Sara Fletcher is a prolific actor who has appeared in almost 90 television shows and films. It’s possible that you’ve seen her guesting on one of your favorite TV shows, or maybe you remember her from the Comedy Central series Secret Girlfriend.
Her most recent film, The Daemon, is currently making its festival run. In it, Fletcher plays Kathy, the wife of a man who is being driven insane by some sort of presence in the water at his father’s lakehouse. Kathy begins having visions of her own and reality starts to bend in all sorts of terrible ways. The Daemon is an interesting new take on cosmic horror, and fans of the genre are sure to find something they’ll love about it.
I had the pleasure of talking with Sara about The Daemon, acting, and getting slimed.
You have quite a varied filmography in terms of genre, but you do keep coming back to horror. What attracts you to the genre?
Sara Fletcher: Oh, that’s a great question. I think what I love most about doing horror is that a) It’s very cathartic, as an actor. You have a wide range of insane emotions because you’re going through really wild experiences. I love doing comedy, but there’s also comedy in horror. I like doing drama, but there’s drama in horror. I feel like it’s a genre that encompasses all the things. And that’s really fun, because a lot of the time it’s a really huge challenge. I think with horror, as an actor, you’re put in situations that are really weird and don’t always make sense. So because of that, as an actor, you really get to flex yourself. And you have to say, “Okay, I’m going to get trapped in an amniotic sack.” What would that be like? How would I experience that as a human? Because not in my everyday life is that happening to me. For me, the reason why I keep coming back to horror and I want to do more horror content is very specifically because I love the weird stuff. I love doing the weird stuff. I love the blood, I love the guts, I love the goo, I love the special effects. I love getting weird with my friends, and having to do really strange stuff is just very appealing.
I love the blood, I love the guts, I love the goo, I love the special effects. I love getting weird with my friends
Nice! So how did you come to be involved with The Daemon?
Sara Fletcher: So I shot a short film called, Thirteen Steps, which is another horror short. And the DP was a guy named Matt Devino, who’s one of the directors of The Daemon. And when we got done shooting, he was like, “Hey, I have this script that I wrote with my buddy David Yohe (who’s our other director) and I think you’d be good in this particular role. And I was like, “Oh that’s really cool, thank you so much.” And then it was a few months later when they called and they were like, “Hey do you want to come do this? Do you want to come get weird with us in Michigan?” I said, “Yeah, I want to come get weird in Michigan!” So that’s how it happened. And Thirteen Steps was really crazy. We had to do some really wild stuff — like I get frostbitten and I rip my finger off and I eat a toenail. So they were like, “Oh, you’re down for the weird stuff.”
Do you want to come get weird with us in Michigan?
What were your first impressions of the character when you first read the script?
Sara Fletcher: When I first read Kathy, I thought she comes across as sort of a wealthy rich bitch. And I’d never really played a wealthy rich bitch before, and I thought, “Well that’s something fun and different.” But what I really liked about Kathy was that she was more than just that. Here’s this stereotypical person, but I think with any human, a stereotypical person really is a very layered person who’s full of pain and turmoil and depression and grief and all these things. And so I really tried to see Kathy as that. I don’t think most people are terrible people. I think Kathy can read terrible if you read it with one set of glasses, but I read Kathy as someone who was in a lot of pain, and was hurting, and the way that she was coping with her situation was not healthy, but that’s because she’s coming from a place of trauma. For me, that was super interesting. And also, just knowing cosmic horror, I knew that she had to be this multi-layered character. Because that’s really what it’s all about. Our connection to the cosmos and the depth of who we are as people.
Yeah, she’s definitely a more complex character than it might appear on the surface at first. She’s thrown into a pretty dark situation, to say the least. Was it difficult getting into that headspace?
Sara Fletcher: I mean, I think with any role, when you have to do something really dark, actors have different ways of figuring out how to get into that headspace. For me, I’ve had trauma and bad things happen in my life. I think everyone has. So I think at times I could go, “Okay, well, my experience in my own life might not be Kathy’s, but I could see how she might feel a certain way because this parallel thing happened to me in my life.” But then the other thing is that it’s just playing pretend. I think about when we’re kids, and, look, I have two kids, and if we’re playing monster, they’ve never been around a monster before, but they just wholeheartedly believe the situation they’re in. For me, as an actor, that’s really always first and foremost. I go into it and I’m like, “No, I’m just going to believe. The circumstances I’m in, I believe them. The situation I’m in, I believe it. And I think that’s how you can get to really dark places without having to stay up for days at a time and actually have a dark experience.
You mentioned it earlier, so I guess we can talk about it. I was trying to figure out if this would be a spoiler or not. The, uh, should we call it slime —
Sara Fletcher: The amniotic sack? The placenta? (laughs) There’s been a lot of names for what that thing was and is. I don’t think it necessarily gives away by talking about it. You do see it in the trailer.
Okay! I was just wondering, was that all practical effects?
Sara Fletcher: Yeah!
Oh wow!
