But between her inky V-neck shirt and the black cat tattoo on her wrist, there are aspects hinting at the darker edge that characterizes both her work — her filmography filled with horror movies like Ready or Not, Scream VI, and Azrael — and a wicked sense of humor. She exudes a distinctive energy: the stunning but down-to-earth girl’s girl you meet in the bar bathroom who compliments your outfit and helps you fix your makeup.

In many ways, Weaving has a classic Hollywood look, but in no way does she have a classic Hollywood attitude. This year marks nearly a decade since her first major US-made films were released (Oscar darling Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and horror hit The Babysitter, which set her on her path to scream queendom), yet she remains baffled by the pampering she receives on American film sets. She’s honed her skill at navigating press junkets and red carpet premieres — which she’s sure to be doing a lot more of very soon with the release of highly anticipated horror sequel Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, dark comedy-thriller Over Your Dead Body, and romantic crime flick Carolina Caroline — but it doesn’t necessarily come naturally to her. “Left to my own devices, I'd be way less outgoing than I am,” she admits.

Weaving Has Been Everywhere, but Honestly, She’d Rather Stay Home

Photography by Sela Shiloni for Collider

Though she was born in Adelaide, Australia, Weaving spent much of her childhood attending various international schools around Asia. Her family resided in Singapore, Fiji, and Indonesia, often vacationing in villages in Laos and visiting Buddhist temples in Cambodia. Weaving is eternally grateful for her diverse, multicultural upbringing. “I think my parents did a really incredible job of educating my sister and me on things they don't teach you at school — the wonders of the world and how big it is. All of that built this curiosity, and open-mindedness, and fearlessness.”

While traveling helped coax Weaving out of her shell, she was still painfully shy as a child — and still is, though she’s learned how to hide it. “I think we live in a culture that rewards extroverts,” she says, “and I think introverts are sort of seen as weird, or strange, or even dangerous — like, ‘Oh, they didn't talk to anyone. They're scary.’ I think a lot of introverts have to sort of copy what extroverts do in order to fit in, survive, get jobs, and not feel judged. I love people, but it's really exhausting talking to them, so I think I’ve learned how to pretend to be an extrovert. I think also, in this industry, you have to be.”

Weaving’s parents, to help ease her shyness, placed her in drama classes where she quickly discovered a passion for the craft. At age 12, she declared that she wanted to act professionally. Luckily, her family — particularly her father, Simon, a filmmaker and cinema studies professor — was encouraging. “He was so supportive,” Weaving recalls. “He didn't say, ‘Oh, are you sure?’ or try to dissuade me. He never made me feel like it couldn't happen or it was out of my reach, which I really, really appreciate now. It could have changed everything if he went, ‘Oh, I don't want that for you.’”

The actress doesn’t take her father’s sacrifices for granted. “At the time, I didn't realize how much work that was for him,” she confesses, recalling how he’d help her prepare for auditions before driving the two hours to Sydney for them. He’d also reach out to his brother, Hugo Weaving, known for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and The Matrix, for advice. Filmmaking runs in her blood, but Weaving is also thankful her father never pressured her to join the family business. “He didn't try to push me in any way. He just very sweetly said, ‘Okay, let's see.’”

Weaving credits her nomadic childhood with giving her the courage to eventually make the move to Los Angeles in her twenties after spending several years starring on Australian soaps like Out of the Blue and Home and Away, the latter of which counts Chris Hemsworth and Isla Fisher among its alums. “If I had just grown up in one place and didn't have to leave the safety of my house and little community, I don't know if I would have been brave enough to come over here.”

In America, Actors Get Trailers — In Australia, They Get On With It

Photography by Sela Shiloni

The move opened up incredible opportunities, including a recurring role in Sam Raimi’s Ash vs Evil Dead series and a leading role in Showtime’s SMILF. Still, it also jolted her with a wave of culture shock. “When I first worked on an American production, I was so surprised at how they treated me,” Weaving admits, quoting something Sian Clifford said to her on the set of Chevalier. “She was like, ‘Actors are treated somewhere between royalty and infancy.’ In Australia, they don't do that. They just put us all in a pen, and then they call us when they need us, and if we don't know our lines, they're like, ‘Oi, figure it out.’ In Australia, you're just treated like a worker. Everyone's on equal footing. In America, if you’re the actress, you have a fancy trailer, and you have a rider,” she continues, admitting she didn’t even know what a rider was before coming over here. “And the fact that people don't hang their clothes up when they finish work?” Her eyes grow wide in horror. “It's wild.”

The major contrast in filmmaking culture makes Weaving especially grateful she acted solely in Australia as a kid. “I think, as a child actor in America, it would be a bit different,” she says. “Although Kathryn Newton was, and she seems normal… somewhat,” she quips — the first of many playful digs aimed at her onscreen Ready or Not 2 sister.

