Kate Siegel

Some of your favorite actors have used Backstage to kickstart their career. Denzel Washington, Al Pacino, Viola Davis, Chris Evans, that's Captain America. And all you have to do to be just like Captain America is go to backstage.com/subscribe and enter the code envelope at checkout for a 30-day free trial. That's 30 days of access to thousands of casting notices uploaded daily. Subscribe to Backstage today and again use code envelope at checkout e [music] n b e l o p e for free. [music] I don't feel like there's a ton of recognition for the performances in horror. One will pop every once in a while like hereditary but [music] it feels transient and there's no real respect. But that makes me think, does anybody feel respected? Like, it's a very embarrassing [music] thing to do as an actor and it never makes any sense and it's art, so it's messy and there's no linear structure. But I don't think any actor who honestly [music] sits at the other end of your interview process would be like, "Yes, I feel very respected." Hello and welcome to another new episode of In the Envelope, the Actors Podcast, where the biggest names in film, television, and theater offer acting lessons and behindthe-scenes insights you won't find anywhere else. I your host, backstage senior editor Vinnie Manuso, and joining me today is arguably the reigning Scream Queen of the 10 years, the wonderful Kate Seagull. Now, you likely recognize Kate from her collaborations with husband Mike Flanigan, delivering standout performances like the deaf and mute final girl of Hush, which he also co-wrote, the psychic child psychologist Theodor Crane in Haunting of Hill House, and Crockett Island school teacher Aaron Green in Midnight Mass. Uh, she can next be seen in the third season of Shudder's The Creep Tapes, across from Mark Duplass's socially awkward serial killer, Peach Fuzz. Kate also recently stepped behind the camera to direct the Stowaway segment of VHS Beyond, as well as an episode of Amazon's upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's Carry, in which Kate also has an on-screen role that we cannot quite talk about yet, but we can talk about a lot of other things. And this is a must listen, not just for horror fans, but for any aspiring creative of any kind. Kate was incredibly open about both the drive and the insecurities that have fueled her entire career. It's just a great chat. Let's get right into it. Here is Kate Seagull. [music] - Hello. How you doing? [laughter] - Fine. Got to talk to one of my best friends. I was just going to say, as luck would have it, uh, I literally talked to Samantha Syian yesterday, which was a dream. An absolute dream. You've known each other for a long time. - Yes. Maybe almost 20 years. Maybe like 17 or Crazy. - That's incredible. Yeah. I Well, it's it's a great place to start because, you know, we were talking about Hush, which is just a a lovely sort of like independent horror movie. Tiny budget, you know, that that that situation where it's you're not sure what's going to happen with it. you just wanted to to make something to get your voice out there. So, I just want to start this conversation by asking, you know, when you think back to Posh, what were you thinking, hoping, dreaming for your career for what would come next? And how do you feel about what happened from this vantage point in the present? - That's that's a nostalgic question. Like, that really brings up a lot of feelings for me. I um when I start when we started Hush and got the green light for Hush and we knew we were going to shoot it, I was such a baby actress. Like I I hadn't really done anything. I'd done some guest stars. I'd done some unsuccessful really lowbudget indie films and I was so frustrated and I was in acting class and every week I was crying because I was like it's not going to happen. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to do this. And it wasn't even, you know, I had always been someone who generated my own projects because my brain will eat me alive if I'm not working on something. And when this one happened, I remember, you know, Mike Flanigan because he at that point had done a few projects and he had kind of crossed the Rubicon into full-time filmmaker. And I was nowhere near that. I was still waiting tables. And he said to me once, you know, your life changes on a random Thursday. It's not like you know when it's going to happen. I remember vividly we were at a restaurant that was next door was connected to the Arklight RIP and - Oh, that's nostalgic. - I [snorts] know, right? And we used to spend so much time there like at the Arklight restaurant and so many iconic moments of my life were there. Anyway, we were there and Mike's phone rang and I believe it was Jason Blum and it was the Greenlight and they said, "We're going to make this movie." And I went into the bathroom and I cried and I had no idea the 20 years ahead of me that we're going to be crawling through broken glass all the time. It's always the same struggle, right? Even today, I'm like, "Why can't my career X Y and Z?" But it was it was like a random Thursday. And looking back, that was the pivot. And it was such a exciting project because there was the sense of unknown because nobody really knew who I was. Nobody was certainly I