Maika Monroe is going from “scream queen” to big-budget screen.
The 23-year-old actress made her film debut in 2012 alongside Zac Efron in “At Any Price,” and has since made a name for herself in indie horror flicks “The Guest” and “It Follows.” Now, she’s starring in her first summer blockbuster: “Independence Day: Resurgence.” The movie, reportedly made with a $200 million budget, marks her biggest role yet. Monroe plays a now-grown-up Patricia Whitmore, the first daughter of the President of the U.S. in the original 1996 film.
We caught up with Monroe before “Resurgence’s” Friday release to talk about working on a studio movie, acting alongside Liam Hemsworth, and what she’s working on next. With six movies already in post-production, expect to see a lot more of this up-and-comer.
WWD: What drew you to this role?
Maika Monroe: Well I was a huge fan of the original one. My dad showed it to me when I was about 10 years old. I always loved what Roland [Emmerich, the director] did with it and [how he] brought comedy to this kind of insane situation. Just the characters I feel are so iconic, with Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum, so when I heard that they were making another one, I was super excited and then on top of that, my character works in the White House and also is a fighter pilot, which is very, very cool.
WWD: What was filming like? I imagine “Independence Day” was much larger in scale.
M.M.: Oh yeah, just the tiniest bit (laughs). I mean it’s a whole different pace to the very “YouTube-y,” indie world. This is a whole different beast, but I mean it’s incredible. You walk onto these sets, with these massive ships, but there’s something really fun about it because it’s almost like a play, because you’ve got green screen around you — a lot is left to the imagination.
WWD: Is it harder to act with a green screen playing such a huge part in filming?
M.M.: I mean, yes it is. It was definitely intimidating at first, but then you get used to it and actually come to like it a little bit. But it’s not easy.
WWD: Do you find yourself preferring the indie world or do you like these large-scale movie productions?
M.M.: I don’t know. Yeah I think it all depends on the project. There’s really awesome indie movies out there and there’s really fun bigger studio films, and I think if you can kind of find a balance and find projects that you really love in either world…I really do enjoy both.
WWD: Can you talk a little bit about what it was like working with Roland Emmerich and also alongside Liam Hemsworth? Did you know them before the film?
M.M.: I met all of them for the first time on the film. Roland is really amazing. He really knows how to make big movies and yet he also cares about the characters, which is definitely refreshing for a film this scale. He’s also just a blast. And also Liam, too — he has just such a good energy and positivity and is just so down to earth and cool. I feel very lucky to have worked with both of them.
WWD: What are you working on now? What’s next?
M.M.: I leave to go to Serbia in the beginning of July to shoot a film called “Tau” that I am super excited about. It’ll definitely be interesting, Serbia I mean. I’ve been to Europe, but I haven’t been to Eastern Europe.
WWD: Seems like a different ballgame.
M.M.: Yeah it’s totally different, a new adventure.
Last night ( June 20th 2016) saw the Hollywood premiere for Independence Day Resurgence. Maika and her costars were out in full force on the red carpet. It’s been 20 years since that first Independence Day movie, and finally Independence Day: Resurgence is here! While the film officially opens on June 24, the stars of the explosive sequel came out to celebrate the premiere, and they looked absolutely amazing! Which is super impressive because it reached 100 degrees outside of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood where the premiere took place ….
Twenty years on from the global devastation wrought by the alien nasties of Independence Day, Earth has united to adapt and adopt all the leftover technology to prepare for the retaliation. On 4 July, naturally, it comes. And it comes hard.
★★★★
As Dubai’s Burj Khalifa lances down from a fiery sky into the London Eye, tossed like a used popsicle stick amid the gravity-churning fury of a 3,000 mile-wide, claw-shaped alien mother-of-all-battles-ship, Jeff Goldblum tiredly absorbs it all and deadpans: “They like to get the landmarks.”
If his David Levinson — one-time computer guy, now Director of the Earth Space Defense — exudes a wonderful, war-of-the-worlds-weary sense of ‘been there, blown that up’, his creator and chief catastrophiser Roland Emmerich is as gleefully destructive as a kid given a free pass to smash all the crockery at the village fête. Especially the saucers. With new tech, new toys and new ideas, the modern era’s Master Of Disaster has returned to the scene of his greatest triumph and really let rip.
