[Interview] Marian Sing Talks Facing Michael Myers in ‘Halloween’ 2018, and More

Marian Sing has one of the most memorable death scenes in the recent trilogy of Halloween movies, so we were excited to talk to her about her time in Haddonfield and her encounter with Michael Myers on this year’s fifth anniversary of the 2018 requel.

Sing’s character does not officially have a name in the Halloween 2018 credits, but John Passarella’s official movie novelization named her character Andrea Wagner; but fans of the 1981 sequel Halloween II will recognize her scene has a clear homage to one of that film’s early kills, another nameless character who has come to be known within the fandom as Alice, the Elrods’ neighbor.

In our video conversation earlier this week, Sing recalls when she “spent the night with Michael Myers,” shooting her death scene through four rehearsals and a total of 11 takes, revealing that she was actually taking a real hit from James Jude Courtney as The Shape every time. “When we did the rehearsals,” she tells HDN, “we tried doing the stunt way, which is he holds on to the bun, I drive, I pull back, I hit, because I could aim for the pad. There’s a little gel pad, and it’s on the carved, wooden back of the couch. I’m supposed to aim right here for that little pad, and it just didn’t look right. It looked too controlled. It didn’t look violent enough. 

“So I told him – he’s six-feet, four, you know, and here I am five-foot, six – I said, ‘Just do it, man. Just do it.’

“It was an evening shoot. We shot all night until the sun came up. We did rehearsals, rehearsals, then we did the thing. I was getting my makeup done. It took about three or four hours to do the makeup. Chris Nelson was working, and right over there are the three Michael Myers masks that he’s working on, right in front of my face.

“When we did that first on camera rehearsal, everybody freaked their crap out, because we did the hit… And it sounded horrible. It sounded like somebody hit their head on a wooden object. Rawn Hutchinson (stunt coordinator) comes running in, ‘Are you okay?’, and we both look at him, like ‘Yeah, we’re good.’ Like, ‘What? This is what we planned wasn’t it?’ 

“I was on carpet, and that meant the couch was on carpet, there’s plastic around, and James Jude Courtney was in the boots, but once he hit the carpet, I didn’t know when it was going to come. Every one of those takes, 11 takes, four rehearsals, I never knew when it was coming. At one point, because the hits were so hard, my (special effects blood) tube disconnected from the prosthetic, and they had to glue the tube back in place because of the velocity of the hits.” 

In our discussion, of course we also talked about celebrating Halloween itself, and about Marian’s journey that led her to Haddonfield, which started on stage when she was just four years old, and includes appearances in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 and The Divergent Series: Insurgent, and much more of her experiences making Halloween and her place in the legacy of this unkillable franchise.

You can watch our full exclusive interview with Marian Sing below.

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