wasn't, you know, voraciously obsessed with Mike Flanigan the way I feel like they are now with the plan of fam and what's he doing and Dark Tower and this. We were both sort of babes literally in the woods and I didn't know if I could do it. I didn't know if I could carry a movie. Mike didn't know if I could carry a movie. And we got Samantha because I had said, "A, Sam is the best actress I know. She's in acting class with me. That's how we met." And I was just enamored with her talent. And I was like, "And b I'm going to be so scared if we don't put somebody who's a legitimate friend next to me. I don't know if I can create that." And thus became the beginning of a lifetime of work for me and Mike. We brought in Michael Trugo. Mike is a huge Michael Trugo fan from Battlestar and we were both watching the newsroom, huge John Gallagher fan, John Galler Jr. fans and it was all this like wild kinetic energy of possibility and that's something that we try to bring in that I try to bring into every project that what could be possible. But looking back, I'm I'm so grateful because how many people have an indie film that they wrote and starred in and it doesn't hush, right? - And it I remember we sold it. Nobody nobody hears anything. - It just hush like it just goes away. And so I had an incredibly lucky blessed opportunity and when we sold it to Netflix, it was like pre-Netflix being the place for that and then it was a heartbreak that it didn't go into theaters. We were devastated that a distributor didn't put it in theaters and now it's in in retrospect it's a huge blessing because people can find it that would never have been able to find it before. It changed my life. My life changed on a random Thursday. I love that. In terms of like I mean you know we'll do more than just looking back but I'm I I am I am curious you know when you that's how your your life changed and your career changed but when you think like inward into who you are as like an actor who do you think how do you think you changed the most as an actor since then because you said like you didn't know if you could lead a movie - I knew nothing - and [clears throat] here we are. It's just it's I'm I'm curious you know what is the the biggest - Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. - craft internal change for you. I don't think the craft I had a delusion about myself that I could do it. I was delusional because I had no idea how much work it would be. It is an exhausting amount of work to carry a movie where you're on screen for almost every single shot and I would pass out in that bathtub between setups because and and the movie was shot in chronological order. So by the end of it when I'm like falling to the ground, I'd lost 15 pounds over the course of shooting just from hard work. And I had an acting teacher who had said things like, "You have to train for this job like a like an athlete in terms of not only your talent, but your physicality." And I'm not saying you need to look a certain way or be a certain weight, but you have to be prepared for the exhaustion and the physical effort it takes because especially that project where I had no I couldn't make sound, the walking meditation that I was in, the mental focus that I needed to be completely constrained in my vocal work but utterly free in all other ways was I couldn't like now I'd be like that seems like a lot of work give this to another actress cuz it was it was just an insane amount of work to try to find freedom and complete containment and um that I think changed me as an actor. Those two things, the realization of how hard this can actually be and how much joy that brings for me. It's funny to to springboard off of of Hush, which as you said was was a was an exercise in minimal dialogue. You're [snorts] now the the deliverer of some of the most memorable monologues of the past couple of years. It's the Life After Death from Midnight Mass. You contain multitudes. Life of Chuck. It's what this sort of Flanigan thing has has brought us. So, a lot of people who listen to the show are actors and monologues are just a massive part of your life, whether it's auditions or, you know, just the idea of them, the the the scariness of them. So, I'm curious just from a straightforward standpoint, what is your monologue prep? What is your monologue process? - What does it mean to you to you to do a monologue? - That's a great question. Um, yes, I get hired to do many page monologues about dead babies all the time. That's like the thing. The other that's that's the other thing I'm always curious about is like what does it look like on the page, you know, because I've seen scripts and it's like is it just does it just keep going? - Just keeps going. - It just keeps going and and like he'll because you know when you're writing a script for an executive to read or for somebody who doesn't have a lot of time and they're they're kind of skimming because that's what they do. you try to break it up and so it would be chunk of dialogue and then kind of an arbitrary she size chunk of dialogue like the sunlight blah blah blah just so you don't get overwhelmed but you know when I start my process because I got my BFA at Syracuse and Syracuse and the track I was on was very Shakespeare heavy and I went did my semester