Allowing the same blend of multiplex-rattling spectacle and ‘yeah, you got us’ daftness, Emmerich has gone all out to recapture his ’96 mojo and, for the most part, succeeds. While the occasional call-back clunks (Jessie Usher as orphaned-son-of-Will-Smith Dylan Hiller fails to sell the line, “Get ready for a close encounter, bitch!”, but we’re not sure who ever could), other riffs prove sonorously nostalgic. And we’re not just talking about another death-defying dog. Whether it’s Goldblum reliving his co-pilot jitters in another spacecraft, Bill Pullman pulling on his flight suit once more as PTSD-stricken ex-president Whitmore, or Brent Spiner making a welcomely deranged return as surprisingly not-dead professor Brakish Okun, you’ll likely thrum with the same sweet, not-able-to-take-it-too-seriously joy you felt during the first film.
Assuming you’re old enough, of course. But for the next-gen moviegoer, Emmerich and his co-writer/producer Dean Devlin have provided next-gen Earth defenders. Joining Usher are Liam Hemsworth as obligatory maverick Jake Morrison, Maika Monroe replacing Mae Whitman as Whitmore’s daughter Patricia (now an ex-fighter pilot herself, ensuring that in this movie it’s not only the men who get to kick ET’s ass) and Hong Kong model/singer/actor Angelababy.
Old and new faces never fully mingle, though. Aside from a first-act trip to the moon and some cursory father-daughter interaction between the Whitmores, it’s ‘kids over here, oldies over there’. Similar to an awkward family party, except here the kids are going off to engage in an all-too-brief skirmish amid some surprisingly placed paddy fields on the alien mothership, rather than sneaking outside to smoke cigs.
Read More: Empire Online
We have added various new stills, screencaps and promos of Maika as Patricia Whitmore in Independence Day Resurgence to the gallery…
Fox is scheduling double-feature showings of the original “Independence Day” and its sequel “Independence Day: Resurgence” on June 23 as a Thursday night preview showing.
Fans can watch the 1996 film at 5 p.m., followed by the new movie at 8 p.m. with a single ticket, which will be counted in the June 24 opening day grosses. Fox is launching sales through Fandango and MovieTickets.com.
Vivica A. Fox, Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, Bill Pullman and Brent Spiner reprise their roles from the original film. Liam Hemsworth, Jessie Usher, Maika Monroe, Sela Ward and Charlotte Gainsbourg join the sequel.
Roland Emmerich directed both movies. Dean Devlin, who produced the original film, is producing with Emmerich and Harald Kloser. The screenplay was written by Emmerich and Dean Devlin, and James Vanderbilt, James A.Woods & Nicolas Wright.
The plot revolves around various countries collaborating on an immense defense program to protect the planet, which comes under attack by an advanced and unprecedented alien force.
The original pic was a massive hit, hauling more than $800 million at the worldwide box office.
Based on the decidedly dark movies that have catapulted Maika Monroe to indie fame over the past few years — cult horror film It Follows and campy thriller The Guest, both of which see her confronting the possibility of an extremely violent death — I’d expected her to be a very grim person, a sort of self-serious Rooney Mara type dressed in all black, avoiding eye contact, and staring wistfully at the door. Instead, Monroe is almost absurdly warm and gregarious, bounding energetically into the L.A. office building where we’re set to meet, grinning and wearing a bright pink, dragon-emblazoned letterman jacket from Tokyo that she’s thrilled to expound upon at length. (In short: We agree that owning several insane jackets is important, as they both complement and obscure a boring outfit; she promises to hook me up with a similar jacket when she goes to Tokyo for press.)
It’s almost too much; for at least 15 minutes, I assume Monroe is being held at invisible gunpoint by a cadre of publicists. But as we keep talking, I realize Monroe, 22, is genuinely this kind, this goofy, and this unaffected by the Hollywood machine. This is in no small part because of the rare, surreal situation she’s found herself in, a situation she laughs about and marvels at throughout our conversation: Over the course of approximately four years, Monroe has gone from living a low-key life in the Dominican Republic as an unknown, would-be professional kiteboarder to an in-demand Hollywood actress with so many projects on her docket that I have to help her remember them all. The biggest one, of course, is Independence Day: Resurgence, out this July. The ravenously anticipated sequel marks Monroe’s first mainstream, blockbuster movie — though, naturally, the threat of a graphically violent death still looms large.
Read More: MTV.com