Maggie Q on Playing a Badass in ‘Fear the Night’ and Shooting the Bloody Kills:

From writer/director Neil LaBute, the thriller Fear the Night sees Tess (Maggie Q), a prickly Iraqi war veteran uninterested in winning over anyone, join a bachelorette party for her sister that’s being held at a remote farmhouse without much around except for some questionable characters whose looks linger a bit too long. When a group of home invaders attack and it quickly becomes clear that they’re not interested in leaving any witnesses behind, Tess leans on her training and a methodical approach in an effort to fight back and make it through the night.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Maggie Q talked about playing a character who doesn’t put up with anyone’s shit, how the physical moments changed and developed, shooting the different kills, the challenge of using a pitchfork, how a memorable moment at the end of the film came about, and leaving on a little bit of a happy ending.

This interview was conducted prior to the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Collider: It feels like the moral of this story is, “Underestimate a badass woman at your own peril.” Do you feel like that’s an accurate description? Did you feel that way when you read this?

MAGGIE Q: I did. When (writer/director) Neil [LaBute] sent the script over and we discussed it, the reason he loved it was that he loved the women fighting back. Really, what these guys think is happening is that they’re gonna attack a home with some scared women in it, and the women are gonna cower and they’re gonna shrink and they’re gonna disappear, and they’re gonna get what they think is in the house, and then it’s gonna be gone and it’s gonna be wrapped up pretty quickly and pretty easily. They just don’t understand, not only that the person they’re gonna be facing is a veteran, she’s skilled, she’s obviously got issues, and she’s got a lot of fire, but she’s also not putting up with anyone’s shit. And what I love about her too is that she was able to galvanize these women who are not her and who are not military trained. She says, “Hey, listen, it’s not about what you know, it’s about what you can accomplish with your sheer will.” That’s what she inspired in them, to fight back. That’s why we liked the movie and wanted to make it.

With the physical scenes, was the physicality always the way it is now? Was it like that, from the first script that you read, or did that change and adapt at all, according to what you could actually do yourself?

MAGGIE Q: It really changed. In the beginning, when I got the script, these guys showed up, attacked the house in a certain way, and she went and found her father’s guns and was able to fight back, and there was this back and forth. What I told Neil, that I thought would be way more interesting, was to get rid of all the guns. I said, “No guns in this movie. We’re done with that. Let’s be creative in the way that these women have to get out of what it is that they’re doing.” Yes, in the movie, she’s looking for guns. She’s hoping she’ll find her father’s stash. She doesn’t. So, So when she doesn’t, she has to find different ways to empower these women and to empower herself, to figure out how to get out of this situation and, ultimately, how to win because it literally is a life or death situation.

What was it like to shoot the first scene where you have to kill the guy out by the cars? What’s it like to shoot something like that, where there isn’t really any fighting from his side? Because she has the element of surprise in that moment, was it very different to shoot a scene like that, when you don’t really have the other person fighting back with you?

MAGGIE Q: Yeah. That’s a smart question. In the military movies, you always have that duality that goes on. The element of surprise, like you said, and then full combat. The only way that she was ever gonna get out of this and keep these women safe was to invent things that were gonna work for them. One of those things is the element of surprise, which you’re only getting once. She knew, once that guy went down, that they were screwed and that they’d have to come up with a plan. She was just trying to save one car from its tires being slashed and keeping it workable, so that they could have an escape plan. Other than that, that was the moment where everything turned because she knew, “I’m gonna go out and get this one guy, and hell fury is gonna rain down on this house, so we’ve gotta be ready.”

Was it weird to shoot that with the actor? When your natural instinct would be to fight back, at any point, was it hard for him to resist fighting back?

MAGGIE Q: You’re so right. Poor guy. He didn’t really get to do anything. What was funny about the guy that I did that to was that he weirdly looked a lot like Jack Nicholson. He looked like a young Jack Nicholson. I was like, “Why does this guy look so much like Jack Nicholson?” I turn him around and I take the thing off his face, and my take five, I said to Neil, “He really looks like Jack Nicholson, don’t you think?” And he goes, “Yeah, that’s his son.” I was like, “Well, that explains it.” It was just hilarious. He was so sweet and he was so game. He was all excited. We had to do special effects. He had to have a huge tank of blood attached to him, and it was very involved. That little sneak attack took us hours to film for one second on screen.

