Allison Williams has emerged as one of our premier popcorn movie genre queens. With unforgettable turns in Get Out and The Perfection, Williams can now add a burgeoning franchise to her list of credits with Blumhouse and Universal Pictures' M3GAN 2.0, hitting theaters this week. Picking up two years after the first film's conclusion, the sequel sees Gemma (Williams) emerging from her showdown with the titular companion robot run-amuck as an author advocating for the strict regulation of artificial intelligence.
But when the technology Gemma invented is stolen by a defense contractor for the creation of a military robot called AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno), Gemma's niece, Cady (Violet McGraw) convinces her that it's time to reactivate M3GAN to take on the superpowered artificial intelligence. FANGORIA sat down with Williams to discuss this bigger, sassier, more action-oriented sequel, what the series can teach us about parenting in the AI age, and why it's worth catching M3GAN 2.0 on the big screen.
You're no stranger to the genre, but would you consider yourself a horror fan?
Oh, what a complicated question! Here's the deal: I'm actually a real wimp. I'm super sensitive to horror. I can't really watch horror movies without it impacting my sleep for weeks at a time. I have to be really careful, and my favorite place to watch a horror movie is on an airplane because there's so much ambient activity that it feels safer for me. It doesn't feel like I'm going to get as wrapped up in it and feel like I'm in the movie with everybody.
That said, I'm in awe of horror movies. When I can watch them, I'm in awe of their ability to build tension and to talk about character and story in ways that are really nuanced and fresh. Themes that are heavy-handed can feel very different in the context of horror. I feel very lucky to get to make movies in this genre. So, I'm a fan of making horror movies, for sure. Watching them, I'm also a fan, but I have a restricted diet based on a need to be able to sleep at night.
Were you at all surprised by the reaction to the first M3GAN?
I guess? It's weird because I really do so few things – when I sign on to something, I do it because I think there might be a chance for it to have a big life and resonance with the broader culture. I haven't always been right, but I've been able to anticipate it a few times, and M3GAN was one of those where I felt like it had that same magical mixture that Get Out did, where it was [based in] a cultural conversation that my friends were having ad nauseam about their kids' relationship to tech and AI, and yet weren't able to talk about it with a lot of context.
It was something they were quietly worried about but not voicing yet totally, so this felt like something that, again, like Get Out, gave language to it. Also, adding humor and these other elements – I knew it would help contribute to its success and its ability to be enjoyed and consumed in a way that didn't feel like homework.
Because of my experience with Jordan Peele, I learned about horror as a vehicle for larger themes that are usually treated much more seriously and characters that are usually leveled out into one dimension, and I was immediately addicted to that formula. I felt when I read the script for M3GAN that it had the potential to do the same thing.
The big question with that was tone, and we had to smooth some things out with the first movie because it was quite a feat to pull it off logistically. Once I saw the first movie, I realized that the tonal execution worked. Then, when I saw the trailer and realized that marketing had been able to translate the tone, I thought, “We really stand a chance of this making its mark!”
It was really thrilling to watch people embrace it, make it their own, take it and run with it. I couldn't have anticipated the degree [of impact it would have], you know? Like Drew Barrymore crawling on her hands and knees towards me? RuPaul? All those things…
M3GAN 2.0 is your first time working on a sequel. Was it a nice feeling to be able to have that reunion with everyone and get back in the saddle with something familiar?
I have never done a sequel to anything before. The closest I've ever come to [that feeling] was Girls. It's part of the Blumhouse/Atomic Monster best practices to reserve a week down the line to finish the movie because you learn so much in this genre from testing [with audiences], and I kept mistakenly referring to the additional photography we did at the end of the movie [in terms of seasons of Girls]. It's like season one was the principal photography for the first movie. Season two was the additional. Season three was principal. Season four was the additional. [Laughs]
It was so lovely to be back in New Zealand with so much of the same crew. We were really honored that so many people joined us again. These are tough movies to make: They require a lot of creative thinking and collaboration. And even just bringing M3GAN herself to life requires the collaboration of many people simultaneously.
