Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with The Dark and the Wicked’s Michael Abbott Jr.

Michael Abbott Jr. has done it all in his two-plus-decade career. Whether it’s on the stage or on the screen, Michael has built a reputation with his ability to transform into any character he embodies. This year, he broke new ground making his first foray into horror with The Dark and the Wicked. We caught up with Michael to learn more about the film, this milestone, and why he’s avoided the genre in the past.

PC: Tell us about The Dark and the Wicked and your character in the film.
Michael: The Dark and the Wicked is about two siblings who return home to their childhood farm to say goodbye to their ailing, bedridden father and to help their mother tie up loose ends and take care of the farm in the midst of saying goodbye to their father, and magic unfolds around them.

I play Michael, who is a devoted family man, loyal to his family, willing to do whatever he can in order to keep his family safe and together. What happens throughout the course of the film is the first challenge that Michael has ever faced that he is not able to overcome.

PC: You’ve said in a previous interview that as a viewer and actor, you don’t tend to gravitate towards the horror genre. What was it about this particular project and script that stood out to you?
Michael: Let me preface this with I have never really gravitated towards the horror genre for no other reason than they scare the sh-t out of me. I already have enough anxiety as it is, and horror films tend to haunt me in my dreams. So that was the only reason I’ve steered clear thus far.

But when Sonny Mallhi, one of the producers, reached out, I read the script. It was actually the first horror film I had ever read where the characters felt like real everyday people dealing with a situation that they didn’t know how to handle.

As an actor, one of my worries and concerns with a horror script is that these characters tend to sometimes be caricatures of themselves. I didn’t really have an interest in being chased with an ice pick by the boogeyman through the woods. This was the first time where I felt like at the center—at the core of the script—it really is a family drama dealing with loss and abandonment. That coupled with the opportunity to work with Bryan Bertino, who I consider to be one of the masters of this genre, I would have been an idiot to turn it down.

PC: You’ve also worked with Marin [Ireland] in the past and went to bat for her. How did that come to fruition? How beneficial was having that prior experience working with her?
Michael: There was another actress attached to the role, and we had to shift schedules early on. When that happened, the original actress had to drop out. That’s when I went to the producers and I went to Bryan and I said, “Listen, I’ve worked with Marin in the past. We worked on a film called In the Radiant City that was written and directed by Rachel Lambert and produced by Jeff Nichols, my good buddy.” We actually played siblings in that film. We only had one scene together, but we had done so much backstory—so much work in terms of our relationship for that film—I felt like Marin was the only actress that I wanted to work alongside with this film because I knew we had a base in which to work from. We weren’t starting from scratch. We already had a foundation—a sibling foundation built. Marin is the only actress of my generation that I have been equally taken aback by on stage and on screen. She’s captivating in both mediums. That speaks quite highly for her level of talent and commitment.

PC: Speaking of the stage, you have a theatrical background. What has that transition been like going from the stage to screen?
Michael: I trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts. I was trained in classical theater. The first six or seven years of my career was strictly theater, a lot of the classics, some musicals, some straight dramas, and comedies. Then in 2006, Jeff Nichols came to me and he had written his first feature film, Shotgun Stories, and he said, “Listen, I wrote a role for you in this thing.” I was like, “I don’t know anything about being on camera. I’m so nervous. I’m all about the stage.” He was basically like, “Listen, just relax. I’ll walk you through it.” Jeff, to this day, has been an advocate for my film and television career. It set the ground stone in terms of showing me what it is to make a film. It’s a medium that I have certainly fallen in love with and hope to continue to work in that medium as long as people will have me.

PC: Your character in the film is dealing with a lot of his life. How challenging was it for you to step into those shoes?
Michael: It’s interesting. We shot this film pre-pandemic, and it was actually the perfect pandemic film. Had this pandemic been going on, we could have shot this there because we had the opportunity to shoot on the farm that Bryan grew up on himself. We were so secluded on this property. No one had any idea we were there or what we were doing. It really lent itself to be the perfect pandemic film.

I dealt with this script like I would with any other. You want to know who your character is, what it is they want, what they’re willing to do to achieve it, and how it would affect them if they don’t get it. Those are the basic questions you have to ask yourself as an actor. I have a family of my own. I think Michael’s challenges in working to keep his family safe at all costs really hit home with me.

One of the themes that we deal with in this film is religion and what religion can make people do. I grew up in the South where the Baptist church ran the town for the most part. I saw how religion made people act and how it can influence the decisions people make. I thought that was an interesting theme to explore in a film like this—certainly the other side of that, because those characters are basically denouncing any type of religion. There were a lot of things that really drew me in, but those were some of the things that I was attracted to.

PC: Bryan is really well known in this horror space, and this is your first foray into the genre. What was it like collaborating with him?
Michael: It was a blast. I mean, Marin had never done a horror film either. We high-fived Bryan for taking on two horror-genre virgins for this adventure. But his ability to convey the story in such a personal way, it’s a very personal story for him. He wrote this script while he was on this farm, so he knew exactly what he wanted to see. He had every shot planned out. He and Tristan [Nyby] had worked together for some time planning every setup. We were putty in Bryan’s hands.

There was one day pretty early on where Marin and I were looking at each other and were like, “This scene really seems to be taking a long time to shoot. We should move on.” At that point, Bryan realized and said, “Listen, guys. Horror films take a lot more setup. There are a lot more shots in this medium to sell, especially scare scenes.” He calls it the triangle. It’s the different angles of where the camera is set up. There was certainly a learning curve with Marin and I. But it was a master class from a master in making a horror film. It was pretty exciting.

PC: With the film out now, what do you hope audiences take away?
Michael: I think had this film come out a year ago, I think audiences would be impacted in a whole different way than they would be now, postpandemic. The film is going to hit people in a whole new way after experiencing quarantine life, pandemic life. When we come out on the other side of 2020, there’s going to be a lot of us, if not most of us, who are going to take a lot less things for granted, especially in terms of the time that we spend with our family and the importance of letting our family know how much they mean to us and how much we love them. You have a family drama, you have a horror, and what Bryan has done is he has masterfully built in a psychological thriller as well.

To keep up with Michael, follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The Dark and the Wicked is out now in select theaters, On-Demand, and digital.

Photo Credit: RLJE Films/Shudder