The actor speaks exclusively to RadioTimes.com about the new horror film, her upcoming lead role in Outlander prequel Blood of My Blood and the cancellation of Pennyworth.
“It’s an exciting time for horror movies right now – they’re having a real resurgence,” rising star Harriet Slater tells RadioTimes.com, days before her own exciting new horror film, Tarot, arrives in cinemas.
“I saw Immaculate last week, and it was so much fun,” she says of the recent Sydney Sweeney-starring smash, and adds that she’ll watch a horror movie whenever she gets the chance.
“The ones that really scare me are the ones based in real stories, like Midsommar, because it almost could be real,” she laughs. “That film really scared me; I couldn’t watch it again!”
Last summer, Slater, who has appeared in DC’s Pennyworth and Julian Fellowes’s lush period drama Belgravia, filmed two horror films back-to-back in Serbia.
Before filming on Tarot commenced, she also shot The Haunting in Wicker Park with Stranger Things star Jamie Campbell Bower – a film that’s due to arrive in cinemas later this year.
“I spent months doing long night shoots,” she laughs, saying she became nocturnal after spending six months filming on deserted streets and in old, abandoned houses.
“It could be quite draining emotionally, because I was in a heightened state of terror for a long while,” she recalls. “I remember for three days straight I just ran around these houses screaming and crying: it was exhausting!
“But I love making horror movies… you get to scream as loud as you want without people thinking you’re a weirdo! It was also quite cathartic, too, because in real life, you never really get to release emotion in that way.”
Work on the two began around the same time Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was released – a film she appeared in briefly as a New Yorker called Fran, alongside Harrison Ford and her “hero” Phoebe Waller-Bridge. “I love Fleabag,” she gushes, “it’s one of my favourite shows of all time.” Slater says work on the film was “an incredible experience”.
“It was just amazing to be on a set of that size and to be a part of something that is so nostalgic for a lot of people. It was just surreal opening the door to Harrison Ford over and over again and slamming it in his face,” she laughs of her scene with the legendary actor.
“I had a chat with Harrison and he was just so cool. He was so much fun, and I really learned a lot from the experience.”
While that was hitting cinemas last summer, Slater was filming Tarot. Directed by Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg, it’s based on the book Horrorscope by Nicholas Adams, and Slater plays a teenager called Hayley who can read tarot cards.
“It’s about a group of college kids who go away for the weekend; they rent an Airbnb and discover a deck of tarot cards in this huge, old house,” Slater explains.
“Everyone convinces my character to do Tarot readings for everyone, because she’s really into that, but she doesn’t want to because the sacred rule of tarot is that you don’t use someone else’s deck of cards.”
Her friends persuade her to read them anyway. “They all start dying in ways that are connected to the readings she did,” Slater continues. “The deck was cursed, obviously,” she laughs.
The film’s trailer nods to the untimely deaths of the characters. “The hair, make-up and costuming were amazing,” she explains. “It wasn’t added in post, and there’s no special effects – it was all done with real actors chasing us about in incredible body make-up. It felt like you really were being chased around by a demonic figure!”
The filming at Wicker Park felt even more intense, Slater says, on account of its creepy background that’s based on a real-life exorcism that aired on American television in 1971.
“It was very, very scary to watch the original footage,” Slater explains. “I actually had a moment during shooting where I like, ‘Oh god, this is a real story and if these are real ghosts and you do believe in that kind of thing, what if they’re not happy with us?!’” she laughs.
“It can be a little bit disturbing. This film did stay with me, but I think that’s also the sign of a film well done.”
After filming ended, Slater had a brief break before it was announced earlier this year that she’d been cast in the new Outlander prequel Blood of My Blood. Slater is currently on set in a wild and windy Scotland, where she’s now weeks into filming the highly anticipated new show.
What’s it been like becoming a part of the Outlander universe? “The fans have been incredible already,” Slater says of the reaction she received when news of her casting was shared. “I’ve not really experienced such an outpouring like that before. It’s really cool going into something like this that has a really established fanbase.”
Filming on the show will continue until at least July, she says. “It’s a long shoot. I think it’s so nice that we have the solid foundation of Outlander, but it has an entirely new cast and feels very much like its own thing. We have the same team as Outlander and we film in the same building, but aside from that, our paths don’t really cross much at all.
“But Caitríona Balfe [who plays Claire in the original series] did come to set the other week and it was really lovely to meet her. She came and said hello to everyone and was checking how we were all doing. She seemed excited by the whole thing.”
She continues: “The new show focuses on the love story of Jamie Frasier’s parents, Ellen and Brian, who live in 1700s Scotland, and Claire’s parents, who live in the 1900s, so close to the onset of World War One. The two love stories run parallel to each other.
“I love period dramas – I was a huge fan of Downton Abbey growing up and loved filming Belgravia – and here it’s like two period dramas at once. Going on set each day is like travelling back in time. You’re on location and everyone just looks like an 18th-century highlander – it’s amazing,” she laughs.
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Slater says she loves filming in Scotland, even though they had snow recently on what should have been the first week of spring.
“The weather is wild up here! You can have every season in a day, but I love Scotland so much and we just get to travel to these incredible locations and shoot in the most beautiful places imaginable.
“I’m a huge castle nerd, so looking around some of the places we’ve been to has been a treat. We’re battered by the elements but it’s very good at making you feel very immersed in the world that you’re in.”
Slater is no stranger to working on sets for long periods, after filming Pennyworth previously. “You do almost become a bit like family, you see each other way more than you do your actual family. You get so close, and it’s nice coming back to something time and time again because you feel like you really get to know your character and grow with them.
“With the Outlander crew, it’s been like 10 years for them – it must feel really strange for them filming the final season after it being a part of their lives for the last decade.”
Pennyworth was recently cancelled, and Slater says she’s aware of how precarious a landscape it can be in television currently.
“People were gutted it got cancelled,” she says. “It was sad when it ended because I feel like we never really got to wrap it up. It ended on a cliff-hanger, [but] the nature of the business these days is that you don’t know if you’re going to get another season or not.
“I wished we have had one more season to have a bit of closure with the characters. So much of that was filmed over the pandemic – we never even had a wrap party: we were robbed!”
Right now, she’s on a short break in between filming. How is she spending that? “I’m watching Outlander,” she laughs. “I’m almost there – I’m on the final season now! It’s just nice to immerse yourself in this world and I’m finding it really helpful.”
And when she’s done with that? Watching more horror films. “Oh, I’ll be back to watching Twilight again,” she laughs. “It’s my go-to if I need comfort!”
Tarot is now showing in UK cinemas.