The fact that so many people wanted to come back for more was a true testament to the collective commitment to telling the story. It also just made it feel like home. It had such familial, familiar energy to it. Getting to be in the same character and in the same tonal world in a completely different genre was so fun, and it is also so fun to think about going forward. If we're lucky enough to make more, what other genres can we go play in? Like, let's really have fun with this!
You spoke a bit about the themes that drew you to M3GAN. Though both films are directed by Gerard Johnstone, the first was written by Akela Cooper, while M3GAN 2.0 is all his. Can you tell me about what he was interested in exploring here in the sequel?
Gerard is a dad, and his kids' relationship to technology and AI plagues him. But, the core question and curiosity is something we all think about: “Am I doing a good job as a parent?” Once you have a kid, it's an obsession, it's a day-to-day check-in [with yourself], and the answer changes hour to hour, minute to minute. That's at the core of both movies.
With M3GAN 2.0 we wanted to talk about parenthood again, it just has a different gloss on it this time. In the first movie, it was Gemma's misapplication of this new technology as a parenting tool, and in this movie, it's saying, “What is your responsibility to the things that you are responsible for?”
I know that sounds tautological, but what do you owe an algorithm you brought to life? What do you owe a child that you have custody of? What is your responsibility to those beings? And how do you responsibly send them into a world that is a hostile environment for them? How do you instill them with the values they need to be good, functional members of society?
Questions like that. I know it sounds crazy in the context of these movies, but that really is the soup that we were all swimming in as we were thinking through the beats of this movie. That was the subject area that we were curious about.
This is a much more action-oriented sequel. Was that a challenge for you?
I enjoyed my work forcing me to train physically for something because, left to my own devices, I do not like strength training or working out in that way. The fact that I had to do it for work somehow tripped some wire in a work ethic thing and then made me want to do it. Then the minute it was done, I stopped. [Laughs] I loved being like, “Can I do a Cobra Rise?” Then just trying one and being like, “I guess I can.” That felt very empowering and cool.
The thing I hated the least was learning how to box, and then we ended up having to cut a scene where I was boxing! We just had too much movie. I'm sad that it's not in the movie. It's also not enough of a scene to be included in “deleted scenes” or something, so, I just boxed in front of the crew for myself at some point during the making of the movie. [Laughs]
What do you hope audiences take away from the film?
I really hope people feel entertained. There's a lot of content out there. It feels like there are a lot of competing, really good options for where our attention should go, whether that's a movie theater purchase or something to watch at home. Putting something else out into the world feels like a big responsibility to me still, and it feels like it has to pass a lot of quality control tests in our internal system.
We all, (the M3GAN family), feel super proud and really into this movie. I love watching it. I've seen it so many times now and so many iterations. It feels like a real testament to the movie that I still enjoy it when it begins, and I'm already excited to see it again at the premiere.
Asking someone to leave home to see something feels like its own milestone and level of quality control. That has intensified during the course of my career, certainly, since I started out making content for television. Girls was positioned as, “it's not TV, it's HBO!” It was TV technically, but it was special. Now you can get anything you want and watch it on your TV.
None of this is revolutionary, but asking someone to get a sitter, buy tickets, maybe get concessions, or have the fortitude to walk past a concession stand at a movie theater and not get anything…it feels like a tall order. For my husband and I to go out to a movie on any night of the week? It's a big deal. You have to deal with the fact that movie times are often terrible bedtime timing, where you're leaving at the end of the kid's dinner, and it's just the worst time to say goodbye to your toddler. There are a lot of barriers to exit in order to enter a movie theater.
That's like my own little litmus test: Tonight, I'm doing Colbert. Can I sit on the couch and say to that audience and to the people watching later, “It is worth going to see this movie?” I feel very proud to say that I feel strongly that the answer is yes.
Everyone says this, so it has lost its meaning, but this movie is fun to watch in a theater with other people because it is an out loud, interactive experience where there are waves of response to certain sequences that are best enjoyed around other people. When I was little, when I was dreaming of making movies, I always imagined them someday being in theaters because of that collective experience.
I'm hoping that people will feel like they got their money's worth and their time's worth and that they feel really entertained. Then, once the giggling has died off and the creep factor of M3GAN has worn off, they'll start thinking a little bit about the way they use AI, maybe. That would be a really perfect outcome!
M3GAN 2.0 is in theaters June 27.
