Behind the scenes of Mia Goth's extraordinary performance in X

Warning: This article contains spoilers about the new horror film X.

Readers who have seen director Ti West's new '70s-set horror film X are probably aware that actress Mia Goth plays two roles in the movie. The A Cure for Wellness actress is instantly recognizable as Maxine, a self-described "sex symbol" who stars in the adult film-within-the-film The Farmer's Daughter. But Goth looks less like her usual self in her role of Pearl, a much-older woman with a halo of gray, frizzy hair who, with her husband Howard (Stephen Ure), menaces the porn film's cast and crew.

Goth didn't know that she was being considered to play both parts when she initially perused West's screenplay.

"The first time I read the script, I wasn't aware of that, and then I read it for a second time and my mind was just blown," she says. "I just had a totally different perspective on the film and what it was about and what it was exploring. It was really exciting. The fact that I was going to play two characters, that I was going to play Maxine and Pearl, that was really interesting to me."

West shot X in New Zealand and was able to call upon the expertise of the renowned special effects company Weta Workshop when the time came to transform Goth into the older Pearl.

"We had the Weta studios in charge of overseeing everything and they're really just so incredibly skilled at what they do," says Goth. "I got to New Zealand, and we had a month of prep before we ever started shooting, and you don't often get that. We were trying to explore different options and some days we would push it really far and that wasn't really as interesting to me, looking so much like a stereotypical horror monster-villain. Then we scaled it back and when she became a little more human that clicked more for everyone. The first two weeks was just [me] as Maxine, which was helpful because it takes about a good five days to understand what the film is and how everything is going. So by the time we got to Pearl, everyone was very comfortable with each other and we were all definitely on the same page at that point. I've never done prosthetics like that, it's a good ten hours in a chair, it's long days, but it ultimately all informs the performance really and the weight that comes with that tiredness."

Goth particularly enjoyed shooting the scenes in which she appears as both Maxine and Pearl.

"I loved it actually," she says. "We would shoot the scene over the course of two days, and one day I would be Maxine and do that coverage, and the following day I would go in with my make-up and we would shoot that side of the scene. It just felt like play the entire time and because you're not working off a different actor you can kind of really go inward. You're not having to wait and hear what they're doing and observe and move according to whatever their work is. You just can be in your own head and create whatever it is you want. It was a lot of fun."

Goth's previous films include Luca Guadagnino's 2018 remake of Suspiria, in which Tilda Swinton pulled off a similar feat, playing both a ballet instructor and an older doctor who happens to be male. Did the X actress ask her former costar for advice about approaching two performances?

"No, I didn't ask her for any advice, but that did cross my mind," says Goth, who also stars in West's forthcoming already-shot X prequel Pearl. "I was so blown away by her. I think she's such an extraordinary actress and just watching her on the set of Suspiria, I felt like I learned a lot. I thought if I could do a fraction of what it is that she's able to achieve on Suspiria then we might be in good standing."

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