Posted in: Blumhouse, Horror, Movies | Tagged: blumhouse, film, horror, Night Swim, Wyatt Russell

Night Swim Director on Working with Wyatt Russell

Night Swim director Bryce McGuire reveals which Wyatt Russell role proved the actor was ready for Blumhouse's horror film.

Published Sun, 14 Jan 2024 15:47:08 -0600

by Aedan Juvet

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Article Summary

Bryce McGuire tapped Wyatt Russell for Night Swim after his Black Mirror performance.
Night Swim's premise is a haunted pool, mixing horror with a tinge of absurd fun.
The film is based on a 2014 short by McGuire and boasts a strong ensemble cast.
Wyatt Russell plays a retired baseball player facing a new supernatural threat.

It's been a busy time for actor Wyatt Russell, who already has plans to reprise his Marvel role in a Thunderbolts film, a major role in the current Godzilla Monsterverse series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and, of course, his recent participation in the new Blumhouse horror flick Night Swim. Considering this is Russell's biggest role in the horror genre so far, how did the film's director know Russell had what it takes to go all out?

(from lower left) Izzy Waller (Amélie Hoeferle), Elliot Waller (Gavin Warren), Kay (Nancy Lenehan), Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell), and Eve Waller (Kerry Condon) in Night Swim, directed by Bryce McGuire.

Night Swim Director Watched Wyatt Russell in Black Mirror Before Working with Him

When speaking with /Film about the release of Night Swim, director Bryce McGuire discussed his collaboration with the Monarch actor, noting, "Well, Wyatt and I were so locked in on that tone from the beginning, from the first conversation. I'd seen him in Black Mirror, so I'd seen him just go psycho mode. I knew that he could do that really, really well. And he likes going crazy like that. That's just so in his wheelhouse. And I think, from there, there's a little bit of having fun with the absurdity of the premise that it is fun. It's a haunted pool. That's fun. As much as we're talking about these crucibles of what would you do to be healthy and what would you give up to make … all that's still there, and all those can be true, but also when he's chasing her to the house, and he's like, [sinister voice] 'Marco…' Come on, you have to do that!"

Night Swim plot summary: Based on the acclaimed 2014 short film by Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire, the film stars Wyatt Russell (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) as Ray Waller, a former major league baseball player forced into early retirement by a degenerative illness who moves into a new home with his concerned wife Eve (Oscar® nominee Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin), teenage daughter Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle, this fall's The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) and young son Elliot (Gavin Warren, Fear the Walking Dead). Secretly hoping, against the odds, to return to pro ball, Ray persuades Eve that the new home's shimmering backyard swimming pool will be fun for the kids and provide physical therapy for him. But a dark secret in the home's past will unleash a malevolent force that will drag the family under into the depths of inescapable terror.

McGuire's Blumhouse film Night Swim is in theaters now.

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