Sara Fletcher: Yeah, it was pretty amazing. So when the guys came to me they said, “Listen, we want you to play this character, we want you to get weird — and also there’s this scene where you get encased in goo and you end up in this amniotic sack.” And I was like, “Yeah, that sounds really cool!” “And the guy that you’re having an affair with, his face melts off onto your face.” And I was like, “Okay, great, that sounds super fun.” When I read it, I thought, “How are they going to do that?” But they had an absolutely incredible makeup / special effects who created the sack that I’m in, which is this huge rubbery thing with veins on it that I got inside of. There was a hole in the bottom so I could actually breathe. It was a one-take situation. They were like, “Here’s what we’re going to do. There’s going to be a little goo, then we’ll cut and then there’ll be a little more goo. They just kept pumping the goo out and I think we did a three and a half-minute take and they used eight gallons of goo in that take. The other actor, David, and I, we just kept going. We were like, “Okay, they’re not stopping. We’ll just keep having the goo happen.” And when they called cut, everybody was like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that just happened. That was so insane.” And it looks wild because you’re like, “How did they do that?” But it truly is all practical. All that stuff’s practical. All of the goo and David’s face melting, all practical stuff. Really incredible to get to experience and be a part of that kind of creativity.
That’s really cool. Had you ever been slimed like that before?
Sara Fletcher: I’ve been covered in blood. I cut somebody’s arm off one time with a rusty saw. So I got covered in blood and was wiping blood out of my butt crack later on! It was all over! But, no, I’ve never had that amount of goo in my life. And it took me a good hour to wash it out of my hair. I remember the other actress, Adriana, she was like, “Do you need help, Sara?” She was handing me more shampoo while I was rinsing it out of my hair. It took so long!
That’s funny. Well, it definitely was very effective.
Sara Fletcher: Is it terrifying? Because I watch it and I have my own experience, so I like to ask other people “Were you freaked out by it?” Because it’s so weird and so different. I’m always curious.
Yeah, I mean, I don’t really get freaked out very easily. I’ve seen too many horror movies. But I liked it a lot. I thought it was really cool.
Sara Fletcher: I will say, and this is something I thought was really cool, when they had the sack on me the D.P. was right here next to me. And as I was sucking in the membrane, when they called cut and everyone was like, “Are you okay? Are you breathing?” And I was like, “Yeah, no, what’s going on? Is everyone okay?” He goes, “I swear, Sara, I almost called cut.” Because he was like, “I was so freaked out that you were actually suffocating.” And I was like, “No, no, I’m good. I was controlling the sack. (laughs) So that was fun to be like, “Oh wow, I even freaked the D.P. out. Cool.”
That’s funny. So what’d you think when you finally saw the finished film?
Sara Fletcher: You know, it’s funny because we shot October of 2022, and then I was in London at FrightFest, and that’s when we saw our premiere. First of all, being in London and getting to see it was such a magical experience because we were at the Odeon theater, which is just this huge beautiful theater with Dolby surround sound. So seeing it for the first time was really incredible. Because when we read it and we shot it, I was like, “This movie could be a really cool, epic movie. But there were so many pieces. The special effects had to look good, the visual effects had to look good, the editing had to come together, the music to create what I thought could be a really cool cosmic horror movie. I’m getting goosebumps, actually. It was really magical because it did come together. I was shocked. Honestly, I was gobsmacked because the end of the movie has a lot of visual effects that are just really, really beautiful and mind-blowing. And just gave me all the feels. And seeing how the practical effects and the visual effects were all married together so beautifully I was like, “Oh wow, I’m so moved that I got to be a part of this art piece.” It feels like an art piece to me. It felt really special watching it and being like, “Oh my god, this is so cool!”
Seeing how the practical effects and visual effects married together… it felt like an art piece.
So you’ve written and starred in your own short films. Any plans to keep doing that?
Sara Fletcher: Yes! Before I had kids, I did a lot more of that. And now I have an eight and a three-year-old. So they’re finally at an age where I’ve been like, “Okay, I want to start making content again.” Actually, right now I’m working on a horror-comedy vertical series that I’m really excited about. And I really want to make a feature. I know how challenging they are. I’ve done a lot of short film content, but I think for me it’s the next canvas I want to paint on. I want to do this vertical series as something fun to get back into it. And then I’d love to do a feature. I don’t know when. In the near future, how about that?
What’s next for you in your journey?
Sara Fletcher: Probably sleep! I’ve been on a pretty wild ride for the past few months. There’s a short film that I was a part of that’s hopefully on track to become a feature. Fingers crossed that that happens. You just never know. And then making my own content, doing a vertical series, and then making a feature film. But, honestly, I should get some rest after these past few months of film festivals with The Daemon. I’m looking forward to the holidays because I feel like during the holidays you can take a breath. So I’m going to nap under some mistletoe. (laughs)
Actually, you know, here’s what’s next. I really love shooting photography. I’ve always shot photography. I don’t tell a lot of people that. And the photography that I like to shoot is character based. I always want to make characters with photography. I have so much shot over the years that I’ve just never done anything with. The project that’s been floating for me is I want to do a book with a lot of the photography I’ve shot as a character piece. So I think honestly that would be my chill thing to do.
