Mike Flanagan and The Midnight Club Cast Talk Playing Multiple Roles and Hidden Easter Eggs
Mike Flanagan returns with his next Netflix horror series The Midnight Club, based off the books of Christopher Pike. With vibes of Red Band Society and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, the show follows a group of terminally ill teens living in a hospice who meet at midnight to tell scary stories and look for signs of life after death. I spoke with the cast and creatives at New York Comic Con about tackling multiple genres in the stories the characters tell, hidden Easter eggs, and more.
What makes The Midnight Club so unique is that not only are the actors portraying the members of the club, but they’re also playing multiple roles in bringing the characters in their stories to life. “It was a dream for any actor,” gushed Annarah Cymone. Co-creator Leah Fong shared with me that telling all these stories allowed them to tackle various genres. “It visually enabled us to riff on some of our favorite things,” she said. “There’s [David] Fincher references, film noir, [and even] Terminator.”
The actors praised the costuming, hair, and makeup teams on the series. “Being able to play these different kinds of roles… I go from a cheerleader to a dead girl to a ghost to a very rock ‘n roll grunge girl. There’s a bunch of different varieties,” said Aya Furukawa, while Ruth Codd revealed she even stole some things from the set: “I have some of Anya’s pajamas and I have some of her rings that ‘went missing.’”
“It’s a lot to ask for in my first project, but I think Mike [Flanagan] really sets the scene for all of these stories,” shared Sauriyan Sapkota, with Igby Rigney confirming: “It’s wonderful to be able to play multiple roles and characters because that’s not something you get to do in a show very often.”
Not only was it an exciting stretch for the actors, but it also gave us more insight into the characters they were playing. “I had a lot of fun seeing how other characters perceived [my character] and how he fit into their stories,” said Chris Sumpter.
Codd was another newcomer to the acting space, having grown a following online as a disability activist. “I feel like I haven’t seen a lot of disabled characters on TV where the main point of focus isn’t their disability,” she said. “It was really an honor to have such a good character.”
The young cast even got a chance to work opposite some regulars in the Flanaverse, seen in his other projects like The Haunting Of Hill House, The Haunting Of Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass. “I spend a lot of time with Zach Gilford and he honestly became my best friend on set. He’s just too funny,” said Sumpter. Furukawa shared that he cracked jokes all the time on set: “It got to a point where the editors thought some of his lines were real, but they were just jokes he made on camera.”
Sapkota’s story had him acting with Rahul Kohli and he revealed he was pretty “intimidated” to work opposite him. “Rahul is a generous and kind actor and I looked up to him beforehand. I watched him in iZombie and loved him in that,” he shared. “He was just everything I hoped he was, but even better. He acted like a big brother and was very supportive. […] He was a hand to hold.”
And now many of these young actors — specifically Rigney, Codd, Sapkota, and Adia — are headed back to the Flanaverse as Mike Flanagan shares they have “significant roles” in his next project The Fall of the House of Usher. “It’s always about whether there’s a good fit with the character and whether they’re available. One of my favorite things about our group of actors is when they’re not available because they’re booked one something else. It’s always sad, but I love when that’s the reason we don’t have them,” he said, championing his actors.
Flanagan is known for both his recurring actors and his hidden Easter eggs. The Occulus Mirror has been seen in nearly all of his projects since the original film came out — and it is hidden in The Midnight Club as well. “The basement is the place to look,” hinted Rigney.
“There are voice cameos of other actors. There are hidden people from the Flanaverse,” teased Fong, followed by Flanagan revealing them to be Hamish Linklater, Carla Gugino, and Kate Siegel. “All three appear in the show, but no one has found them yet.”
Flanagan shared some other fun pop culture references they hid throughout the season. “There’s some overt references to some of my favorite movies and music from the 90s. My favorite joke thats’ been in anything we’ve ever gotten to do — a Die Hard joke — is in the show. We stuck a Die Hard poster in the frame just for that shot. Its’ never seen again in the show. It just appears on the wall for one line. It was really hard to get permission, but I'm really proud of that,” he said. “There's always a little Stephen King stuff sprinkled in, but for the most part it was all just [Christopher] Pike. It's all just trying to throw as many Pike references in there.”
The Midnight Club is streaming on Netflix. See my review, below:
