“As A Kid I Was Very Much An Optimist’: Interview With Molly Quinn, Star Of Agnes

‘Molly Quinn has entered the waiting room’ a little box tells me as it pops up on my computer screen. I wait a moment before clicking admit. I’ve spent the last few days organizing this interview, trying to figure out times and dates appropriate for both parties, and in the focus to achieve a suitable arrangement – as well as the typical hustle and bustle which accompanies this time of year – I had almost forgotten who I was interviewing.

The first time I became aware of Molly Quinn, she was playing the intrepid teenage daughter of Nathan Fillion‘s eponymous Richard Castle. Just a few years younger than me, I saw Quinn as a talented actor with a bright future. Although I dropped away from Castle after a while, I would recognize Quinn in a variety of roles she would later appear in – including a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo as Howard the Duck’s date in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. In the time since her role on Castle, Quinn has gone on to carve a place for herself in the movie industry and has even established a production company called QWGmire (the first three initials of which represent Quinn and her partners Matthew Welty and Elan Gale, the latter of whom is also her fiancée). The future is indeed looking bright for Quinn.

I click admit and all at once, Quinn herself is on my screen. She smiles and I immediately understand why directors tend to cast her as the romantic foil: she is the embodiment of the girl-next-door; as American as apple pie. She easily exudes warmth and kindness, displaying a laidback nature and sweetness which makes her an excellent interview subject. It is all too easy to understand why she can play the love interest to Will Pouter‘s Kenny in We’re The Millers, for example. Just as easily understandable is her voice-over work on children’s shows such as Winx Club. For all her obvious wholesomeness, though, we’re here to discuss something of a new venture for Quinn.

Agnes is the first feature film from QWGmire and finds Quinn in the role of Mary, a nun whose experience of exorcism in her convent casts doubt about her chosen path and causes her to reflect on the choices she’s made. Although billed as a horror, Agnes is much more. It is a character study of grief, of the pain of suppression, and the darker aspects of religion. During our conversation Quinn proves to be illuminating and passionate; she leans back in her chair and laughs often, offering a great many insights.  And whenever she smiles, I’m reminded again of the girl next door, and the talent I remember noticing all those years ago.

Agnes

Daryl MacDonald for Film Inquiry: So I watched Agnes this morning, and it really surprised me. I guess I was expecting a sort of nunsploitation horror and then that third act happens and totally changes the tone. It’s quite different from the stuff I’ve seen you do before. I’m wondering what it was that drew you to this project?

Molly Quinn: It was that ‘surprise’. The first time I read the script I was really shocked by the jaggedness that happens. It really intrigued me and made sense if you recognize that we’re actually following the aftershocks of what happens to people that are involved in an exorcism. How do you come back from that? How do you continue a normal life when you’ve seen all these things happen?

Yeah, that’s what caught me too. You’ve got someone who has went through this horrible ordeal and I kind of thought we were going to stay with that and find out what happens, but it becomes much more about Mary, who’s a very conflicted character. She’s balancing her desires and her emotions – particularly about the loss of her son – with living in the convent, and all the rules and restrictions which come from that environment. How did you get into character for the role?

Molly Quinn: I spent a lot of time playing with my friends’ kids. [laughs] I didn’t feel comfortable doing that without explaining why I needed to spend time with kids; that I was working on this tragic relationship that, for me, was the most important thing to Mary. You can’t experience loss, or show loss in a visual medium, if you don’t understand what’s been taken away. You have to know what that joy is to the best of your ability, otherwise, I think it comes off as a very hollow performance. So I would tell my friends what I was doing and luckily I live in LA and a lot of my friends are also in the business so they did it, but I got a couple of nos, a couple of “um, you know, I don’t think I’m prepared for you to pray with my son like he’s gonna die.” [laughs]

I also read a lot of literature about pregnancy. I wanted to understand what your body would go through and how incredible the miracle is of choosing to have a child, of finding this great love and what happens when you think you have your life figured out and then [snaps fingers] it’s changed. The world has flipped. It turns into an uncontrollable grief.

Uncontrollable grief is a really good way to put it. That’s what Agnes was for me, less a horror movie and more a study of grief and of dealing with complicated emotions. I like when a movie does that – not just focusing on plot but more on character development.

Molly Quinn: Yeah, exactly. We’re just not focusing on an event, we’re focusing on people and how they dealt with the event, and all the things that it brings up for you.

For me, there was also an undercurrent of sexuality throughout Agnes. I read it as a cautionary tale about sexual desires and using sex as a tool for dealing with grief. Is that something you were particularly interested in exploring?

Molly Quinn: Absolutely. Agnes is about grief and about not dealing with it, but it’s also about not having people around you that are actually listening. In the beginning, Mary is openly asking for help. She goes to Mother Superior, she’s talking to her sisters at lunch after she leaves the convent. She’s telling them “I don’t hear God anymore”, she’s being very honest, and no one is treating her as an individual. They’re so wrapped up in their own world and protecting their own reality that they don’t have any time for her. When that happens – when you’re reaching out to people and they’re pushing you away – I think you try to deal with your grief by finding other outlets.

