Vivien Lyra Blair burst onto the scene at five years old in the hit film Bird Box. She followed that with a star-making turn as a young Leia Organa in last year’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. At only 11 years old, she now plays a convincingly terrified young girl in the film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Boogeyman.
In order to get everyone comfortable on the horror movie set, director Rob Savage worked in two weeks of rehearsals before filming. “We went to the aquarium, and we went bowling, and we ate some food,” according to Chris Messina, who plays Vivien’s father in the film. “By the time we got to set, there was so much love and trust, and we had become a family.”
“I thought the aquarium trip was really fun, that was really awesome,” agrees Vivien. She even picked up a stuffed alligator during the trip that she named after her director.
“I think Sawyer is this really complex character because you start the movie seeing her as this little girl who’s terrified of the dark and is just a little bit of a scaredy cat,” says Vivien. “Sawyer really gets to come through as this courageous, heroic little girl who goes through so much in this period of a week, and she comes out stronger for it. And it’s just such an incredible character arc. And she’s just one of my
favorite characters I’ve ever played.”
To keep Vivien from being too frightened when she saw the film for the first time, Savage provided her with a special gift. “Me and everyone on the VFX team, we didn’t want Viv to not be able to watch the movie, so, as prep, we gave her the Boogeyman head.”
That present is now part of her home’s decor. “It’s now wearing a bucket hat and a scarf in our living room,” according to Vivien.
That was just one of the things the cast and crew did to make sure Vivien was always comfortable on set. “I like to joke that when the movie is scarier, the people are nice to you on set because they know they’re
being scary in the movie. Especially actors who play scarier characters, they want to be as nice to you as possible in real life, to kind of even that out.”
You can watch The Boogeyman in theaters now.