I was lucky enough to have a brief chat with Annabeth Gish at the Midnight Mass press day recently, but if you’ve seen the whole show, you know eight minutes is nowhere near enough time to dig into everything her character experiences on Crockett Island.
The Netflix series covers what happens when Crockett Island gets a new priest, Hamish Linklater’s Father Paul. Soon after Father Paul arrives, strange and seemingly miraculous things start happening. Are they true miracles that justify the renewed religious fervor they spark or should the Crockett residents be concerned that those miracles come at a great cost?
With Midnight Mass now available to stream on Netflix, Gish joined me for a 20-minute spoiler heavy chat. You can hear about everything Gish’s character goes through in the video at the top of this article, but if you’re not ready for spoilers just yet, fear not! The portion of the conversation I’m about to highlight in this article is totally spoiler-free and teases one of Midnight Mass’ most impressive components — the unforgettable monologues.
Gish began by explaining how she approaches such material:
“It’s always such a pleasure to work with a filmmaker who luxuriates in his characters being allowed to speak. Because sometimes it’s just so pithy otherwise. For me, I always approach a monologue of such stature with tremendous excitement, a little bit of trepidation because you want to nail it, so then for me that just means preparation. Study, study, study. I had my sons help me. They all know those monologues by heart still [laughs], because I had to just say them.”
Just about everyone in the Midnight Mass ensemble gets at least a moment to shine via monologue, but when it comes to the material Gish gets to work with, it’s a bit different because her character, Dr. Sarah Gunning, is coming from a place of science. She further explained:
“They’re a little bit different because it was sort of scientific exposition. It’s not just saying how you feel, riding that emotional current. But it took a lot of preparation and then the grace of working with Kate [Siegel] and Alex [Essoe] who listened, you know? Who really you could feel when your fellow actors are investing in what you are saying and hearing rather than just like, ‘Okay, your line, your line, your line, my line!’”
If you’re looking for a few tips or tricks when it comes to memorizing such large amounts of dialogue, here’s how Gish goes about it:
“I have lots of little things. First of all, I’m definitely a tactile person. I need to have my pages. I don’t memorize well from a screen. I have to highlight. Sometimes I’ll re-write them in my own language. And sometimes I will record the whole scene, including other people’s dialogue so then if I’m going for a run, I can just get the rhythm of the words in the scene in my psyche somehow.”
Eager to hear even more from Gish on her experience working on Midnight Mass? You’re going to want to check out our full conversation in the video at the top of this article. There are tons of interesting spoiler details in that interview that I wouldn’t dare mention here!