Personally, that’s something I did when I was dealing with grief and I had no one to listen to me. I dealt with it by having sexual relationships. I felt like I could fill that void with carnal pleasure, but it never works out, and it ended up leaving me feeling worse than before. That’s one of the steps that Mary goes through and shows how unique of a journey grief is for everyone. I really wanted to honor that as much as we could in a 90-minute horror/drama/comedy! [laughs]

And you did! That really came across to me. It’s also very apparent that you made a significant connection with the character. Was that the case?

Molly Quinn: Very much so, yeah! I grew up very religious – and that was all well and fine. I didn’t have a problem with it in the beginning. I really connected to the idea of prayer and being grateful. As a kid, I was very much an optimist and I loved being alive and I was grateful for every day. And then a friend of mine died in a flash flood. I was just torn to pieces. I tried talking to my parents, I tried talking to my pastor, I tried talking to her parents. All I kept getting was “everything happens for a reason.” I don’t know if you’re familiar with that phrase?

I’m very familiar, yeah.

Molly Quinn: It’s the worst! It’s the absolute worst. And, you know, at the time I was 16. That’s the worst time to not be getting answers! You don’t have any other help, any other resources. You’re just so reliant on the adults in your life. It’s not so much that piece of advice, but what it felt like was that everyone was saying the exact same thing. They weren’t listening to me, they weren’t treating me like a person who really needed help. It was years before I found therapy and found my chosen family and started to become okay.

Part of that was doing this movie, and pouring out all those feelings of anguish and mistrust and being let down. It really sucks, no matter what age you are, if you believe you’ve been following a good thing. When that shifts, when you recognize that “my god, this organization that I’ve been in, that I thought was doing so much good in the world, isn’t doing anything!” you think “what have I been doing? Have I been wasting my time?” That reflection is very powerful, but it’s also really dangerous because then what do you do? I tried to show that conflict with Mary because it was very close to home.

Yeah, I grew up Catholic so I know what’s it like to feel trapped by that kind of homogeny of religion. That’s what I liked about Agnes, it sort of challenges the fundamental nature of religion, of everyone conforming to a certain ideal. It reminded me a little of Midnight Mass, actually.

Molly Quinn: Yes! Oh my God, Midnight Mass has been my favorite show of the year. Yes even above Succession! [laughs]

Midnight Mass talks about the same thing: that religion is homogeneous, and everyone sort of just accepts it without questioning anything.

Molly Quinn: Exactly, and not even knowing what the leader has in mind! What you come to learn in Midnight Mass is that the priest did what he did because he wanted to bring health to the love of his life. It wasn’t so much religion that was guiding his way, it was the idea of seeing his love again and preserving his child’s life. Better intentions than religion, I think, but still he wasn’t leading the congregation, he was being selfish.

Absolutely! Which is kind of what happens in Agnes with the exorcism: Father Black (Chris Browning) is a very self-serving priest who cares more about his image and having a camera crew than he does about actually saving someone’s life. That’s so fascinating to me.

Molly Quinn: Yeah, same here, and it’s a pretty obvious thing of the old guard – in our case old, male priests – just trying to follow the routine and seem like they’re doing something important. But they’re not doing anything, if anything they’re inflicting harm.

Hayley McFarland (who plays the eponymous Agnes) is a very small woman, and that was a very purposeful casting choice. We wanted to show these big guys who think they know what they’re doing and they’re matched with something they think they know – a small woman in need – but she has so much more going on, and really throws it in their face that they can’t help her by following a playbook. They have to treat her as an individual if they want to get to the root of her problem and actually have a personal connection.

Even the exorcism scene, it was obvious they weren’t doing it for her. They were just trying to show off, in a way.

Molly Quinn: Exactly, not for her, not for God. They’re so selfish!

QWGmire

So this seems to be quite a different direction for you in terms of the roles you’ve taken on before. Was that something you purposefully wanted to do, to go in a different direction?

Molly Quinn: Yes, and it’s funny because the roles I’ve done I’ve absolutely loved them. Castle went on for so long and I’ve played similar, sweet characters, and that’s all wonderful, but I was also auditioning for horror movies all the time, I just wasn’t booking them, right? So I was trying to always do things differently, but people didn’t see me that way. And I don’t want that to be interpreted negatively, it’s just a truth. I’m lucky to have a career and that people see me as a smart, sweet person. I like the roles I’ve done. But I’m also an artist. I became an actor because I want to understand why people act the way they do, so of course, I’m drawn to drama and heartache and horror films and all of that.

And in starting the production company I finally said “look, no one’s gonna put me in this unless I do it myself. And I think I can do it. I think with the right people – my partners at QWGmire and our director Mickey Reece – I think I can do this.” So it was intentional, but it was something I’ve always wanted to do, I just had to go do a couple extra steps to make it happen!

That leads perfectly onto my next question: you started QWGmire with your fiancée and a friend. Can you talk a little bit about that experience? Did it have an effect when you came to make Agnes?

