Reality Bites, Training Day and The Lowdown actor Ethan Hawke says he was excited to play the Grabber again in Black Phone 2 because there was more story to explore, even though his masked killer character died at the end of the first movie.
“It was absolutely terrifying,” Hawke, 55, recently joked with the crowd at New York Comic Con about how he felt returning to the role.
“When I got to put the mask back on again, it felt kind of like a victory of sorts that this little film that started so long ago was turning into something bigger than any one of us,” he explained.
“In the years [since] the movie had come out, the fans were really growing and really cared,” he added. “Knowing the script I read [for the sequel], I knew we were going to make a lot of people really happy.”
Directed by Scott Derrickson, the Blumhouse sequel to 2021’s Black Phone was released on DVD and Blu-ray Tuesday.
The horror film, which has its roots in a short story by Stephen King’s son Joe Hill, is set in early 1980s Colorado and follows teen Finny Blake (Mason Thames) who, along with his psychic sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), remain haunted by the Grabber years after his death.
“Scott called me up. I remember I had about two hours to kill at an airport. My phone rang. It was a black phone, by the way,” Hawke quipped.
“And Scott said, ‘I really have an idea for a sequel,’ and I paced the airport for about an hour, as he kind of described what this movie is and it was breathtaking, just the dream of the movie, everything that it was,” he added.
“I was like, ‘Alright, well, if that’s the sequel, let’s make a sequel.’ Because he clearly had more to say about all these characters, and he had something to offer, and he wasn’t done with it. His imagination was still spinning around with it.”
Regretting You and How to Train Your Dragon actor Thames was only 13 when he filmed the first Black Phone about five years ago.
“It was my first movie, so I didn’t know what I was really expecting or how people were going to take it. All I knew is I trusted the people making the film with my life,” Thames, 18, said.
“When the movie came out, and how the fans received it, was insane,” he recalled. “It was such a whirlwind. So, getting the chance to bring it back and bring these characters back and this world back, and expanding on that, too, in a way that I never could have imagined is really special. And I think all the fans who fell in love with the first movie will really enjoy what we did here.”
McGraw, who is known for her work in Ant-Man and Secrets of Sulphur Springs, has an expanded role in the second film.
“Gwen is honestly completely different from where we left off in the first movie. Obviously, years have gone by, and you get to see the trauma and how it shaped [the siblings] and how they’ve tried to grow from it,” the 17-year-old actress said.
“It was, honestly, a really, really big challenge for me, coming back to play Gwen because I feel like her characteristics are so extremely different from the first movie. She definitely still has that feisty side to her, though, which is awesome,” she added. “But, she definitely feels like an outcast. Now, she’s much more reserved than she was in the first one.”
This is the opposite of her personality in real life, McGraw emphasized.
“I’m a very social, extroverted person, so I feel like, in a lot of ways, especially with all the emotional scenes, it definitely tested my abilities as an actor,” she said.
“I will always be so grateful for Scott and C. Robert Cargill for writing such a layered and powerful female character.”
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