Alisha Weir has had a more varied career than most adults. Two years ago, aged twelve, the young Irish actor played the adorable lead in Matilda: The Musical. Now, she returns to our screens in a role that couldn’t be more different: as the murderous vampiric Abigail. Abigail is in UK cinemas from 19 April.
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00:00 You're kind of sitting next to the poster with Alicia in the middle.
00:03 I know she's very, very talented actress, but sometimes you don't know,
00:06 especially with a with a movie that the hook is, you know, the young girl who's going to be a
00:10 vampire. When did you know that she was perfect for the role and could kind of take that on and
00:15 and be both a scary and funny presence and kind of have all those facets?
00:20 As soon as we met her, legitimately. Like we we had a lot of nerves about casting that role because
00:28 everything you're saying. And then, you know, our our casting director was like, Hey, you guys should
00:34 look at Alicia, watch Matilda. And we watched Matilda and we're pretty blown away because it's
00:39 like so charmed by that. She's so good in it. And and then we met her on Zoom and she was so she was
00:47 so nice as a human, which is always our first thing. We just want good people to work with,
00:51 you know, she was so lovely. And then her audition was so good and so gripping and scary
01:00 that all of us started texting each other during it saying, Oh, we found Abigail. This is she's
01:05 got to play. She's got to play Abigail. And then the funniest part was, is that it turns out she
01:09 lives in Dublin, which is where we're going to shoot. So it made it even easier and wonderful.
01:12 So serendipitous. And then the first day on set, she showed up and we still have those nerves
01:16 because we haven't actually been on set with her yet. And the first day she showed up on set
01:20 with after one take, Tyler and I were like, Oh, great. Like, she's got us.
01:27 What was it like seeing yourself with all the kind of vampire makeup on for the first time?
01:32 I imagine it must have been quite a shock.
01:34 When I first looked in the mirror, I was I wasn't scared, but I think I was more
01:39 shocked because I looked very different and especially the teeth. I think the teeth really
01:44 like make Abigail, Abigail. And I mean, her spiky her teeth and everything got definitely got
01:51 was strange at the start and I had to get used to it. But by the end, I was so used to all the
01:55 blood and the tutu and everything. You know, it was just like normal for me transforming myself
02:00 into this crazy character. But I know when my friends seen the trailer, they were all
02:05 shocked. I think I was getting messages like, I don't think I could see you the same,
02:09 Alicia. You look so different.
02:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]