Molly Quinn: I don’t think [Agnes] would’ve been possible if it had been with anyone I wasn’t so close with because it’s such a personal story. Matthew and I had talked about doing multi-million dollar westerns – that’s what we always talked about when we got together – and about things I was producing on my own, and I was working on a movie as a producer and I was like “gosh, you know, I really think we should start. We’ve been talking about this for years. Let’s find a script!”

Matthew was like “well if Elan joins we can do it”, so we bullied Elan into joining, and we just started, you know what I mean? At some point you have to just launch, to give it a go and see what happens. And that’s a big part of what Agnes was. It was a lot of firsts, and we grew closer doing it. We just shot for two months in Portugal making our third movie and it went even better. Fingers crossed, it’s going really well. We keep getting closer to each other and understanding each other’s work strengths with each movie we do.

Was there a particular goal in mind when starting QWGmire? A sort of mission statement or anything?

Molly Quinn: Yes, our goal is to keep doing genre-leaning projects and to get more women behind the camera and in the director’s chair, and continue to take the opportunity to tell horror stories but from just a slightly different angle, with female leads. We really are a female empowerment company, that’s why I’m really excited.

Our next movie Lovely, Dark, and Deep is the directorial debut of Teresa Sutherland who wrote an amazing horror film called The Wind which won at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) and was a huge, huge success, so I’m really excited because she penned Lovely, Dark, and Deep as well. I think it’s really gonna wow people. I’m really excited! [laughs]

I can see that! 

Molly Quinn: It was just so cool! It was what we tried to do with Agnes, which is just a tweak on a possession story. This is just a slight pivot on a girl lost in the woods [story].

Ah, okay. So is there a sort of fairy tale leaning to it?

Molly Quinn: No, it’s very grounded in reality. We’re following a park ranger on her first solo expedition in a national forest. So while she’s there patrolling the backwoods she’s also trying to find clues to her sister’s disappearance. And for whatever reason, whether it’s the isolation or whether there’s something truly ancient in the woods, she starts encountering…a lot more problems than you would expect.

Wow, that sounds really interesting! I’ll certainly keep an eye out for it. 

Molly Quinn! Thank you!

Future Projects

So I was on the QWGmire website and it had two movies listed; one was Agnes, and the other was Marzipan. Can you tell me more about Marzipan?

Molly Quinn: So Marzipan is being retooled right now. It’s probably gonna have a title change and everything. That’s the movie I was producing when I talked to Matthew. So we’re trying to figure out the best way to tell a love story inside a spy drama.

Okay, I’m very interested in that! I also noticed you have a big history of voice-over work. Is animation something you’d look to do with QWGmire in the future?

Molly Quinn: Oh my gosh, of course! Are you kidding? Being able to partner with Cartoon Saloon? I mean, I don’t think they need our help (laughs), but I would do anything to just get in the room and see how they brainstorm and what their next story is gonna be.

Oh, absolutely. I got excited when you mentioned Cartoon Saloon because Song of the Sea is one of my favorite movies ever!

Molly Quinn: Me too! I literally was just talking about it on a podcast just last week.

Oh really? I got to interview Tomm Moore (director of Song of the Sea) and he’s such a nice guy. Between Song of the Sea and Wolfwalkers, those guys have got a really good future!

Molly Quinn: Yes! They’re just doing something that no one else is doing and showing us a world that a lot of us don’t know about. I love fantasy but I didn’t grow up with stories of selkies and wolfwalkers and all the great Irish lore. Even as an adult it’s so great to see these movies because they’re so impactful and I cry every time. Most dramas can’t even do that to me now because I know what’s gonna happen. So yeah, I’m a big ol’ fan of Cartoon Saloon!

Me too! And it’s exciting that you want to do animation because I’d like to see more of that in future. I’m gonna hold you to that! 

Molly Quinn: (laughs) Please! Like I said, that’s the goal. So I won’t let you down!

You mentioned earlier about female directors being a mission statement for QWGmire. Is it something you’d like to do as well, step behind the camera?

Molly Quinn: Well, in a way I think I have by producing. For example on Lovely, Dark, and Deep I don’t anything in front of the camera, I only developed and produced that film. Which was really cool. It was great not having to split my time on screen and behind the scenes. I could more focus on being a complete support to Teresa and our actors and our stellar Portuguese crew.

So yeah, I do want to continue doing that. Directing specifically? I mean look, I’m open to all of it. I’d have to feel the urge. Right now I’m just overwhelmed with all of the talent that already exists, and giving them a platform.

Are there any female directors you’d love to work with?

Molly Quinn: Yes! Jennifer Kent, who directed The Babadook. I would love to bring one of her movies to the world. And there I’d have to be selfish and want to be in front of the camera, because of how she directs women specifically. I think she champions performances which are really layered! So yeah, Jennifer, hit me up! Let’s make a movie! (laughs).

Film Inquiry would like to thank Molly Quinn for taking the time to speak with us.

Agnes is now available to watch on VOD.