LOS ANGELES – One of the few moments of levity in “Long Legs” – the horror film Neon in theaters now about a Satanist serial killer – happens when Maika Monroe’s character, Lee Harker, meets her co-worker’s daughter.
It’s obvious that the FBI analytical agent doesn’t spend much time around children. Her stoic, awkward personality is comically intensified by this interaction with the child, who asks Harker to do things she obviously has no interest in, like see the girl’s room or go to her birthday party.
Critics praised the 31-year-old’s performance of “Longlegs” – which says something when you share the screen with Nicolas Cage. But her calculated and eccentric character is all the more impressive given Monroe’s affable, almost capricious personality.
“There’s a kind of childlike quality to her that is extremely attractive and graceful and charming,” Cage said of his co-star.
Her endearing approachability is perhaps at least somewhat attributable to the fact that she has always kept Hollywood at arm’s length. “I don’t necessarily like being completely consumed in this world,” Monroe said in a recent interview.
Neither of her parents work in the entertainment industry and only reluctantly agreed to start taking her from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles for auditions as a child while she balanced school and her kitesurfing hobby. And instead of obsessing about getting her big break after years of trying, Monroe took some time off to be a professional kitesurfer in the Dominican Republic when she was 17.
“I was like, ‘Acting just isn’t for me.’ I go to class, I work on my lines, I work really hard for these auditions and I feel like I’m doing all the things and it’s just not working out,” Monroe recalled. “It was so frustrating. And it was getting to the point where I just didn’t feel good anymore.”
But she wasn’t ready to give up completely. Although she got rid of her agent, Monroe retained her manager, who occasionally encouraged her to send in audition tapes.
In almost a year, she has sent only four or five. She heard nothing back – until she did.
Monroe enjoyed being a professional athlete and said it gave her a healthy perspective on her career, but once she was cast in “At Any Price” alongside Zac Efron It is Dennis Quaid, she ran home. Soon after, her big break came with David Robert Mitchell’s 2014 cult indie horror film, “Follow.”
“There were so many ups and downs and so many times that I questioned, like, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ And it’s such a difficult industry, just mentally,” she admitted. “There were probably two other times throughout my career where I thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ And yet I keep getting pulled back. And at the end of the day, I feel like this is what I’m supposed to do and this is what I’m good at.”
Rather than looking back on her time as a kitesurfer as a detour, Monroe said it was formative, especially because she competed at a time in the sport when women were at a considerable outnumbering. “I am very grateful for the strength I felt. I felt powerful and strong. And it was a very important experience for me,” she said.
Superstition makes her reluctant to admit it, but she said this feels like a turning point in her career. She is set to reprise her role as Jay Height in Mitchell’s “They Follow,” which is scheduled to begin production early next year.
But Monroe said she initially feared that a sequel 10 years later might just be a cash grab or ruin the original.
“I thought, ‘Oh no’… because it was so iconic at the time it came out and the way it ended,” she said. “But I always had faith in David. He is so specific about what he does. Clearly, he barely does anything because he is so demanding. It has to be on his terms, in his scripts. And yeah, I read it and I was like, ‘Oh, okay. That’s how it’s done.’ So I have high hopes.”
Although “It Follows” and “Longlegs” were Monroe’s highest-profile horror films to date, her list of acting credits within the genre is extensive.
“I want a damn romantic comedy. Let’s go. Good God. What am I doing?” She joked about her reputation as a scream queen, but said she’s happy to stay in the horror film world if it means continued creative fulfillment.
“The most interesting roles, the most interesting stories and scripts that I am sent usually fall into this genre and they usually end up being the films that I am most proud of, not just as a whole, but also for my performance. And I feel like the greatest growth as an actor comes through that.”
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