked the dude who nuked Phil Spencer in Fallout 76 about his motivations. Click through for all of this week’s best breaking news.
Like any superhero movie pushing women as its leads, Madame Web suffered a backlash that was almost strangely proportionate to Morbius—which was actually far worse. The Marvels, too, was panned, along with She-Hulk, in a pattern that suggests when women do “badly,” male fanboys are ready to pounce in such a way so as to ensure that studios are amply aware of it. And oh, how Sony became aware of it, scrapping any future plans to build a franchise out of Madame Web once the box office receipts were in. But what’s most unforgivable about Madame Web isn’t its plotline or even its more than occasionally cheesy dialogue (often rampant with use of ADR). No, instead, it’s certain musical details in particular that will gnaw at anyone versed in both their 00s and Britney history.
First in line on the offending front is the fact that “Toxic,” a single released in January of 2004 is being played when we’re still supposed to be in 2003. And it’s not even like it’s the winter of 2003, well after Spears’ fourth album, In the Zone, was released in mid-November. This can be gleaned by the fact that Cassandra (a rather too on-the-nose name choice for someone who can see into the future) Webb, played by Dakota Johnson, attends a barbeque in some fairly late summer-y clothing (being a Jessica Jones type thanks to S. J. Clarkson’s work in that universe, she’s bound to wear a jacket during any season). In truth, the entire cast dresses in a late summer/early fall manner, so it’s safe to say this is well before “Toxic” or even In the Zone could have conceivably been released.
Another giveaway that we’re still in summer of ’03 territory is the set design of a particular scene that chooses to very deliberately spotlight a looming poster of Beyoncé’s debut album, Dangerously in Love, which only would have been that loud and proud in June of ‘03 (what with New York constantly turning over its ad space), many months before In the Zone came out, not to mention “Toxic” itself, which wouldn’t be released to radio as a single until January of ‘04. Maybe December, if someone wants to truly believe in how “ahead of the curve” New York is. But since we’re clearly somewhere in the summer of ‘03, this little detail just doesn’t quite jive (to use a word that Britney’s erstwhile record label named itself after). This seems to be happening with, dare one say, slight regularity as the 00s slip evermore into the “period piece” category. Saltburn, too, was guilty of such inattention to detail about 2007 in particular, yet it was perhaps more easily forgiven because it ended up being so beloved (in no small part thanks to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dance Floor”).
As for Madame Web being oddly specific about wanting to set its stage in 2003 (and in case one isn’t immediately sure it’s 2003 based on the quickly-flashed title card, Cassie is shown driving past a Blockbuster in her ambulance), director and co-writer S. J. Clarkson’s reasoning could be twofold: 1) she wanted to start the movie during a flashback to 1973 and then only flashforward thirty years to reveal present-day Cassandra and 2) 2003 is sort of that “sweet spot,” technology-wise. A time when things were advanced enough with phones and computers (hell, Britney was already singing love songs centered on e-mails in 1998, when “E-Mail My Heart” was recorded), but not so advanced that your every move could be tracked, and your face instantly recognized on any CCTV camera.
This, obviously, is why the extremely lame villain of the narrative, Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), is obsessed with some “cutting-edge” technology that only the NSA (on especially high alert at that time in the wake of 9/11) has access to. Enough to seduce one of its agents and steal her top-secret access to this “special tech” that would become garden-variety in most people’s phones after 2007. Alas, since we’re still in the “early days” of facial recognition, Ezekiel is sure to include (quite expositorily) in his pillow talk, “But as the years pass, there have been technological advances. New ways to find people if you know their faces [which he does because he has nightly visions of the three Spider-Women who will kill him]. The kind of technology I’ve heard the National Security Agency has been pursuing.”
Once he gets the woman’s security access after poisoning her, he passes the technology off to his “employee,” Amaria (Zosia Mamet, seeming to enjoy roles where she works for dubious people if The Flight Attendant is another indication), who hacks into “the system” to wait for a hit on one or all of these faces: Mattie (Celeste O’Connor), Anya (Isabela Merced) and Julia (Sydney Sweeney). With regard to Sweeney once again going the Euphoria route by playing a teen girl, it bears noting that, at twenty-six, she isn’t all that much younger than “thirty-year-old” Cassandra (Johnson’s actual age is thirty-four). Meanwhile, O’Connor is twenty-five and Merced is twenty-two. Yet it’s Sweeney who the costume designers seem to go out of their way to dress in some interpretation of an 00s teen girl. This tends to mean a lot of Britney looks, including overalls at one point and then, for the majority of the movie, Sweeney’s own riff on a “…Baby One More Time” schoolgirl outfit.
