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CINEMA FEATURE

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“But it all started with her being game. If she ever questioned it, it never would have worked. It's like she had to completely believe it, and that allowed everybody else to believe it,” he says of the 5’ 4” actress who used child body doubles and ingenious methods to convey child like proportions. With Julia Stiles portraying Esther’s first “adopted mother”, the Bourne star says Fuhrman totally owned the role. “I don't think it could have been made without her. One of the exciting things is to see her performance and how she’s completely convincing as a child... I don't think anybody else could have played that role, nor would it have been as interesting or as satisfying. “Even though Brent was getting threatened online, that nobody else could play that part, I think Isabelle really pulled it off. It's amazing to watch.” Fuhrman admits she was never going to sit quietly and let someone else play the role she originated. “ Orphan was my first movie, and I fell in love with Esther's desire to find love. Maybe not going about it the right way, but when I was younger, I really resonated with that. “So it was really fun for me to revisit Esther from a different perspective. Brent and I talked a lot about how we wanted to make sure we captured some love for Esther; that the audience would find places to root for her and have her almost succeed. Even if you don't particularly like her, she did become such a beloved character after the original movie came out. It was fun to play with ways for people to like Esther and make her more human this time around.”

STACK chats with directorWilliam Brent Bell and the cast of the unexpected horror prequel, Orphan: First Kill . Words Gill Pringle T here are few actresses who can portray an iconic child character, and then reprise that role 15 years later – in a prequel no mulling over who might play Esther when the prequel was initially announced, prompting Fuhrman to reach out to Bell.

Orphan: First Kill is in cinemas now.

less! Just ten years old when she began shooting her breakout role as Esther in the 2009 psychological horror film Orphan , Isabelle Fuhrman is now 25 and making her stunning return to the role in Orphan: First Kill . Not that she was remotely in consideration when director William Brent Bell was hired to make this prequel of Jaume Collet-Serra’s thriller about an adopted nine-year-old girl who is not quite as innocent as she appears. Admittedly, some online threats may have had something to do with this unlikely turn of tides… “As soon as we announced the movie, I got death threats,” recalls Bell, “And so I was like, ‘Okay, we have to really pay attention here and make sure we're making a movie that's for the fans, but hopefully also for a new fan base without just treading on the same waters as the original. So it was definitely a lot of pressure, and still is.” The producers of Orphan: First Kill were still

“Isabelle contacted me through Instagram. I didn't know her but she was like, ‘I'm so excited that you guys are doing the movie’,” he tells STACK . Immediately making plans to meet, he recalls, “The first time I met her, she looked amazingly like she did back then, just a little scaled up from when she was a child but with very similar features, hair and proportions and such tiny hands. “She told me, ‘I really want to keep playing this character. It's my character that I created

and I'm really passionate about it.’” Ask Bell if he thought Fuhrman was crazy for imagining she could recreate Esther all these years later, and he replies, “I probably thought more that she had a lot of courage to put a character that she

created on the line and put herself out there like that – and trusted me to do it.

Julia Stiles

SEPTEMBER 2022

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