Coming up in a no-frills environment helped Weaving focus purely on the art and develop a strong work ethic. “I try to be overprepared and know the whole script back to front, so that when I get on set, I can just be of service to the crew and have a really fun time,” she says. “I hate being underprepared. I hate trying to read the scene on the way to work and being stressed that I don't know my lines.” It’s a lesson she hints at having learned the hard way once or twice. “I never want to feel that ever again, so now I'm obsessively the other way.”

After nearly two decades in the industry, Weaving has her method down to a science. “My first calls are to my drama coach, Leigh Kilton-Smith — who's a legend, and a maverick, and a hero — and my dialect coach, Liz Himelstein. I go through scene-by-scene with both of them. Leigh and I will map out the emotional arc and break down the script. I'll do some animal work if it calls for it, which is really weird and insane,” she says, alluding to the Lee Strasberg technique that involves studying an animal’s movements to build out a character’s physical traits. She also looks to other media, including films that the directors were inspired by, and all kinds of music.

I ask if she can share some of the songs that helped her embody Grace, her Ready or Not 2 character, and she happily obliges, whipping out her phone and bemoaning how much she hates the new update. “I’m becoming a boomer,” she sighs before sharing some selections from the playlist: lots of Florence and the Machine, “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” by Tame Impala, “Amazing Grace” by the Blind Boys of Alabama, “Holding on to Hell” by Gin Wigmore, “Sail” by AWOLNATION, “All the Things She Said” by t.A.T.u., “Paint the Town Red” by Doja Cat, “That Black Bat Liquorice” by Jack White, and “Lean into Life” by Petey USA. “There's a lot,” she says. “Maybe I should release it.” Considering how much people love Ready or Not, I tell her I think that’s a very good idea.

‘Ready or Not,’ Samara Weaving Is Coming Back With a Vengeance

Ready or Not 2 picks up right where the last one left off… literally. You know that iconic shot of Grace smoking a cigarette in her blood-soaked wedding dress? The one often memed with the caption, “Good for her”? We get the pleasure of seeing it again before a whole new hell breaks loose for our weary, furious heroine. Was it nerve-racking, I wonder, to potentially mess with horror movie perfection? Weaving assures me it wasn’t — at least, not with directors Radio Silence at the helm again.

Though there were a slew of ideas pitched in the six years since the first one came out, some involving more of a time jump, Weaving says the idea to start the sequel immediately was locked in pretty early. “Now that we've done it, I can't see any other way that would have been better, which is a good sign,” she says, praising writers Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy as well. “10 out of 10, they nailed it.”

Not only is the opening narratively clever, but it’s also a long, technically impressive oner with many moving parts. Weaving relishes the chance to explain how they pulled it off. “It was wild. It was all done on a stage, and I had basically an enormous rig — like a glorified GoPro — strapped to my back.” (She swears she knows the name of it, though she can’t think of it at the moment. “I can hear every camera operator screaming at me right now,” she jokes.) She shouts grips Sonny and Jake Bowman out by name, both for getting her coffee every morning and mastering the “little dance” they had to do together to get the elaborate shot. Though directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett were nervous, they managed to pull it off in just a handful of takes, which Weaving chalks up to the talent of the crew and the fact that they hired real EMTs to wheel her into the ambulance to make everything feel authentic.

Having the second film pick up so soon also makes for a rawer, more heightened emotional journey for Grace. “Everything’s got a heartbreak to it,” Weaving reveals. “It wasn’t six years ago this happened — it was yesterday. It would have been fresh in her mind, so everything I decided was through this lens of, ‘My husband's just died. I've just found out about everything. I’m in shock and processing this trauma that just happened yesterday.’”

Samara Weaving’s New ‘Ready or Not 2’ Co-Stars Bring Fresh Chaos

Photography by Sela Shiloni for Collider

Ready or Not 2 sees Weaving reteam with creatives from the first film, but there is a bevy of new faces in the mix as well, including Kathryn Newton, who plays her younger sister, Faith, with whom she has a dysfunctional, hilarious relationship. An older sibling herself (her little sister, Morgan, who’s three years her junior, is an actress as well), it didn’t take much for Weaving to unlock that aspect of her character. “I was such a little shit,” she recalls with a smirk. “I would taunt Morgan all day, and then she'd blow up, and then she'd get in trouble. Man, I was so evil,” she says, erupting into a cackle.

Her sibling chemistry with Newton was instant. “She's a nightmare to work with, and I'll never speak to her again,” Weaving deadpans — teasing her even when she’s not around to hear it, which is the mark of true sisterhood, of course. “No, she was an absolute G,” she assures me, sharing that they often played pranks on one another and pissed off the 1st AD for laughing too much. “We’re both really weird and strange, so casting nailed it.”