abroad in London very Shakespeare heavy and so that's where my monologue stuff comes from all of those Shakespeareans like the all the basic soliloquis and we studied them and how to take that language and make it accessible but without giving away the structure right you have aiamic pentameter that you are connected to and if you break that it better be for a really good reason but within that it has to feel in the moment and that's hard work and that's good a good practice for all these monologues so my process started there which is that I just you know the the wrote weightlifting of it I write it out without any punctuation in my own handwriting. No stage directions, nothing. Just straight dialogue through. That's the first way I get it into my body. And then I take a walk and I do it while I take a walk. And then I walk and I walk and I walk and I walk and I walk. And that's how I get it in my body. And I'm right there. I'm not even making choices. I'm just burying the words, burying them in. And then once it is memorized and I could start it from any place. You give me any word and I can start the monologue from there. I could do it forward. I could do it backwards. And that's the most tedious, boring part. I hate every minute of that. And it it has to be done. I've tried it without it. It doesn't work. So once you've put all the sand in the sandbox, once I've put all the sand in the sandbox, I then get to do the most fun part, which is playing. And I just like think of ridiculous. I do it in a German accent. I do it like a lawyer. I do it like a child. I do it this way or that way. and like random things come up. And what I'm trying to do is connect thought to word so that no matter what happens on the day, I know her thought process, but not the rhythm of speech, if that makes sense. And then as we get closer to shooting it, I start to prepare it in the way you would if you were having a really important conversation in your life. Like, so you think about it in the shower, but you're not actually going like you're not running the lines you're going to say to people. you're kind of thinking about what you're trying to get out of this conversation, what they could possibly do, what you do. And so I'm considering it like a conversation like if I'm going to ask for a promotion, right? Even though the monologue I am giving is about what happens when we die, I'm just really thinking about it as a conversation between me, the person who's listening, whether that is the camera or Zach Guilford, and my own brain, right? Cuz this what I did here is like a very long monologue. The monologue about monologues with me and you, but I'm talking to you and I'm listening to myself and talking and listening. And then on the day I like cross my fingers and I jump off the bridge and see what happens. And then it's up to I stop paying attention to it and I let my director kind of say yes this way, no that way. And I'm just I'm just off. - But it's the sad truth about acting is you can't skip the homework part. you know, you have to do that so that like you just said, when you when you get to the set, you can forget it all and then just do what you do, but you cannot skip the boring, tedious I mean, you can. It's just it's just going to be tough to - I want to put a a an asterisk on that because as a very heady actor, when somebody I'd hear an interview because I would listen to so many interviews as a young actor, when I hear somebody say, "You just forget it. Let it go." That meant nothing to me. I didn't know what that meant. And so to clarify for anybody who is also a heady actor, for me that means I pay more attention to the person I'm talking to than to the choices I'm making. And so I just take all of my focus and I'm reading the micro expressions on my scene partner and trying to see if what I'm doing is actually landing. And by focusing entirely on them, it gets my brain out of my own head. So, it's not so much that I'm forgetting. It's that I'm refocusing because I that doesn't I could never figure out what people meant when they say just let go. Just be free. That always I was like I don't I remember when I when I first started doing these conversations about acting like a question I always would because it just something I couldn't wrap my head around. I was like when you're in this scene like where do you go? Like and I think that's something it's like you don't go anywhere. Like you're still thinking about it. It's it's very hard to describe but it's not forgetting like you said it's - I think refocusing is is a perfect way to put it - and it's the same thing and I just try to keep it as authentic as possible because when I'm having a serious conversation with somebody I don't disappear I am talk even in real life but you're not like really thinking about yourself if you're really having a conversation with someone you're in the moment the sense of self is not at the forefront of your brain you can drop out and think like oh I feel like I have an itch. If I scratch it, will they think that's weird? And that's normal. All characters will think that. All people will think that. If those show up, it's not a failure, but it's about paying attention for me. - I do want to ask because, you know, obviously horror is very important to