Sydney Sweeney Nailed Immaculate's Most Shocking Scene On The First Take
This article contains spoilers for "Immaculate."
The Sydney Sweeney nunsploitation flick "Immaculate" is having one hell of an opening weekend. Not only does the film now hold the distinction of earning Neon's biggest opening weekend ever domestically, but the borderline Satanic panic coming from evangelical conservatives losing their minds over the film has been the type of grassroots marketing campaign a PR can only dream of. After the now-deleted account @AuroraFaced posted the best possible pull quote for the film by writing on X (formerly Twitter), "Libs saw how the anti-woke crowd embraced Sydney Sweeney as their new darling and right away had to shove her in this blasphemous, Satanic, feminist, pro-abortion, anti-life movie degrading Christians! This movie also debases Mary, Mother of the Christ!", NEON, who distributed the film, quickly turned the post into a viral poster, and most certainly inspired some ticket purchases in the process.
"Immaculate" has plenty of moments that will certainly upset the most devout among us, as has been customary since the nunsploitation subgenre had its peak in the 1970s with films like "Alucarda" or Ken Russell's "The Devils." All things being fair, "Immaculate" is by no means the most blasphemous or extreme nunsploitation film out there, but the final five minutes are so jaw-droppingly audacious that it's unsurprising to see a moral panic whipping up. I was fortunate to attend a Q&A with Sweeney and "Immaculate" director Michael Mohan where they talked about the ending scene in particular, and how Sweeney managed to pull it off on the very first take ... and without any rehearsal.
The blessing of just going for it
After discovering that she's been forcibly impregnated with a baby made from DNA extracted from the dried blood on a nail that was supposedly used to crucify Jesus of Nazareth, Sweeney's Sister Cecilia goes on a rampage throughout the convent and kills anyone who gets in her way toward freedom, all while being in active labor. Sweeney told the crowd that she was waiting in the wings for the movie to end, listening to the audience react. There were gasps, there were cheers, and in the final few seconds, there was a roaring applause. Sister Cecilia successfully escapes the convent but is covered in the blood of the priest responsible for her pregnancy after she stabbed him in the throat with the crucifixion nail.
Once she exits the convent's catacombs, she stares down the camera and delivers the baby without any assistance. She rips the umbilical cord connecting her to what sounds like a monstrous creation with her own teeth, before grabbing a gigantic rock and obliterating the beast. It's one of the best horror movie endings in years, and Sweeney's performance is nothing short of masterful. "What you saw was the first take," Sweeney told the audience. "We set up for that last scene and we just blocked where the cameras would be. And then Mike [Mohan, director] was like, 'Do you want to rehearse?' And I said, 'I don't know, let's just go for it,' And then that's what you saw." Go for it she did, and Sydney Sweeney forever solidified her place in horror history in the process.
The superpower of Sydney Sweeney
Sweeney and Mohan explained that they shot the scene a couple of different ways just in case they wanted to show different things while in the edit, but Sweeney, who also produced the film, confirmed that the creative team's initial instinct was the right one. "We just sort of let it rip and what's in the movie is take one," Mohan confirmed. "We did three other takes as safeties. But yeah, she nailed it on take one and that's what's in the movie." Sweeney also said that she doesn't often rehearse her characters, instead opting to know her character and snap into the scene when the director calls "action," and snapping out the second she hears "cut."
Mohan described watching her process as witnessing her becoming "possessed" by the character. "Immaculate" is the third collaboration between Mohan and Sweeney, so if anyone knows her style by now, it's him. He joked that watching her jump in and out of character is always a shock for the rest of the crew, but as Sweeney jokingly explained, "It's called acting." As to how she gets into character, Sweeney said she builds character books and diary timelines of her characters' entire lives and relationships they've had. "It's the memories that they've had and it's just kind of building an entire person and I always believe that it's super important to separate yourself from the character as much as possible," she said. "And so doing that, I can just jump in and out."
Considering the intensity and primal feminine rage coursing throughout the final moments of "Immaculate," knowing Sweeney nailed it on the first take and then snapped out of character seconds later is more than enough proof that she's one of the most exciting actors working today.