Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday!! Today is dedicated to one of my all-time favorite horror movie sequels, Smile 2! Smile 2 really upped the terror and brought us a great mixture of music and horror. So, be sure to read from the teleprompter, don’t forget your bottle of VOSS water, and enjoy these fun pictures and bits of trivia!!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures provided by Facebook.com, Instagram.com, and Google.com)

(WARNING! GRAPHIC SPECIAL EFFECTS!!!)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• Wanting to make sure that this sequel was different enough from its predecessor, the filmmakers chose to give it a more unique look. The film’s director, Parker Finn wanted to depict a glammy, shiny, very fun pop star’s world, but also make it feel very cold, frigid, threatening, and almost alien. Finn stated that he wanted to find fear, dread, and unease in an unexpected environment.
• The opening scene was filmed to appear like a one-shot sequence. In reality, it was several takes that were stitched together. Kyle Gallner (Joel) performed his own stunts in the film.
• Parker Finn worked with real surgeons to create accurate scars on Skye’s (Naomi Scott) body, basing it on what victims of severe car accidents might receive. The scar on her torso is called an exploratory laparotomy, which is used to examine the internal organs for any damage.
• Parker Finn admitted that the IV that Skye rips out of her arm was clearly longer than it would be in real life. He felt that he needed to add more to the horror of the scene, so he chose to make it that way.

• When Skye is scrolling through her contacts on her phone, some of the names shown include: Adele, Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Jimmy Fallon, Fergie, Conan O’Brien, Doja Cat, Lady Gaga, and Parker Finn.
• Rather than extras in the bar scene, most of the people were members of the crew.
• Parker Finn refers to the scene of the smilers in Skye’s apartment as Cirque Du Soleil in Hell.
• Naomi Scott said she modeled her character, Skye Riley after Lady Gaga.

• Naomi Scott had only a few weeks to learn Skye’s songs and choreography before shooting began.
• The Drew Barrymore interview was one of the last scenes to be filmed. After going through the rest of the shoot performing as Skye, doing this scene last allowed Naomi Scott to be more on guard as Skye was intended to be.
• Drew Barrymore’s cameo was created in an effort to make more credibility for Skye Riley. Parker Finn wanted Skye to be on a real talk show so she could be recognized more as an established, world-renowned star. Finn wrote the scene with Barrymore in mind. He wrote her a letter and sent her the script pages with it and he was delighted when she said yes.
• The scar on Skye’s knee is in the shape of a smile.

• Parker Finn did briefly consider making Joel the lead of this film.
• When we see Skye’s interview in the beginning, you may notice that it’s played on Lewis’s (Lukas Gage) TV. This may be the moment where The Entity, through Lewis, became aware of Skye by watching the interview.
• Parker Finn cast Ray Nicholson as Paul Hudson as an homage to his father, Jack Nicholson’s performance in The Shining.
• Naomi Scott co-wrote many of Skye’s songs with producer, Alexis Kesselman.

• While the film took place in New York City, it was actually shot upstate in Poughkeepsie, Ellenville, and Newburgh. The venue for Skye’s concert was the MVP Arena in Albany.
• Parker didn’t write the part of Paul specifically for Ray Nicholson. He said the connection ended up being a wonderful kismet that worked in their favor.
• Naomi Scott sang all of Skye’s songs, did all of her choreography, and she could actually play the piano, like her character. Parker Finn stated that she has the chops all-around to be a true pop star, even though she’s mainly known for her acting.
• A full music video of Skye’s song, Grieved You was filmed, but deleted. It concluded with a woman smiling ominously at the camera.

• Skye’s choreographer, Anton, was played by Jon Rua, a professional Broadway singer and real-life choreographer.
• Skye Riley pulls her hair out multiple times throughout the film. This is based on a real condition called trichotillomania, where a person experiences frequent, repeated, and irresistible urges to pull out hair from their scalp, eyebrows, or other areas of their body.
• Skye’s new hair style was inspired by Kristen Stewart, who worked with Naomi Scott in Charlie’s Angels.
• Parker Finn used mirrors extensively throughout the film to show how Skye could never escape herself and her image.

• Skye Riley can be seen holding a tin of Sarroff’s Mints, named after the film’s cinematographer, Charlie Sarroff.
• In the contact picture for Gemma (Dylan Gelula) on Skye’s phone, Skye can be seen licking her face. According to Parker Finn, Naomi Scott improvised that on the spot to break the ice upon meeting Dylan Gelula.
• While developing the film, Parker Finn spent the first month just tossing out ideas. He stated that if they’re coming to him this quickly, they’re too obvious. When talking about finally finding his inspiration, he stated, “There was an evening that this idea about this character, Skye Riley, this pop star, hit me like a bolt of lightning. I got obsessed with it. I love that this world is so unexpected for a horror film. This glitzy, glammy, shiny world of a pop star felt like such a collision with Smile. And I’d really love to see where that could go.”
• We never see Skye finish a single song she starts in the entire movie.

• Morris’s (Peter Jacobson) brother was portrayed by a member of the film’s special effects team, Jeremy Selenfriend.
• This was filmed under the title, Too Much For One Heart, which is one of Skye’s albums mentioned in the film.
• Roberts Jekabsons (Yev) and Zebedee Row (Alexi) play Russian brothers in the film. In reality, they are from Latvia and Australia.
• The scene where the smiling dancers carry Skye in her apartment was a call back to her New Brain rehearsal, where the dancers lifted her up and spun her around.

• Skye’s name was originally going to be Quinn Parsons.
• Lewis’s last name is Fregoli. The Fregoli Delusion is when someone believes that multiple people are actually the same person in disguise, which is The Entity’s MO.
• When Skye meets Morris at the bar, her phone starts blowing up as multiple people try to call her. Morris doesn’t respond to the phone’s constant buzzing as he’s explaining how to get rid of The Entity. This most likely shows that Morris is real and The Entity was just trying to distract Skye away from a threat to its existence.
• Skye’s constant chugging of VOSS water wasn’t done with any kind of VFX. Naomi Scott actually chugged all of that water. She said it was actually difficult going down on a bottle of VOSS, and she didn’t anticipate how uncomfortable it would be.

• When Skye meets Morris at the bar, you can see “You’re F***ed” on the booth over her right shoulder.
• When Skye’s mother, Elizabeth (Rosemarie DeWitt) stops at her apartment after she overslept, we don’t see her acknowledge Gemma, even though she urged Skye to reconnect with her. This is a subtle hint that Gemma wasn’t really there and it was The Entity, visible only to Skye.
• Parker Finn wanted “unbearable embarrassment” for Skye during her mishap reading the teleprompter.
• After Skye realizes she may have killed her mom, she bolts to the door to close it to prevent Josh (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) from coming in. Since Naomi Scott could easily outrun the camera operator, she had her character stumble a bit on her way to the door to allow the camera to beat her there.

• When Gemma takes the wheel and drives off with Skye, it was Dylan Gelula’s first time driving in two years. During the first take, she was reportedly very timid.
• For the jump scare where The Entity was revealed to be impersonating Skye’s mother, Parker Finn was inspired by the famous jump scare in The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, where Bilbo lunged at the ring Frodo was holding. Finn was always scared by that scene and he wanted to try and recreate it here.
• When he goes to kill Alexi, Joel simply walks by an apparition of Rose on fire. Being a police officer, Joel has likely seen his share of traumatic events and that provided him with a degree of protection against The Entity’s mind games.
• When Skye faces the smiling dancers in her closet, she looks away and notices that they’re much closer than before. This is possibly a nod to the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who.