Cailee Spaeny: From Dream To Reality
Cailee Spaeny‘s gradual ascent to stardom in the “Pacific Rim: Uprising” was by no means a surprise. The young actress carries herself with warmth, charm and a genuine curiosity not only about the profession, but also the world and other creative endeavors. Her subsequent roles as Rose in “Bad Times at the El Royale” and Lily in “The Craft: Legacy,” based on the ‘90s cult classic “The Craft,” solidified her position as a rising star in Hollywood. This was reflected in the Missour-native landing the roles of Liza, in the HBO crime drama hit-series “Mare of Easttown,” and Y.S., in Zoe Lister-Jones’ production “How It Ends.” To reflect on her recent roles, we discovered what it is like to play characters that aren’t good or redeeming, why she prefers working on novel productions, and who she is obsessed with.
JESSICA MICHAULT. If I understand correctly you have always loved acting. Was performing, in the beginning, just an extension of play for you, or were you driven from the start to make acting your career path?
CAILEE SPAENY. I mean, it’s always play… but, I knew from a very early age that, because I didn’t connect much in school and I didn’t test well, I wasn’t going to go down the regular path — whatever that meant. And so, when I started doing theater it felt like an immediate relief, “Oh, I can do this.” I also started to work at a theme park when I was thirteen while acting, and whenever I realized I could potentially earn money doing this, I thought, “This is the career that I want.” I think I knew, at a very early age, that if it would be possible to have a career as an actor — that was the dream.
J.M. Very early on in your professional career, you landed a big role in a major Hollywood film, “Pacific Rim: Uprising.” Talk to me a bit about what it was like to dive into the deep end like that so early on. What did you learn from that experience?
C.S. I’m actually from Southern Missouri, so I was being baptized by fire: I had nothing on my resume and was still living in Missouri when I booked that role, which was the complete opposite to flying first class to live in Australia for six months and being the female lead of a franchise film. It was overwhelming, but it changed me completely as a person. I think a lot of that has to do with traveling in general — something I recommend everyone [to do] if they have the luxury to do it. It opened me up to new ideas, new lifestyles, and new beliefs as a human being. Also, getting to work with John Boyega, who I spent the most time with, was really helpful for me; I was learning how to act in the middle of the scenes. I had never done anything like this before, and John was a great person to look up to and study in terms of what he did before the scenes, how he commanded a set and took control of leading a movie — I just tried to soak in as much as possible; I just feel very lucky for that experience.
J.M. In “Bad Times at the El Royale,” you play Rose, a character that becomes the follower of a cult leader. By the end of the movie, we discover how dark that character is. Do you prefer to play roles like this one, where you play someone who isn’t good or redeeming?
C.S. I never saw her as bad. I saw her very much as being influenced and naive. But, the fun part of that film was getting to play in that genre and time period, while sinking my teeth into things such as cults. I didn’t really think of it as playing an evil character. It’s kind of a trap when you start acting — being the good person or the bad person; you want to show all of it. But, that movie was very fun to do.
J.M. Also — as Rose was obsessed with the Billy Lee character in the film — I am curious if there is anything that you are obsessed with or can’t get enough of?
C.S. The first thing that pops into my head is the fact I’ve been with my boyfriend for four years and I really love him. I love being in love and I recommend it to anyone. Although it’s really hard and there’s been a lot of bumps in the road, it’s nice to completely want to be around a person 90% of the time — that’s quite rare.
J.M. Last year you played the lead role in “The Craft: Legacy,” which is a descendant of the original film, made one year before you were born, in 1996. How much did you want to pay homage to the original and in what way did you want to update the story with how you approached your character?
C.S. We did want to pay homage in an easter-eggy way with the costumes. We had to put, “Light as the feather, stiff as the board” in there… — just little, subtle moments. But overall, we didn’t want to make this feel that it’s made for the male gaze, which is reflected in so many epic 90s films I love but look back at and go, “Hmmm.” [We wanted to make] something current, something that uplifted teenagers and women, so in that sense we wanted to take it on a different path. Character-wise, I just wanted the kids to feel like real kids. I wanted young teenagers to feel like, “That’s actually how I dress and I talk, and there are these awkward moments with rough patches.” That’s what my thought process was going into it.
J.M. More recently, you had a pivotal role in the TV mini-series “Mare of Eastown” that stars Kate Winslet. You play the murder victim Erin McMenamin. Can you talk a bit about what it was like to work on that project, considering that your role is key and yet your screen time was limited. How did you try to be impactful with a role like that?
C.S. When I first got the role, I thought to myself, “It’s only just a week of work.” But, it was deceivingly difficult to portray a character you care enough about to be thinking of through the whole 7 episodes. We had to care about this young girl getting murdered and see those parts of her life that made the story even more tragic. I just tried to ground it as much as I possibly could, and I watched a lot of “16 and Pregnant” in my hotel room, bawling my eyes out. It was also tricky in the sense that I got shut down during the pandemic and it [the mini-series] almost didn’t get finished — it nearly got scrapped. One of the challenges, for example, was that the set of twins that played my baby were walking after the six-month period in the pandemic. We had to change scenes where I had a baby in my arm, so I had a fake baby that I did a lot of my scenes with, which was really creepy.
J.M. The premise of “How it Ends” is quite interesting. It all takes place on the last day of the earth and you play the younger self of the main character, Liza. Not only that, you interact throughout the film with the main character. So I am curious, how do you try and get into the mindset of that sort of role, which isn’t a traditional character?
C.S. I’m playing a metaphysical younger self, which was easy because Zoe Lister-Jones wrote and starred in it. We basically did two movies within a year of knowing each other, so we got really close, very quickly. The “Craft” character was based off of her life a little bit, so when we were making that, I got to know her really well. When the pandemic hit, she was kind of my person that I was calling every day — she was my therapist friend. A lot of the conversations we were having were about how to heal our younger selves and what that meant. And so, from those conversations — and the fact that Daryl [Wein] wanted to birth this character of playing your younger self and how to release all of the trauma, stuff from being young, connecting to that feeling and person again — it all felt very seamless and easy. The conversations were sort of based on the conversations we were having 5 feet apart during the pandemic. So, it was fun, chill, really good, and cathartic for the both of us.
Also be sure to check out this video:
