For Naomi Scott, Playing a Troubled Pop Star in ‘Smile 2’ Meant Alternating Between Joyful Dance Rehearsals and Bloody Hallucinations
[Editor’s note: The following article contains spoilers for “Smile 2.”]
Between Chappell Roan’s breakout and the surprise death of Liam Payne, 2024 has been dominated by headlines about what it takes to balance mental health with the demands of being a pop star.
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That goes for fictional pop stars too — especially ones haunted by grinning demons.
Naomi Scott in “Smile 2” plays Skye Riley, a fictional pop icon looking to relaunch her career after a deadly car crash sent her to rehab and put her life on hold. Scott gives one of the year’s best horror performances as Riley, who quickly spirals out of control after falling victim to the same chain of creepy grins that caused trauma observers to hallucinate in Parker Finn’s original “Smile.”
Scott was a fan of not just “Smile” but Parker’s 2020 short film “Laura Hasn’t Slept.” To learn “Smile” was just his debut was “astounding” to her.
“Then we met and he started talking about Skye and it was just very clear to me that this character was fascinating to me,” she told IndieWire of pairing with the director on the sequel. “Then when I read the script, all the reasons to do it were just mounding on top of each other.”
In the film, reality becomes indistinguishable from Riley’s nightmares as she’s haunted by warped visualizations of her worst fears after she witnesses the death of her drug dealer. As she prepares for a comeback tour that could make or break the rest of her life, living up to the world’s expectations of being a teen idol becomes a harder and harder task.
In Riley, Scott saw a role she could really sink her teeth into. From the start, Riley seems to be at her breaking point dealing with stardom and sobriety. The film’s supernatural twist made the character an even more irresistible challenge.
“You’re dropping us into the start of a movie where she is suppressing so much, and there’s a numbness that’s laying over whatever is bubbling underneath,” Scott said. “There’s this feeling of her wanting to be someone who is constantly trying to prove themselves, because they just want to really be seen and loved without condition. And I find that fascinating, with someone who’s at the top of their game in terms of talent or ability or success.”
It’s an intense part, but Scott admitted it was also fun to play the world’s biggest pop star. Scott ended up co-writing several of Riley’s songs with producer Alexis Idarose Kesselman, and the recording sessions and dance rehearsals were vital breaks from a mentally taxing shoot.
“I think two days after I was cast, I was in a studio,” she said. “That was really fun because you’re just basically playing a character, but you’re singing in character.”
Scott was rehearsing but still singing in an American accent as though she was acting live. She coupled that with two and a half days of dance rehearsals.
“That’s the treat that I got in the midst of doing this very intense psychological thriller/horror,” she said.
Even by horror movie standards, “Smile 2” builds to a bleak climax. To escape the literal and figurative demons, Riley kills herself in front of thousands of screaming fans at her very first concert of the tour.
That shocking finale was precisely why Scott was willing to follow Finn wherever he wanted to go.
“I love how uncompromising Parker is on his vision. I love any artist who just is like, ‘She’s never going to defeat this smile,'” Scott said. “It’s just a very interesting look at how trauma manifests, along with the fear of not being believed or misunderstood and the importance of surrounding ourselves with people that we can be vulnerable with. Because I think isolation is just one of the most potent words that comes up when I think of Skye. And that’s one of the main themes I feel like of the movie. She’s always isolated. Even in her apartment, she doesn’t really look like she belongs. And there’s always just that distance in terms of her and everyone else in the movie.”
“Smile 2” is now playing in theaters.
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