Relying on Cassie and her premonitions after they’re attacked on the train by Ezekiel, the man they’ll keep referring to as “ceiling guy,” the “teens” trust her enough to let her lead them into some secluded woods where no one can track them, technologically anyway. Afterward, Cassie is foolish enough to tell a trio of teen girls to “stay put” (as if), leaving them to go do some more “research” on who this “ceiling guy” is by returning to her apartment and going through her mother’s old journals from 1973. As she conveniently unearths the valuable information that will tell her who Ezekiel is, the trio grows bored and hungry enough to abandon the woods in favor of a diner off the highway. It’s during this scene that Mis-Teeq’s “Scandalous” starts playing. Which would be passable (since it did exist in 2003), one supposes, were it not for the fact that the director then makes it very clear that the song is playing diegetically. Heard by everyone at the diner as they walk in to the tune of “Scandalous” then sounding over the speakers. The same goes for Spears’ “Toxic,” with Mattie even announcing, “I love this song.”
Back in the woods, Cassie returns to find an empty clearing followed by a vision wherein a key part of it is “Toxic” providing the soundtrack as the girls are attacked by “ceiling guy” at the diner they’ve absconded to. Cassie gets an immediate sense of foreboding when time “resets” again and the song’s signature opening notes start to play from her stolen taxi as the DJ declares, “This track is going to be huge! Are you in the zone?” Oddly, though—and despite all the radio pushing when it was actually unleashed on the airwaves—Mis-teeq’s “Scandalous” fared about as well on the charts with less radio rotation. This being another track “technically” in existence in 2003 (when it was released on Mis-Teeq’s second [and last] album, Eye Candy), it didn’t start popping off on U.S. radio until April of 2004. Its “revival,” so to speak, after already being played heavily in the UK and Japan during ‘03, made it ripe, apparently, to feature as the theme song for the Catwoman trailer. Now, call one “batty,” but it seems like a bit of an ill-omened idea not only to include a song from a rival comic book studio’s movie, but also a song from a rival comic book studio’s movie that was received so poorly. Indeed, Catwoman has a lower approval rating than Madame Web (eight percent to the latter’s twelve).
For an even weirder Britney/Mis-Teeq connection within these universes, Spears’ “Outrageous” was actually slated to be the movie’s theme before the pop star injured her leg while filming the video for it (which had nothing to do with Catwoman, but heavily featured Snoop Dogg). This, for one reason or another, led to Catwoman wielding “Scandalous” instead (which is just another word for “outrageous” anyway). But the only thing “scandalous” about Madame Web is its flagrant disregard for the correct radio airplay timeline. Something that the musical supervisors on the movie perhaps assumed would be the least of the audience’s grievances. And though “Toxic” is a great fit for a story about poison-delivering spider-people, due to this petit faux pas, it’s probably more at home as a string arrangement inPromising Young Woman (you know, the movie Emerald Fennell brought us before her own 00s-era inconsistencies in Saltburn).
Isabela Merced was already one of the industry’s most sought-after young actors, and then she went on an unparalleled casting streak that includes the likes of Madame Web, Alien: Romulus, Superman: Legacy and The Last of Us season two. She also has her second John Green adaptation, Turtles All the Way Down, releasing this spring, and it happens to be the performance she’s most proud of to date.
On Feb. 14, Merced returns to the big screen in SJ Clarkson’s Madame Web, as her character, Anya Corazon, is one of three future Spider-Women that Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson) must protect from baddie Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) and his premonition that they’re all responsible for his eventual death. Anya’s Spider-Woman alter ego is named Araña, and due to Cassie’s clairvoyant visions, Merced, along with Johnson, Sydney Sweeney and Celeste O’Connor, had to perform multiple different versions of scenes in order to account for the potential future and reality of each sequence.
Fortunately, Clarkson approached this tangled web with subtlety and efficiency.
“[Clarkson] was very smart about not making us too conscious or aware that it was another version of the same scene,” Merced tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We could just focus on the work and not mimic the same things we did before.”
Last July, just three days before the SAG-AFTRA strike, Merced joined James Gunn’s forthcoming DCU reboot as Hawkgirl in Superman: Legacy, the first film to kick off the revamped cinematic universe. Needless to say, Merced is ecstatic about the entire enterprise, and her screen test with her fellow co-stars gave her a proper sneak peek of what to expect when the superhero pic begins production in March.
