The Pope's Exorcist star Alex Essoe talks about her life in horror

Alex Essoe has appeared in an array of horror projects from 2014's twisted Hollywood tale Starry Eyes to director Mike Flanagan's The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep, as well as three of Flanagan's TV shows (2020's The Haunting of Bly Manor, 2021's Midnight Mass, 2022's The Midnight Club). Even so, the actress admits she is not a fan of every genre release.

"I like some types of horror movies," she says. "I've never been good with slashers and campy gratuitous stuff. There are some exceptions, but it's really hard for me to watch people die for no reason. I always think, 'Oh my god, these people have a family, and dreams, and loved ones, and they're being killed just because they had sex!' I don't begrudge people for liking those movies at all, it's just hard for me. Even the horror I have done, I've tried to go for more alternative things, alternative themes, something that has an idea behind it."

Essoe's latest horror movie is The Pope's Exorcist, in theaters this weekend. The actress plays a mother of two who inherits a haunted abbey in Spain and partners with Russell Crowe's Father Gabriele Amorth to save the soul of her son.

"The Pope's Exoricst is a dramatization of an amalgam of events that were experienced by the real Father Gabriele Amorth," says Essoe. "This is a dramatized version of things he's written about, where my son is possessed by this very high level demon, and it's such an intense problem that word of it makes it all the way to Rome and the Pope, who enlists the help of Gabriele Amorth to come and perform an exorcism."

Essoe talks more about her life in horror below.

Starry Eyes (2014)

In her breakthrough role, Essoe plays an aspiring actress who risks everything, including her soul, to be cast in a movie made by the mysterious, in retrospect, rather Miramax-esque Astraeus Pictures.

"It's still something that I'm incredibly proud of, not just because of the work I got to do, which was great, but I just loved the themes of it so much," she recalls, noting how soon after the MeToo movement would spark. "It was so crazy how ahead of its time it was. I'm really proud of it for that, as well."

Tales of Halloween (2015)

The actress appeared alongside director Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, Dolls) and Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, You're Next) in her segment of the Halloween-set horror anthology, which she remembers was "like walking on air."

"I was so happy that I got to meet Stuart Gordon before he passed, which was very sad, because he's one of my favorite directors," Essoe says. "He also comes from the theater, like myself. It was really nice to be able to talk to him on that level. Also, Dolls is one of my favorite horror movies, maybe ever, so I got to geek out about that."

Red Island (2018)

Essoe and Georgie Daburas play a couple tormented by mysterious forces on a remote island in this low-budget project.

"I remember being cold the whole time," Essoe says. "We shot that with a crew of like, five people, myself included. It was very much a trial of wills for sure."

Doctor Sleep (2019)

Director Mike Flanagan tasked the actress with matching one of the horror genre's most famous performances, Shelley Duvall's Wendy Torrance from Stanley Kubrick's 1980 movie version of Stephen King's The Shining. Essoe appeared as Wendy in Doctor Sleep, which adapted King's 2013 sequel novel and paid homage to Kubrick's work.

"It was a total pinch myself moment, because The Shining is one of my favorite Kubrick films," Essoe recalls. "And Mike, being so respectful of source material and fans, it was very important for him to recreate the interior of the Overlook exactly, with the same materials, and the same color palette, and the same everything. It really was amazing to be able to walk through the Overlook Hotel, and go in to Room 237 and that bathroom, and I had a whiskey in the Gold Room, and I threw a tennis ball against the side of the Colorado Lounge. Even on my off days, I would go and hang out on set. I have my own filmmaking aspirations, so I'd shadow Mike and just observe. The cast was incredible too. It really was a masterclass in filmmaking, being there, and watching it all go down."

Death of Me (2020)

A sort of horror version of The Hangover, this movie from Darren Bousman (multiple Saw movies) starred Maggie Q and Luke Hemsworth as a couple who discover they have a gap in their memories after renting an Airbnb in Thailand from Essoe's character.

"Darren Bousman is a hilarious and wonderful human being. He's so funny, I hope I get to work with him on something else," Essoe says. "We shot in Thailand, which, I'm not going to lie, is just an amazing perk — incredibly warm people, beautiful, I could live there tomorrow. And I got to work with Maggie Q, who is such a force of nature. I've never met anyone who has their s--- together so much. It was inspiring. Because I'm a mess! It's like, I'm an artist! There's a reason I don't work in an office! I learned a lot working with her."

The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020) / Midnight Mass (2021) / The Midnight Club (2021)

Following Doctor Sleep, Essoe reteamed with Flanagan on a trio of creepy TV shows, playing the deceased mother of two orphan children in The Haunting of Bly Manor, an elderly woman stricken by dementia in vampire tale Midnight Mass, and a hitchhiker in Flanagan's Christoper Pike adaptation The Midnight Club.

"Mike always gives me something challenging to do," Essoe says of her frequent collaborator. "He always gives me something outside of my comfort zone and something that I haven't explored before. I find myself incredibly flattered by that, that he would trust me with these characters that are so off the beaten path and are such a challenge. I definitely feel like I have grown as an actor, having worked with him."

The Pope's Exorcist (2023)

Essoe visited Ireland to shoot The Pope's Exorcist, the Crowe-starring tale of priests and demons from Overlord director Julius Avery. The actress refers to Crowe as "the Richard Burton of our time."

"I didn't know that he was the lead in the movie until after I got the job. I had no idea," she says. "It was quite the surprise. I don't know if 'unnerving' is necessarily the word but it is surreal, certainly, because Russell Crowe is very much the type of actor that I aspire to be. He really is a true artist and a true master and there really aren't a lot like him. We played tennis and, on the last day, we all got little trophies that he had made. It was really cool."

The Pope's Exorcist is now playing in theaters.

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