Kate Siegel is a modern-day scream queen thanks to roles in The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and beyond. Some of Siegel’s most notable works are created by her husband Mike Flanagan. With the release of the Netflix series Midnight Mass on Sept. 24, we’re ranking Siegel’s best roles in Flanagan projects from scariest to fiercest and everything in between.
Kate Siegel’s scariest role is in ‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’ (2020)
Based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, Bly Manor tells a Gothic romance story. “I think of [The Turn of the Screw] as the backbone of this season — [the] through-line that carries us from beginning to end,” Flanagan explained to Games Radar. “We get to go off into The Jolly Corner and The Romance of Certain Old Clothes, [which] people haven’t seen adapted before.”
Siegel’s role as Viola Willoughby and, by proxy, “the woman in the lake,” is one of her scariest to date. “She would wake, she would walk, she would sleep.”
Initially, the faceless woman wandering the grounds of Bly Manor seems ominous. In the end, we learn she is Viola Willoughby — a woman wandering in the hopes of being remembered in death.
It is what the lady in the lake stands for that scares people most. There’s nothing more terrifying than being forgotten.
Kate Siegel’s Marisol in Oculus (2013)
Next up in our ranking of Siegel’s roles is her small but sinister part in Oculus. She plays Marisol Chavez, one of the haunted mirror’s many victims. At the climax of Oculus, Marisol returns from the grave as a terrifying illusion with what Siegel calls “snakey arms.”
“There’s a lot of physicality to Marisol because there’s little to no dialogue,” Siegel tells Entertainment Weekly. “If you notice her arms, we turned her hands out the opposite way so it looked like a mirror reflection. When I was talking about what I wanted to do, I [referenced] the curlicues of the mirror.” Thus, Siegel’s very spooky “snakey arms” were born to terrify audiences everywhere.
Theo Crain in ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ (2018)
The Haunting of Hill House’s Theo Crain might be one of Siegel’s most badass roles. Gifted with a psychic ability activated through touch, Theo wears gloves to avoid the horrors she witnesses through physical contact.
Theo works hard to protect herself from her ability, wearing gloves from an early age. But when the Crain family seeks clarity around Nell’s (Victoria Pedretti) death by suicide, Theo becomes the unlikely hero.
Erin Greene in ‘Midnight Mass’ (2021)
Siegel’s latest project is Midnight Mass. The seven-episode mini-series is about a small, isolated island community divided. When the disgraced Riley (Zach Gilford) and the charismatic Father Paul (Hamish Linklater) show up in town, those divides worsen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-XIRcjf3l4&t
Siegel plays a Crockett Island schoolteacher navigating her first pregnancy in the wake of her mother’s death. Jettisoned by the community, Erin confides in Riley as Father Paul’s religious fervor takes hold of the town. Meet the bold and selfless Erin Greene in Midnight Mass starting Sept. 24 on Netflix.
Kate Siegel’s fiercest role is Maddie in ‘Hush’ (2016)
Hush showcases one of Siegel’s most fierce roles to date. She plays a deaf author, Maddie, who lives alone in the woods. When a masked killer puts Maddie in a twisted game of cat and mouse, she has to fight to survive. Instead of caving to her disability, Maddie uses it to her advantage to stay alive.
Siegel’s dedication to playing a deaf woman justly is incredible. “If I flinched in that shot, the whole day [would be] ruined,” she tells Entertainment Weekly of the scene where the masked killer breaks in. As an indie production, they only had one door to work with. “That kind of meditative focus was something I hadn’t worked with in my career,” she adds. Siegel’s work behind-the-scenes and on-screen doesn’t go unrecognized, making Maddie her fiercest role.
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