Newton and Weaving had to bond quickly, both emotionally and physically — at one point in the film, they’re handcuffed together. “There was no choreography,” Weaving reveals. “Kathryn and I just went, ‘Let us actually try and do this. Let's really try to run with these things. Let's try to make this as honest as possible.’ It's really hard! It's like trying to do a three-legged race.”

As difficult as the handcuffs are, they only scratch the surface of the hardships Weaving puts her body through in this film, from intense (and highly creative) fight scenes to more blood than ever. “Oh, it's intense,” she admits with a gleeful giggle. “Listen, I'm not gonna lie to you — it's not easy — but I refuse to complain because I've read the script. It's not like it's a surprise. I know it's gonna be dark, I know it's gonna be cold, and I know I'm gonna be soaking in goo and have a ball gag in my mouth. This isn't news to me — this is going to happen. I've read the script, so I try to just make it as fun and silly as possible.”

Beyond Newton, the new batch of actors — most of whom play members of the wealthiest families on Earth who must try to hunt Grace to maintain their influence — includes Néstor Carbonell, David Cronenberg, Elijah Wood, and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Though Weaving raves about all of them, she admits she’s most impressed with Shawn Hatosy, who’s having something of a career moment with The Pitt. Hatosy plays Titus Danforth, who initially seems to be controlled by his more ruthless twin, Ursula (Gellar). “He took what was on the page and subverted all my expectations,” Weaving says of his performance. “I kept laughing, and I think he thought I was laughing at him, but I was sort of nervous — he just committed so hard. He played it like a child, almost. There's this childish bully element. He also looked at me like he wanted to eat me. It was almost like he was in love with Grace, but didn't know how to handle it. There’s this Napoleon complex that was really bizarre and so genius.”

The film is undoubtedly hilarious, but there are moments that are genuinely terrifying, in large part thanks to people like Hatosy and Radio Silence. “Matt and Tyler will sacrifice comedy to make the best movie,” Weaving commends. “Even if there is a really funny comedy take, they'll choose the grounded version every time. I think that's why it works, because you buy into the characters, and you have an emotional attachment to them. Of course, there's comedy, but it's almost a byproduct of following what these people do and having this incredible cast that is both wildly funny but also full of fantastic dramatic actors.”

Ready or Not 2 is also impressive on a craft level, particularly when it comes to the production design. The film includes multiple jaw-dropping set pieces, including a luxuriously twisted wedding venue. “When I see sets like that, it makes me furious at my contractor,” Weaving jokes. “I'm going, ‘How did they knock up this cathedral with a hatch in the floor and staircases that weren’t here a week ago, but you can't fix the tiles in my bathroom? I don't understand.’” (She’s just teasing, Jack. She loves you and thinks you’re incredible.) “It was surreal,” Weaving muses of walking onto the set. “It would be really bright and sunny in Toronto outside, and you'd walk past a goat sitting in a little pen in the sun, and then you walk in, and it's so dark, and there's candles everywhere, and you can't really see, and there's smoke, and there's people walking around with hoods on. It was trippy.”

Without going into spoilers, making a third film in the franchise would be a difficult task, though there’s no question audiences will demand they try to find a way. “We have a joke that I kind of hope is real that the third isn’t a horror — it's just the sisters go on holiday, and it's like a rom-com,” Weaving says. “Maybe it's like Barb and Star. They fall in love with boys and run around. We just shoot in Hawaii and make a weird Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It would piss off everyone. They'd be so annoyed if there were no blood cannons, but it’d be really bold.”

Samara Weaving Wants to Do It All (Well, Almost)

Photography by Sela Shiloni for Collider

Weaving spent the last few years in leading roles, though she got her start supporting seasoned veterans like Nicole Kidman in Nine Perfect Strangers and Frances McDormand in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. These women, she says, set an example she tries to follow now that she’s in their shoes. “If you are number one on the call sheet, you have a responsibility,” she explains. “You're a leader. No one tells you that or says that to you, but you set the tone. I would watch these women, and they knew that they were respected and that all the other actors would sort of follow their lead on how to behave. They would be so gracious, and kind, and helpful, and say hello to everyone.” (She realizes that’s common courtesy, but says you’d be surprised by how many people ignore the crew on American sets.) “I knew they were tired — I knew they had less sleep than I did — but they really made an effort to make sure that everyone was excited and that the morale was good, which is huge. That's what I really try to do now when I go to work. I learn everyone's name, and I try to have an in-joke with everyone. I try not to bring my own bullshit and just be of service to this production, because everyone's exhausted, and tired, and overworked. It's such a hard thing to do to make a movie, so I try to be helpful in any way, and I think then all the other actors just follow suit.”