“I was directed by [Gunn] during the [screen] test for [Superman: Legacy], because I auditioned for this. I got to do [the screen test] with my other castmates, and that was really cool. It felt very professional; it was almost like a legitimate shooting day,” Merced says. “So I’ve already learned so much about his process, and this man … has the best of the best working for him.”
The Cleveland native also signed onto The Last of Us season two as Dina. She’s another teenage inhabitant of Maria (Rutina Wesley) and Tommy Miller’s (Gabriel Luna) Jackson, Wyoming community, and she soon becomes close with Ellie (Bella Ramsey). Once Merced heard that series co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann were interested in meeting with her, she binge-played The Last of Us Part II in record time to be thoroughly prepared.
“I had already watched the show, and so I went to my friend’s house and I played [The Last of Us Part II] all in one weekend on the PS5. It was amazing. It did 25 hours of gameplay,” Merced shares. “It was wild, but so much fun. So I really liked the second game, but I haven’t played the first game yet.”
Merced is also starring alongside Cailee Spaeny in Fede Álvarez’s upcoming Alien: Romulus, which takes place between Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) and James Cameron’s Aliens (1986). During a recent round of reshoots, Merced and some nearby cast/crew got to watch a significant chunk of the film on Álvarez’s iPad, and one scene in particular prompted everyone but Merced to look away in horror.
“There’s a scene that I’m in, and they all had to turn away. Not one person stayed looking at that iPad because it was so disgusting,” Merced reveals. “And I was watching it like this … (Merced pretends to hold an iPad with a mesmerized look on her face.) I was so excited.”
Merced also starred in 2018’s Sicario: Day of the Soldado, and with Sicario 3 currently gaining steam, she would “absolutely” love to reprise her role as Isabel Reyes, even if it’s just for one scene with Benicio Del Toro. Soldado ends with Isabel thinking Del Toro’s Alejandro Gillick has been shot to death, before eventually being whisked away to Witness Protection by Josh Brolin’s Matt Graver.
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Merced also discusses the first time she bonded with her Madame Web co-stars, as well as the pros and cons of her Araña costume.
So there’s usually a point where co-stars first bond with each other. Fight scenes are a common answer. Was dancing to Britney Spears’ “Toxic” on top of a diner table that moment for the three of you (Merced, Sweeney, O’Connor) on Madame Web?
(Laughs.) The first moment of bonding was two weeks into it. It was my birthday, so I invited everybody [to a party]. I didn’t really expect them all to come. I don’t like to make a big deal on my birthday. I don’t really like my own birthday. I love other people’s birthdays, though. But they all showed up and it was amazing. There was an accordion player who my mom first saw on the street. There was brunch, but they also brought snacks, treats, cookies, everything. So [my co-stars] didn’t have to be there, but they showed up for me and I thought that was really sweet.
Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson), Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), and Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney) in Columbia Pictures’ Madame Web.
Sony Pictures
My second wrong guess would’ve been everyone’s first day in Spider costumes. How’d your Araña costume treat you?
Oh, it was like a glove. Honestly, it fit every curve of my body, perfectly. So it was quite comfortable. But when you put the harness on, you then put layers underneath it to protect your skin from the harness and then [more layers] over the harness to smooth it out. So that’s when it gets really tight. You train all these months for certain actions and moves that you’ve prepared, but once you put on the costume and the harness, it’s suddenly like trying to run underwater. So it’s quite hard to do the same things in the costume and harness.
For what it’s worth, I hear that bird-related superhero costumes are much more comfortable.
(Laughs.) You know what? From my experience with that production, it has been …
The three of you received a CPR lesson from Dakota Johnson’s character in a seedy motel room. If there was an emergency situation, would you trust yourself to deploy it?
Absolutely not! I can hold a beat. I can hold a rhythm. (Merced proceeds to sing the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive,” as CPR classes recommend performing chest compressions to the song’s tempo.) But I can’t guarantee that that person will be staying alive. Yeah, no promises there. (Laughs.) Don’t call on me, please.
You had to shoot the potential future that Cassie (Johnson) glimpses, but then you also had to shoot what actually happens due to her interference. Did things get pretty complicated on the day as you filmed multiple versions of many different scenes?
