Mia Goth Played Both Maxine and Pearl in an 'Absurd Way' With the Help of Special Effects Makeup

Publish date: 2024-06-30

Horror fans can’t wait for Mia Goth’s latest turn in Ti West’s X franchise. The actor played both Maxine and Pearl in the 2022 film and will reprise her role as the latter character in the upcoming Pearl. How did Goth pull off playing these different characters?

What is horror film ‘X’ about?

X followed a crew of adult filmmakers who shoot their latest project on an elderly Texan couple’s farm. They soon find themselves in danger of being killed by an unlikely murderer. Goth played star Maxine Minx, as well as one half of the Texan couple, Pearl. The cast included big names like Brittany Snow, Kid Cudi, and Jenna Ortega.

The movie was a critical success. Fans were excited when director, writer, and producer West announced the release of Pearl, a prequel about Goth’s character of the same name. The movie was shot immediately after X, and West recently revealed why he wanted Goth to play both characters.

Why Ti West wanted Mia Goth to play two parts

“I always wanted those characters to be played by the same actor,” West told Collider. “One, because of the craft of the special effects makeup and, two, because I think people kind of want to be where they’re not, you know? It’s like, ‘When I get there it’s gonna be better,’ and then when you get there you realize, ‘Oh, if I could just go back it would be better.’ This is a common thing in life in general, and I felt like there’s a duality to those characters.”

He continued, “I think that they’re different people, but they’re kind of the same character, just different places. And so that always felt to me to be an interesting challenge for an actor, challenge for special effects makeup and then just thematically and [for] the cinema craft thing I keep going on about, it just all seemed to be a sensible way to do it. Well, actually, not a sensible way. An absurd way to do it. But if pulled off, a memorable cool thing to do, and that was the drive for most of it.”

How Mia Goth pulled off her performances in ‘X’

Ti West and Mia Goth collaborating on X and PEARL is one of my favorite recent developments in indie horror. All her uncannily magnetic star turns aren’t just grounding his intensely cinematic, expertly calibrated style of genre play. It feels like they’re amplifying one another. pic.twitter.com/dCxHuldisY

— Isaac Feldberg (@isaacfeldberg) September 12, 2022

To pull off playing both parts, Goth spent a lot of time in the makeup chair — 6 to 8 hours — and shooting for 10 to 12 hours each day.

“She wasn’t so method that you would never talk to Mia through the makeup, but you just stopped talking to Mia through the makeup because it was so convincing,” West said of the actor.

Mia Goth and Ti West wrote the script for ‘Pearl’ together

Goth’s commitment to the movies didn’t end with her performances as Maxine and Pearl. She actually co-wrote the script for Pearl with West over FaceTime during a mandatory 2-week quarantine before shooting began for X.

At the time, neither one knew if production company A24 would let them make a prequel to a movie that had not even been shot yet.

“It was such a long shot,” West told Nylon. “It was so unlikely. We just always said to each other, ‘Well, worst case scenario, it’s two weeks of wasted time, and we’ll at least get to use this as backstory for the character, and it’ll be very informed, and X will be better for it.’ That was the coping mechanism if it didn’t happen – and now here we are talking to you about the movie we ended up making.”

Brittany Snow praised Ti West for having an intimacy coordinator on the set of ‘X’

Co-star Snow praised West’s approach to filming X, telling Collider, “I think I felt safe because there was so much consideration and care about every single shot in that movie. Nothing was shown that wasn’t talked about at length beforehand. Nothing was off the cuff. Everything was very methodical in terms of why we were showing this, how we were going to film it.”

She continued, “There was an intimacy coordinator on set, Tandi Wright, who we worked really closely with who was an angel and made sure that everything was based in character and not gratuitous sort of shock and awe. I think that was necessary for me to do the movie. And Ti was really at the forefront of making sure that everyone, the females and men in the movie felt comfortable.”