It’s one of the most indelible images in recent cinema: “Please, I’m a star!,” wails the title character of Ti West’s 2022 cult horror film Pearl, after she’s been rejected for a role at an audition. But the actor behind Pearl cuts the precise negative of that widely memed film moment inside the greenroom of a Manhattan production studio one evening in June.
“I don’t feel famous at all,” says Mia Goth. This, despite having worked with auteurs like Luca Guadagnino (in 2018’s Suspiria) and Lars Von Trier (2013’s Nymphomaniac was her feature film debut); despite a bevy of accolades for her alternately fragile and furious work in Pearl; and despite the paparazzi shots of her walking in L.A. with the father of her child, Shia LaBeouf, published in The Daily Mail days earlier. (She says she didn’t notice the cameras.) All of which is to say nothing of the hot anticipation for MaXXXine, out July 5, ostensibly the last film in the series that began with 2022’s barnyard porn-shoot slasher X, continued with prequel Pearl, and made Goth one of the preeminent contemporary scream queens.
West’s horror franchise, which almost immediately cemented its cult status and counts Martin Scorsese among its fans, has implicitly argued that Goth is like something out of another era. X is set in the ‘70s (and features Goth in the dual roles of porn performer Maxine Minx and the geriatric Pearl under pounds of prosthetics), Pearl in 1918, and MaXXXine in 1985, with Goth in a voluminous blonde wig. In person, Goth seems more Gen X in spirit than the younger millennial she is at 30. Unlike many of her generation who are outspoken about boundaries on-set, the British actor likes to “romanticize” fraught stories of directors pushing their actors, as Stanley Kubrick did to Shelley Duvall—to whom Goth is frequently compared—on the set of The Shining. “Art needs to be a little dangerous and to get genuine moments, you have to blur the lines a little,” she says.
Her effectiveness on-screen is reinforced by her conduct off of it. She doesn’t use social media, cultivating a “veil of mystery” that will make her more believable in roles. (And also: “I’m not trying to sell headphones.”) There’s much she is tightlipped about—from her relationship with LaBeouf to a lawsuit filed against her, West, and A24 by a MaXXXine extra. She claims to have no awareness of her steadfast gay following. And despite her rising star—she’s now in production on Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein remake—she’s not worried about keeping her ego in check. “My sense of self is actually quite low,” she says. “I’m actually trying to build myself up a little more.”
As she speaks, she seems sanguine about living in apparent contradiction. At one point, Goth says: “The truth is, I hate acting. Acting is actually the hardest thing to do. It’s this elusive thing and you think you have it—it’s like trying to grip smoke.” Within minutes, she would say of her job, “I love it so much.” None of the opportunities she’s received are lost on Goth, she says. Two things can be true at once.
MaXXXine is a city slasher bookending X’s rural spin on the genre. It finds Goth’s porn-star character crossing over to the relative mainstream via a horror sequel, The Puritan 2. She’s mysteriously trailed by a P.I. (Kevin Bacon) and haunted by accumulating deaths around her, while the city is terrorized by real-life serial killer Richard Ramirez, known as the Night Stalker. Hardened but still reeling from surviving the porn-set massacre of X, she assumes an offensive stance. Damsel-in-distress tropes are inverted; in one scene, she is chased down an alley then exercises brutal vengeance on her assailant.
Compared to X and Pearl, MaXXXine was a comfortable shoot, according to Goth. The first two films in the trilogy were shot back-to-back in New Zealand in 2021 and both released the following year. There were six-day work weeks, and sometimes 20-hour days. MaXXXine was spread out over a comparatively cushy seven-week shoot.
Goth is nothing if not thoughtful throughout our interview. Though it’s evening in New York, she’s tired. She’s been up since about 2 a.m. L.A. time thanks to a canceled flight. She sips on a coffee to counter her exhaustion. She sometimes thinks for nearly a minute before responding to a question, as with one about the appeal of these particular characters. “Playing Maxine and Pearl has been the most creatively fulfilling experience of my life,” she says finally. “And one of many reasons why it’s been such a gift is because I’ve been blessed to play these characters that are so fearless and have such agency.”
In a phone interview, West says Goth’s appeal comes down to authenticity. “Part of the allure is that it’s not pretend for her,” he says. “She finds a way to connect to the material. Sometimes it’s larger than life and crazy, but she finds a way to ground it within herself.” He recalls that when he told her he wanted her to play both Maxine and Pearl in X, “She just stopped and I could see the wheels turning. Then she was just like, ‘I could kill that.’ And I totally believed in her confidence.”
In a contrast to her pronounced humility regarding the phenomenon of her career, Goth points out that on set is where she feels most confident. “Whereas in my day to day life, I need a lot of validation, I don’t need that on set. It’s a way for me to feel liberated,” she says.
Goth can be straightforward to an extreme. When asked what her listed role as producer of MaXXXine meant functionally, she matter of factly retorts, “Um honestly, on this movie, it didn’t mean much.” She believes she was given the credit simply because it’s the third movie (she was an executive producer on Pearl). She did make the executive decision not to show her breasts in an early MaXXXine scene despite the script calling for it and having already done so in X. “I didn’t want to do that,” she says, adding that having a daughter in 2022 has made her see things differently. “It’s not that I wouldn’t do it again, it was just in that moment, I didn’t feel that the story needed it.”
When asked about the aforementioned Daily Mail pap piece that featured her and LaBeouf abreast, her consistently bell-clear voice drops. “I don’t like talking about that stuff,” she murmurs so quickly the words come out nearly jumbled. She won’t discuss her relationship with LaBeouf, who for years has conducted his own rather fraught relationship with fame, and has been accused of abuse and sued by his former girlfriend, the musician FKA twigs. (The twice-delayed trial is tentatively set to take place in October.) Speaking more generally about her personal life, Goth declares, “I would never want to share that part of my life. Why? For what?”
Goth similarly has little to say about a $500,000 lawsuit that was filed against her, West, and MaXXXine’s studio A24 in January by a MaXXXine extra named James Hunter, who accused her of intentionally kicking him in the head while filming and then taunting him. “I can’t talk about that at the moment because it’s an ongoing lawsuit,” she says without hesitating. “But I’m really grateful for A24’s support.” Goth, West, and A24 are all represented by the same attorneys. The next hearing is scheduled for July 10.
But she has plenty to say about what might be next for her as an actor. Her career-defining trilogy may be winding down—MaXXXine is being marketed as the “final chapter,” though West has an idea for an additional film that may or may not involve Goth. Either way, she may take some convincing, as she says she’s ready to move on from horror. While the genre has offered “roles written for women that you really sometimes struggle to find elsewhere,” she says she’s “tapped out in that area.” She adds that, “I’d love to make a romantic movie. I’ve been so focused on this end of the spectrum of violence and gore, but I love love too.”
Still she’s grateful for the experience. “There’s a reason certain characters come into your life,” she philosophizes. Plus, Maxine taught her a lot. When asked what, she takes a beat for nearly 30 seconds. And then, finally: “Just like: ‘You got this.’”