“We wanted to be a woman because we wanted the allure and for the audience to be drawn like a moth to the flame and there’s something about her stature that seems as though you can contain it and intellectualise it: 'oh it’s a woman' and for that to be then thrown on its head and to be the complete opposite, and for her power and her menace to be so deeply within her and when it’s unleashed it’s bigger than anything.”īoutella’s Mummy, like Frankenstein’s monster, is not simply a blunt force of evil all the hurt she inflicts stems from hurt she has suffered, an amplified manifestation of the darkness that resides in all of us says Anabelle. “These are the stories that we all grew up with and I think were passed on from our parents and our parents’ parents and they’re cyclical and it was such an honour to be able to turn it into a modern legend for a new audience and a new generation.”ĭesigned as it is for a new millennium, the Tom Cruise led ‘The Mummy’ has not conformed to gender stereotypes, casting Sofia Boutella as the ancient Egyptian character.Īnnabelle explains the motivation behind this choice.
The privilege of helping to tell such tales is not lost upon Annabelle. But when done properly they are haunting parables about the human condition stories laden with such depth and meaning they are essential rites of passage for each generation. “I grew up watching all the classic monster films, but my favourite was 'Frankenstein' because it was the first time I felt for the scary person and I could see he had heart, so I had empathy for him and so it was very confusing.”įilms within the monster genre have regularly being farcical in their nature, particularly throughout the 1950s-70s. “We are clearly in the age where audiences are thirsty for female protagonists and respond to strong females.”Īs a child, it was the conflicting emotions evoked by Mary Shelley’s 'The Modern Prometheus' that stoked a love of monster films in the heart of Annabelle Wallis.