[Interview] Candice Rose Talks ‘Halloween Ends’, ‘Stranger Things’, ‘She-Hulk’, and More
In the opening of Halloween Ends, it is Candice Rose‘s smiling face that welcomes viewers back to Haddonfield, now darker and twisted by the evil that drives Michael Myers, and this underlying current of grieving turned to cold darkness is very much embodied by her character, Mrs. Allen, the mother of the unfortunate Jeremy, making her limited screen time all that much more powerful, and we talked to her recently about working on the 2022 sequel, as well as her time in Hawkins on Stranger Things, in the MCU on She-Hulk, and more.
Recalling her audition process for Halloween Ends, Rose said, “I got a notification about a character by the name of Mrs. Mead in a project called ‘Cave Dweller‘. I thought, well, it says SAG scale plus 10 and it is a feature film, and David Gordon Green is directing it, so I’m going to submit to this… I got this audition, and I had no idea what it was. I just knew it was a horror film, but they were dummy sides, and so there wasn’t a lot of background.
“I channeled by mother. She used to get really irritated when me or my sister would put a wet towel on a wooden door or a wooden chair. She would lose it. So when I had to scream ‘What have you done?’, I kind of channeled my mother. I’ve got these favorite curtains in my bedroom, they’re gorgeous blue with gold piping through them, and they’re just absolutely stunning. So I just decided that I had left the babysitter at my house to babysit, which was the case, and when I got back home, this babysitter had spread shit all over – literal shit – all over my curtains, and I lost it. I said, ‘What have you done?’ (laughs)
“I had no idea what it was going to ultimately be. It gave us no background, so I had to create that backstory for myself, which obviously had nothing to do with the reality of what was in the movie… So after the audition, I reached out to my manager and said, ‘I got a callback for this movie, it’s called Cave Dweller, just letting you know. And he said, ‘Do you know what that is? That’s the Halloween franchise.’ I died. I died, and I wish he hadn’t told me before the callback, because it was with David Gordon Green, and then I knew all about what was happening.
“So I had the callback, and everything went well. I screamed, ‘What have you done?’, and David said, ‘Okay, I want you to do that one more time, and I want you to do it straight into camera. So I did it straight into camera, and now I see why they wanted me to do that, because I had that terror in my eyes – with the shit on the curtains (laughs) – and it was very real for me.”
On joining the legacy of this unkillable franchise, Candice tells HDN, “It’s gotten me more excited about the Halloween season, because now I’m doing these (conventions). I find the fans to be so passionate. I love that they come with posters, and I signed. People brought the Halloween coffee table book, which I’m in, and that’s so cool… So now I’m going to get to see everyone at these conventions, and it’s joy.
“I found the exact costume that I wore in the film, the exact head piece. Everything is exactly the same, and when I go to these horror conventions, I full on dress up in the costume. Because, number one, it’s fun for me, and number two, it’s definitely fun for the fans too, because they know right away who I am, if they’re a Halloween fan.”
In our relaxed video conversation, we also discussed when her passion for acting began, her genre work in other massive franchises, and much more about Ends, and of course we talked about Halloween itself, as Candice shared stories about her favorite costumes, candies, and customs of the holiday.
You can watch our full interview with Candice Rose below.
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