I will give credit to SJ Clarkson, the director. In the train sequence where we all get murdered for the fourth time or something, there were variations. Once we got up to the part where [Anya] is picked up and thrown, we had to do about three variations before that. So SJ would give very subtle notes and act like it’s still the same scene, but it was really another version of the same scene. Again, she was very subtle about it. So once we finished, I was like, “Oh, did we get it?” And she was like, “Yeah, we got four different versions. I’m going to edit it together later.” So she was very smart about not making us too conscious or aware that it was another version of the same scene. We could just focus on the work and not mimic the same things we did before.
You told me a few years ago that you hoped to avoid more sassy, angsty teenagers if at all possible, but Anya has a very good reason for being that way at first. Her immigration-related backstory is quite heartbreaking, and I couldn’t help but think about it through today’s lens. Did her backstory hit you pretty hard as well?
Yeah, the whole sassy, angsty teen thing, I probably said that I didn’t like it because I was that sort of character in real life at the time. I’m only 22 now, but I understand it more as I get older. I look back at my journal entries from when I was that age and I get it. The world seems so much scarier. You feel so much more vulnerable and self-conscious, and that’s what I love about understanding Anya. Yes, you have the surface-level facts about her life that are quite saddening and you can imagine she feels isolated, but then you peel it back further to the immigrant mentality. She is smart, but that’s because she has to be. She is independent, but that’s because she has to be. It doesn’t mean she wants to be. So I loved getting to know the softer side of her and taking it to something that’s more than just a sassy, angsty teen.
Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson), Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney) and Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor) in Columbia Pictures’ Madame Web
Sony Pictures
You’re half-Peruvian, and similar to Dora and the Lost City of Gold, Peru is a key part of this story as well. Your character even says the name of the country when Cassie tells everyone that she has to go there. Did they rewrite that scene just so you could have that meta reference to your own ancestry?
I wish I knew the answer to that question so I could give you a solid answer. I think it’s the law of attraction, honestly. I also wish I had that much control that I could be like, “Oh, it says Peru? I’m going to be in that movie.” So I think it’s just the law of attraction, but I love Peru. Apparently, I’m attracting projects that mention it, but that was an added line: “You have to go to Peru.” That was something they just added in there on the day, but I don’t think SJ was thinking that much about it. When you’re directing something, you’re just so invested in the story that you’re not aware of these things. So it’s just a really cool thing that I hope keeps happening. I even have some projects in mind that are centered in Peru, so I hope that I get to produce them at some point.
You’ve worked with the Wahlberg family a few times, and given that you shot Madame Web in Boston, did Mark offer you a list of dinner recs and all that?
I got a list from him a long time ago, and I actually referred to that list, but some of the restaurants were closed down because of the pandemic. I got the list before the pandemic. But I didn’t reach out to him. I don’t really reach out. I’m a terrible friend. I’m also a terrible daughter, especially when I’m working. I’m great when I’m not working, but when I’m working, I’m bad at keeping in touch with people. I just get so invested in my own head.
Benicio Del Toro and Isabela Merced in Sicario: Day of the Soldado
Richard Foreman, Jr.
So how was your Sicario: Day of the Soldado reunion with Benicio Del Toro not too long ago?
Oh, it was lovely. I love that man. I gave him the biggest hug and he was so sweet to me. He’s always been really sweet to me, and I admire him so much. I was just happy to see that he’s doing well.
We’ve talked before about Soldado and Josh Brolin’s tears …
(Laughs.)
As much as I love that movie, I’ve always wished that Benicio’s character reunited with your character at the very end just to relieve some of the trauma she’d endured. However, it’s still possible as Sicario 3 is gaining momentum. I know you’re busy these days, but is that a phone call you’d like to receive, even if it’s just one reunion scene?
Absolutely. I would be very open to that. We spoke about it, and obviously things change, but I think we spoke about Isabel Reyes going into the Witness Protection Program. [Writer’s Note: Brolin’s character defied his own orders and took Reyes to the U.S. to place her in WITSEC.] So I don’t know how she would be involved in another Sicario storyline unless they went out of their way to make that happen, but of course, I would love to be a part of [Sicario 3]. Soldado is still, to date, one of my favorite movies I’ve ever done, and it was one of the most unique experiences I’ve ever had. It was insane.
Well, I referenced it earlier, but belated congratulations on being employed by James Gunn.
Yeah, it’s awesome! (Laughs.)
You once said that you respond the most to roles that bring out a new side of yourself, and James has always been highly skilled at doing that for his actors. So is Hawkgirl going to potentially show a new side of you?