In comparison, what was it like to shoot the scene with the pitchfork to the chest? She really has to work to kill that guy, and a pitchfork is not something you generally use as a weapon. How was that to do?

MAGGIE Q: That’s why Neil had to keep cutting back to her being like, “Really?!” That’s not easy. None of that was easy, although the breast plate of a person can actually be really soft in areas. Every time somebody pitches me something, I go, “Okay, how realistic is this?,” and I give them the third degree. We have to go through how realistic it is, and we’ve gotta make calls and do all this stuff to make sure. So, he was like, “You can either get him up here, where it’s a little softer, or you can get him in the abdomen.” I was like, “All right, I’ll figure it out.” It’s gotta be believable.

Maggie Q as Iraq war veteran Tess in Fear the NightImage via Quiver Distribution

I love how each kill is very different. In the final kill that you have in the attic, you end up with blood spatter all over you from that stabbing. What was that like to shoot? How hard is it to have to shoot that, and then get cleaned up to do another take?

MAGGIE Q: It was really hard. By the time we got to that, we had to shoot the fight first, and then I got on top of him and we really only had one shot at it. Unfortunately, we did the first take and the blood didn’t work. It worked, but it was really wimpy and not representative of what I was actually doing. So, we had to do a quick clean up on aisle six, and then we had to go for it again. We finally got it in the second take. You only have so many takes. That kill is the last one, so after losing her sister, and after so many people’s lives lost, and after realizing and finding out that this was for nothing, that fire and that anger is so real. There’s no other way she could have killed that guy because she had to get that all out. She’s got one sister that she’s always at odds with, and then she’s got another one who she loved more than anything and who was probably the only person she did love. That’s what that kill was about.

There’s a moment at the end of the film when you walk by the cop car and key it, as you go? Was that scripted? Did that come up on the day?

MAGGIE Q: Yeah. Neil and I were talking about, how do we create these little moments where you really get to see that she’s an asshole? She’s angry. She has a problem with authority. She has all these problems. We were always trying to find those little moments. Even those moments when she’s talking to her sister and she just can’t let her sister win, or she has to resign to let her win, you had to understand, when you looked at her, that it was totally counter and that she was letting her sister get away with it. The annoying way her sister acts, that’s really hard for her. There’s no way that the normal her would let that go. We wanted you to see in the movie that she was trying to be a better person, but at the same time, like in that car keying moment, she gets the last word. She hated those guys. There was no way she was just gonna walk out and let them get away with it. I laughed so hard when I saw it. It’s just who she is. She just can’t not do it. It was hilarious.

Maggie Q as Iraq war veteran Tess in Fear the NightImage via Quiver Distribution
After everything that your character, specifically, goes through in the name of survival in this, do you feel like she deserved to at least have a little bit of a happy ending, riding off with the other woman, at the end?

MAGGIE Q: Yeah, I do. A big thing for me, that I insisted on and that was not in the script originally, was that her sister that she doesn’t get along with, originally did not make it – she died in the beginning, as well – and I said to Neil, “I really can’t play a character, if there’s no transformation. I really need to see that this relationship, on some level, was repaired. She lost the one she really loved, and now she’s gotta make it work and she’s gotta get past who she is, and really care enough that she can create a relationship where there was none before. That, to me, will bring her full circle, with everything that’s happened, even with the loss.” So, Neil gave me that. And then, the thing that he really wanted was the relationship with that woman, where they leave together and you feel like, “Oh, my God, she might be happy. There’s a chance that she could find happiness after all of this.” We wanted there to be a little hope, for sure.

And that character also had growth, by the end of the movie.

MAGGIE Q: Totally. She wasn’t deep or cool, or anything. She was just a party girl. The loss and the trauma and everything they went through changed everyone, and we wanted to show that, in the end.

Fear the Night is in theaters and available On-Demand and on Digital.

View this article at Collider.