Alicia Witt Haunted By Her Performance In ‘Longlegs,’ Passes On Seeing The Film

Osgood Perkin’s horror film Longlegs terrifies audiences with a story of ritualistic satanic murders and psychic detectives featuring Maika Monroe as Detective Lee Harker. Harker chases down the twisted supernatural serial killer “Longlegs,” played by Nicholas Cage, but it is Alicia Witt, who portrayed Detective Lee’s mother Ruth Harker, who walked away from this set haunted by her own performance and what it brought out in her. As a result of her experience playing Ruth Harker, Witt has decided she will not be viewing the final film due to her own reasons.

Witt used method acting in order to fully immerse herself into the role of the character of Ruth. According to an interview with Variety, Witt would journal from Ruth’s perspective, listen to music Ruth would have, and even develop her own internal backstory that would influence Ruth’s actions. Witt described the method as such, “By the time I got to set, I could let it all go and discover what she was going to do and say. It’s for that reason that I’m not watching the movie. It’s what came out of me that I don’t want to see.”

While Witt will likely never see Longlegs, audiences will be able to enjoy the dark tale of slaughter and devils for the foreseeable future on the silver screens.