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Longlegswas released in theaters earlier this month and suddenly became the movie EVERYONE was talking about.
Here are 15 behind-the-scenes facts about the movie that you probably didn’t know, but definitely should:
1.Longlegsdirector Oz Perkins is the son of actor Anthony Perkins, who most notably played Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’sPsychomovies.
2.Oz has also done some acting himself. He played Dorky David inLegally Blonde.
3.Longlegs is set in the ’90s because that era was a “formative” time for Oz. “The ’90s was a formative time for me,” he toldDeadline. “I was graduating high school, these great movies were coming out, my father died, shit was happening, like a lot of stuff was very much coming together.”
4.The film was initially set in 1992 but was pushed forward a year because Oz didn’t want the presidential photographs to be of George H. W. Bush. “I realized that if it was 1992, all the presidential photographs would be of George Bush, so I just tweaked it up by a year so it would atleastbe Bill Clinton. Not that he’s any better,” he toldIndieWire.
5.Nicolas Cageplays Longlegs and said that he took inspiration from his mother, who lived withconditionslike schizophrenia and severe depression throughout her life until she died in 2021, when creating the role. “It’s the voices, it’s not really him; he’s been hijacked by something else,” he explained toThe Hollywood Reporter. “I’ve often thought what was it that happened to my mom — if I’m any good in this movie, it’s because of my mother. That also gave me a bit of empathy for the character, as crazy as what his situation is and what he’s getting up to with these effigies.”
6.Maika Monroe, who plays Lee Harker, didn’t even meet Nicolas Cage before filming began. Oz wanted to keep them bothseparateuntil their characters came face-to-face at the end of the film. “I wasn’t shown any photos of what he looked like [as Longlegs],” she toldSeth Meyers. “It wasn’t until I was brought up to the interrogation door. The director called ‘Action!’ and I walked into the room, and there was Nic Cage in…I mean, it was fucking crazy.”
7.During their first meeting, Maika had a small mic taped to her chest that could pick up thethumpingof her heart. According to the film’s production company, Neon, Maika’s heartbeat reached170 beats per minutewhen she finally met Nicolas Cage in his full Longlegs form. Her resting heart rate is 76 bpm.
8.Creating the character of Longlegs tooka lotof collaboration between Nicolas and Oz. Nicolas began preparing for the role around Christmas of 2022. Nicolas said that Oz evencalled"at 4:30 in the morning on Christmas Day two years ago" to get soundbites of Nicolas rehearsing the dialogue.
9.And then when creating Longlegs' physical appearance, it was about “finding this very androgynous, he-she look, glam rock look.” NicolastoldThe Hollywood Reporter, “That was important to me so that he didn’t look anything like me and that I found liberating, that I could speak in this way and move in this way and talk about these very dark things. I wanted the character to be an androgynous almost prophet, in the Fellini movieJuliet of the Spirits.”
10.Longlegs' pale appearance was inspired by Bob Dylan. “The pale makeup is Bob Dylan,” Oz toldIndieWire. “Bob Dylan’s my god, and so I’m always looking for ways to use Bob’s stuff, and that white makeup that he uses on the Rolling Thunder Revue tour is this weird sort of performative thing.”
11.Longlegs is also meant to look like he’s been through several botched plastic surgeries. “His jam is really that he’s trying to make himself beautiful for the devil,“explainedSFX makeup artist Harlow MacFarlane. “He’s in love with the Devil, and he’s trying to impress the Devil, so he’s gone through all these plastic surgery botch jobs to make himself look as pretty as he can for the Devil. Everything he does is for this evil force that he’s trying to impress.”
12.The teenager working in the hardware store is Oz’s daughter Bea.
13.Longlegswas partly inspired byThe Silence of the Lambs. Oz explained that he feltThe Silence of the Lambssimilarities would help get people to the theater to see the film. He explained toGizmodo, “When I sat down to write the movie, the question in my mind was: what’s the invitation to the audience that I can make early on that sort of gets people in the roller coaster car. What gains them admission to the world?”
14.Oz said that he’d listen to T. Rex’s music while writing the script. “As the writer who’s essentially alone, I’m showing up every day to the computer by myself, no one’s there to help me, and it can be quite miserable at times,” he toldIndieWire. “To my mind, I got to be open to what else is out there to help. Angels, whatever you want to call it. I started listening to [T. Rex] while I was writing, and it was like the universe, or the source, or the muse, or whatever you wanna call that saying, ‘I think it’s T. Rex.'”
15.Finally, Maika said that filming a movie like this can take a toll on her mentally, so to decompress, she watchesrom-comslikeWhen Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, and10 Things I Hate About You.“I’ve figured out the easiest ways for me to tap into that darkness and then get out of it,” she toldEntertainment Weekly.
Longlegsis in theaters now.