James Gunn is so creative and he has such a unique style, and whatever he touches, he always adds his own flair to it. And for that reason, I’m very excited. I was directed by him during the [screen] test for this, because I auditioned for this. I got to do [the screen test] with my other castmates, and that was really cool. It felt very professional; it was almost like a legitimate shooting day. So I’ve already learned so much about his process, and this man has such a solid team. He has the best of the best working for him, and they’ve worked together for so long that it’s only up to me to mess it up. So I hope that I can understand and take notes and continue training and just be healthy throughout it all. Then I’ll be able to give the fans the performance they deserve.
(L-R) Bella Ramsey and Isabela Merced attend ELLE’s 2023 Women in Hollywood Celebration on Dec. 5.
Phillip Faraone/Getty Images
It’s fitting that you also joined The Last of Us, because you and Pedro Pascal are both landing every role there is to land in this town. Have you been preparing for Dina and Hawkgirl at the same time, basically?
Absolutely. I’m also working on a script that I’m trying to write, and I have to promote Turtles All the Way Down, which is coming out in the spring. But I’m so excited to meet Pedro. I met Bella Ramsey and [co-creator] Craig Mazin already. I met basically the whole Last of Us team, except for Pedro. I know Kaitlyn [Dever] from Rosaline, but I saw her in Vancouver recently. So I think this is going to be a really wonderful experience. They won all those Emmys for a reason, and it’s a really well-run, well-oiled machine. Craig is just a genius, and I really admire him for the short time I’ve known him.
Have you been playing the Last of Us Part II game on the TV that Adria Arjona gave you?
(Laughs.) Okay, I have a few things to say about that. Adria is one of the most giving people I’ve ever met. This woman gives her things away like it’s nothing, and it’s such a good quality to have. I would love to have that quality, because she doesn’t give too much importance to things. She values what’s actually valuable. So I needed a TV, because I had just bought a new apartment, and she ended up giving me her TV that she didn’t need. It’s massive. It’s such a nice TV, and it’s in my living room right now.
But TheLast of Us prep has not been done in my house. I was in a relationship where my ex had a console, and I would play video games until 4:00 am every night. So I have a very unhealthy obsession with video games, and I told myself I wouldn’t get a PS5. But when I heard this ominous call about how the [Last of Us] creators wanted to meet with me, I was like, “Okay, I have to play the game first.” I had already watched the show, and so I went to my friend’s house and I played it all in one weekend on the PS5. It was amazing. It did 25 hours of gameplay. It was wild, but so much fun. So I really liked the second game, but I haven’t played the first game yet. Only the second.
Your list of conquests continues with Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus later this summer. Is it basically a two-hander between you and Cailee Spaeny?
It ends up being a little bit complicated, obviously, as all Alien movies do, however, yeah, you’ll see us together at times. When we were doing reshoots, Fede Álvarez gave me the iPad where he watches playback, and he had the movie pulled up. So I told him I wanted to see parts of it, and he showed it to me. I was the one holding the iPad, and there were ten people around me watching it on the iPad. So there’s a scene that I’m in, and they all had to turn away. Not one person stayed looking at that iPad because it was so disgusting. And I was watching it like this … (Merced pretends to hold an iPad with a mesmerized look on her face.) I was so excited. (Laughs.) I love sci-fi, I do. So he let me watch half the movie on the iPad. I said [to Fede], “If the iPad is heavy, I can carry it for you. I can hold it.” (Laughs.) So I’m really, really excited for that one. Again, I’m lucky enough to be a part of these projects with the best of the best. I can’t believe it. I’m so in shock, and I don’t know when I’m going to wake up.
Lastly, you touched on it earlier, but your second John Green adaptation, Turtles All the Way Down, releases this spring. I was shocked to read this, but was that really the first time you were proud of your acting? Or were you just exaggerating?
I actually don’t think I was. To be honest, there’s a lot of components about movies that are out of your control. For example, you do 45 takes of something, and it’s edited together in a certain way where you’re like, “I don’t think these moods match from one line to the other. I don’t think there was a proper escalation.” So it could be things like that, and when I watch my movies for the first time, I do find myself grabbing onto my seat and clenching my jaw. So I do have a hard time watching myself, but Turtles All the Way Down, I don’t know if it’s personal growth or working on my self-worth, but I didn’t clench up at all while watching it. I felt at ease watching it, and maybe that’s because I knew how much work I put into it and how I felt after each shooting day. So I do feel really proud of myself for that.