me. It's it's very important to you. It's it's always so interesting to me that we right now, you know, thanks to these amazing things like obsession and back rooms, the headlines start again that it's like horror is having a moment - where it's it's where to me it's like horror is there is no moment. It is it is always it can't have a moment every year then that means it's not a moment. - Yeah. - I I think of the recognition that stuff, you know, this slow crawl towards like recognizing horror in awards and stuff like that. But as someone who's, you know, been in it from the beginning, you know, what do you see from the other side of of of the the the recognition of horror as genuine performance, you know, like the slow crawl towards respect, basically is is what I'm describing. - Yeah. God, that's hard. You're right. People Every year horror is having a moment. It's finally happening. - No, I don't feel like there's a ton of recognition for the performances in horror. one one will pop every once in a while like Hereditary or Obsession or like something that's undeniable like Get Out or Sinners, you know, that just absolutely destroys every like but it doesn't it feels transient like it just floats through and people don't there's no real respect. But that makes me think, does anybody feel respected as an like it's a very embarrassing thing to do as an actor and you're always feeling like you're clawing towards something and it never makes any sense and it's art so it's messy and there's no linear structure. But I don't think any actor who honestly sits at the other end of your interview process would be like, "Yes, I feel very respected and my storytelling is respected." I don't think that's the goal. I think that happens after the fact. I I think it's just I mean it's just true of of artists. It's it's it's you kind of I don't want to say you have to feel disrespected like that's not a healthy way to live. Don't don't but like there has to be a some sort of I think there's like a word for it like the dissatisfaction - the divine dissatisfaction Martha Graham - that's that's yes the exact the words I was looking for. It's that is that is a big part of of my life. It's it's reframed the the negative part of that which is never feeling quite satisfied. Oh, and it's heartbreaking. Part of that, you know, divine doesn't mean satisfying. Divine means greater than yourself, which can be overwhelming and painful and heartbreaking. And that's part of it, right? I don't think on some level respect in the esoteric sense isn't the goal. Like day-to-day respect, like don't get harassed at work, be treated like a person, join the union, get meal breaks. Yes. But this idea that your art will somehow be held up as a beacon, not the goal. Your art should be true. You should be aiming for truth, not respect. - I I do want to speaking of disrespecting things that I I hold very dear. I do want to talk very briefly about found footage because we are here ostensively to talk about the creep tapes. - Oh, yes. - I I love found footage. It's it's it's a subg genre I really truly love and something I've always been interested in and something that you can speak on as now both a director and an actor is like what are the actual like logistics of shooting found footage you like what what are the challenges of like making that subg genre work because it seems easy which is the - of course I love found footage for so many reasons I also love it because it does the same thing that I was talking about with Hush where it creates small box and that creates a ton of kinetic energy because you are you're working within some very specific boundaries like there are ways you can't cheat you know I believe I am like a purist for found footage and I believe you can't really have score in found footage because unless you turn on a CD player god I'm old on camera otherwise you can't do it like that's a cheat but one of the things I love about it is when you are doing traditional film or TV part of your job as an actor is to ignore the camera, pretend it's not there, and have this authentic moment without the camera there. In found footage, the camera is part of it. You don't have to forget that there's a camera there. And that to me is so much fun because it's very hard to ignore the camera that's directly in front of your face. And so when I can interact with it and play with it and make it part of my world, I feel like I'm allowed to open up a bit more both as a director and as a actor. Having the camera be a part of it is really fun. It makes you think your shots out more. It also creates a sense of fluidity that we don't tend to get when you know you can jump into coverage. And um there's a because the rules are so specific and the structure is so specific and you can't cheat. I think once you accept the full structure, there's a freedom. I don't I find it thrilling. I love directing film footage and I love performing in film footage. I'm like you. It's one of my favorites. - I I do agree that there's there's nothing worse than than halfway through a film footage there being like a score sting and you're like that's well you ruined it. or a camera angle that's truly impossible. Like I'll believe a lot if you just show me someone's arm near the camera, but if you're giving