In addition to Ready or Not 2, Weaving will soon be seen as a jaded actress in Over Your Dead Body with Jason Segel, then a sweet, aspiring con artist in Carolina Caroline alongside Kyle Gallner. Weaving reveals she joined the latter due to being a fan of Gallner and director Adam Carter Rehmeier’s first team-up, Dinner in America. “If you haven't seen it, run to your television and watch it. I thought it was one of the most incredible films I've seen,” Weaving raves. Though there are crime thriller elements, she jumped at the chance to partake in a more straightforward love story. “That’s what I want to see, and I hadn't done something like that before, so it was a really lovely challenge.”

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By  Perri Nemiroff

Over Your Dead Body takes on a dark tone — a witty tale of murder and mayhem that’s firmly in her wheelhouse. An English remake of the Norwegian film The Trip, the film also stars Juliette Lewis and Timothy Olyphant. “I saw the list of people involved and went, ‘I don't even need to read this — I'm all in,’” Weaving says. “And then I read it and went, ‘I'm so in. Quickly, where do I sign before they go somewhere else?’”

In the film, Weaving plays an Australian actress married to a writer-director, paralleling her own life in many ways. (Her husband, Jimmy Warden, penned Cocaine Bear and made his feature debut with Borderline.) Weaving delighted in the meta humor and even looked to her own life for inspiration to build the character. “I based her off of my group of Aussie girlfriends here,” she reveals. “We'd all be hanging out, and I'd write down lines that they would say, or things they would say to their husbands that made me laugh. They’re so strong and funny, and they don't put up with any bullshit.” Though her character’s accent is a bit stronger than her own, she was relieved Jorma Taccone still allowed her to be Australian — which she hasn’t been able to use in many of her previous projects. “I knew that it was going to be a lot of improvisation, and I didn't want to have to do accent math in my head. I just wanted to really be able to go with my instincts on what I would say and have no filter there. I tried once to stay in an American accent for the whole shoot, and I just got too self-conscious. I can't do it. But there are so many Aussie actresses sitting around in LA, so I think it worked on a few levels.”

2026 is set to be a busy year for Weaving on many levels. Beyond her packed slate of films, she’s also pregnant with her first child. She’s already looking to the future, with two wildly different dream roles on her bucket list. “I'd love to play a soldier,” she says of the first. “There are a lot of stories of women fighting in wars. In World War I, there was a whole Russian battalion of women who were fighting Germany, which is so sick. I'd love to see something like 1917 or All Quiet on the Western Front, but all chicks. I haven't seen that before, unless it's a fantasy — unless it's Wonder Woman. I mean, I love Sicario — Emily [Blunt] is so good in it — but a real epic war movie would be so cool.” And the second? “I think it would be really funny if I played a Bratz doll. Let’s do Bratz the movie. Put me in, coach.”

It seems like it would be a surefire hit, what with the massive success of Barbie, which Weaving’s longtime friend Margot Robbie both starred in and produced through her production company, LuckChap. And Robbie is in good company behind the camera. More and more actresses are starting their own production companies, from Nicole Kidman's Blossom Films to Tessa Thompson’s Viva Maude. Others, like Olivia Wilde and Maggie Gyllenhaal, are turning their attention to directing. Is that something Weaving is interested in? She looks at me, voice lowering to a serious whisper. “Absolutely not,” she confides. “No, thank you.” She’ll make an exception for things like Ready or Not 2, where she already knows and loves everyone involved, but admits her skin isn’t thick enough. “I'm too sensitive to develop something, and then it just gets burnt to the ground because of some silly thing,” she says. “I peeked behind the curtain, and I saw too much.”

While she’s not ruling it out forever, she knows firsthand how much stress comes along with those positions, and right now, she values the work-life balance acting allows. “Listen, who knows? Never say never. But my husband's a writer-director, and he doesn't sleep very much. I get to sleep and hang out with my dogs. I have days off, and I get to play video games while he's writing away. I don't want to have to schedule meetings, and do lists, and do emails, and check admin. I don’t have to do homework. You’re doing homework for a living! I want to fuck up, and be silly, and do what I love to do. This is so much more fun.”

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come hits theaters March 20th.

Photographer: Sela Shiloni | Hair: Clara Leopard | Makeup: Leah Darcy | Styling: Dorso | Outfit: Milk White

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Ready or Not 2: Here I Come

R

Horror

Comedy

7 10

Release Date

March 20, 2026

Runtime

108 Minutes

Director

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett

Writers

Guy Busick, R. Christopher Murphy

Cast

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• 
  Shawn Hatosy

  Titus Danforth
• 
  Kathryn Newton

  Faith MacCaulley

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