me something that's just not I'm not going to go with you. - I'm I'm very happy to hear that you're a purist as as as many people are. I I am I am curious. you mentioned, you know, that you you directed Stillowway, which was so wonderful. But I also, you know, I you directed an episode of Carrie, which we we can't officially talk much about, unfortunately, because of how when this episode comes out, but I am I am I am curious, you know, like as I said, - this is a podcast for a lot of aspiring creators and aspiring actors and stuff like that. And I'm I'm curious what your takeaways, your biggest takeaways so far have been from making the leap into directing. you know, what what what have what is the the the things that you now that you've you've sort of done it a couple times, like what are you like, okay, now I can add this to my toolbox. This is something I'll be using, not just discovering. - It goes in both ways. So, directing taught me as an actor that I can relax a little bit. As an actor, I was very control-based, like is this okay? And like I got to make sure everything's perfect and like and as I directed, I realized nothing personal actors, what a small part of it you are. And when I if somebody after cut there's a silence, you know, and actors get really anxious cuz they're like that means I did a terrible job and they're talking and they're trying to figure out how to give me a note cuz what they want to say is you're fired but they can't f you know you get all like this starts to spin and 99% of the time the boom was in the shot. The camera move didn't work. The sound was off and we're going can we pull the sound from the other take and do this and do we have to go again? and it's not really about you. And if it is about you as an actor, I'll tell you. I will walk up and I will tell you. And so it gave me I relaxed a little bit as an actor cuz I realized in a real way what a cog I was in a machine and that made me feel safe. Um, and then as a director, what the acting brought to that is when because I think most actors are light control freaks and we spend a lot of time trying to relax and be chill. Like all the actors I want are desperate to be chill. A director doesn't have to be chill. All the way that your brain chews on a story, you can just run with it and you can demand very specific things like, "I don't want cool toned lighting. I want warm tone lighting and like I don't want the camera right there. I need it up a half an inch. This is the And that being able to free that all that stuff was so satisfying and so addictive. people struggle with the the thought of like what does a director do and it's like they have the most opinions you can possibly have and then they tell people to make to bring those opinions to life and that's that's why it all sprouts from there and it's like yes that is hard to put on a resume as what your job is but - that is what it is - as a the things I've noticed as a director that I do I do two things which is I create an idea in my head I tell a story and then my job is to tell that story to other pe other department heads so that they can see what I'm seeing So, I must communicate the tone and the visual of the story so they can then go create on their own. And then once that's done, your job is to answer questions succinctly and confidently over and over and over again. - Absolutely. I do want to ask you about something that I would kick myself if we left this conversation without me asking you. And that is, you know, one of my favorite I was going to say favorite episodes of TV, but one of my favorite just things ever is Two Storms from uh The Haunting of Hill House. I encourage everyone to listen to the the director's commentary for it if you want to hear a man defeated. It is it is the stories that from that sounds insane. And I I do just want to sort of ask, you know, it it did sound like quite the process. So when you look back on that experience, - what pops first for you about about shooting that that whole thing? - Well, that was one of my first times where I had this like split reality, which was that I'm Mike's wife and I'm watching him go through it, but I'm also his actress and I keep those two people very separate in my head. There's a lot of compartmentalization that goes in there because for all the reasons you all can imagine. Um, and it was it was a man defeated. was everyday devastation. I mean, it was a a feat that I just I can say this cuz I'm not him. It is an absolute cruelty. He wasn't given an Emmy for that. It's just a de like just an oversight and it was wrong. And I've never seen anyone work like that and achieve what he achieved. It is psychotic how hard he worked. And as his partner, I was just all I wanted to do was scoop him up and be like, "Don't do it. Just stop. put some coverage in, like it's fine. But he didn't. And I think it's something I'm the most proud of in my career. And then as an actress, it was a blast for us. His he set something up that was like play rehearsal. So you got to rehearse it like a play and then you got to shoot it like a play and you just kind of we danced with the camera a little bit. But they were so supportive to their actors. They set it up so we moved naturally and then they were the ones throwing chairs behind us and we weren't a part of it and they took like the show itself stopped down for months I think just to rehearse that perfectly and then we came in we were shown the way it looks and if someone said well I feel like I might take three steps this way Mike was able to cover the fact that he his whole heart broke when someone said that because they had already set up the lighting and they had done this and so it's another 14 hours of work for you to stand seven degrees to the left. But as an actor, I was fully supported and it was so fun. It was so fun to do. - I love that. It just it is a yearly tradition for us at this point to to to revisit. Not just that, the entire the entire show. It's it's a it's a big one for us in this household. And I do it just thinking of that, it reminds me of, you know, that something that's been so wonderful that people love to talk about is this this growing group of collaborators that you have. And it it it's it's so wonderful to see from like an indie filmmaker perspective cuz it reminds me of like how things work at that level which is like you meet someone you say I think you're cool would you like to do something and then you do something that just sort of compounds. So I just want to ask you know when you again looking back from then till now what it has been for your career to essentially be doing the make movies with your friends thing on a bigger scale like what has that meant to you? How has it helped? How is it hindered? Anything like that? What has it been to you so far? - You know, I take a lot of friendly fire for that. A lot of she gets this part cuz she's his wife, which is not entirely untrue. And so that hurts. And I I wrestle with that and then I have to kind of ignore it cuz even if it is true, like what am I supposed to do about that? Like I want to I don't know. Like I don't know how I'm supposed to internalize that. But I hear it a lot. I feel it in the industry as a whole and I'm very sensitive and sort of insecure about that that part of it that I don't know if like Sam Sloan or Rahul feel the same way. I don't know how the other collaborators wrestle with that in the if it's similar or different from the way that I Yeah. It's like it's it's the angel I wrestle with at night cuz it's also my whole career is is that but it's also my biggest insecurity. Um so that's like the most vulnerable part of it. But the other part of it is you're right. I get to make movies with my friends. And so if I can get myself in a place where I don't care what other people think, I'm living the life I imagined and the life I dreamed about. But it comes with this 3:00 a.m. desperation that I don't think is is rare to me because I believe that if it wasn't this, I would be 3:00 a.m. heartbroken about something else. What do they think about me? What does it mean? Am I good enough? Am I authentically here? Do I deserve this? I don't think that's a me individual fear. Mine just happens to be tied with what I read on Reddit. - [gasps and sighs] - I should just stop. [snorts] - Get off there. - I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. You're right. You're right. - I I hope you know that the the work does speak for itself. And I do I do know that I know how hard it is to sort of, you know, spend a day talking about yourself. So, I do like to end these conversations with, you know, by asking you if there's anything any performance you've seen recently that truly sparked something in you, was inspiring in some way, set a bar, memorable, anything at all. any performance you've seen recently that sticks out. - You and I will have this in common. Samantha Slayan and Carrie. - Yeah. - That changed me as an artist. Watching it happen on the day and watching her create that in real time and then watching the show, her work in that show is so stunning and so nuanced. Same with Summer Howell. to step into those parts and let go of everything you know about the zeitgeist of Carrie and recreate those individuals under that kind of pressure being like Sam had never been that high up on the call sheet before and Summer had never like on a TV show especially like and Summer had never been the number one led a TV show and to watch the two of them step into that as artists and then the art they created it was bec became a new north star for me watching them do that and I'm just so blown away by both of their work. - Absolutely. Well, I'm very excited to maybe one day discuss actually get into Carrie and everything down the road, you know, exorcist. - Fingers crossed Dark Tower one day. We will see. But for now, this was such a pleasure, Kate. This was this was so wonderful. Thank you so much. - You too. Thanks. Thanks [music] as always to our brilliant producer Jamie Muffet, and to the whole team at Backstage, Samantha Sherlock, Mark Stinson, Caitlyn Watkins, and of course [music] Casey How. Visit backstage.com, and don't forget you can subscribe to Backstage with Envelope at checkout for a [music] free trial. 100% free. You simply cannot beat that. For more exclusive [music] content, find us on Facebook and Twitter, in the envelope, and subscribe, share, and leave a comment. Who should we interview next? Let us know. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time for [music] another Peek in the envelope.