Rising Star Madeleine McGraw Discusses Her New ‘Black Phone 2' Sequel
US actress Madeleine McGraw poses with the Rising Star of 2025 award as she arrives for the ... More CinemaCon 2025 Big Screen Achievement Awards at Omnia Nightclub at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada on April 3, 2025. (Photo by Michael Tran / AFP) (Photo by MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty Images)
She may only be 16 years old, but actress Madeleine McGraw is already making a major impression on Hollywood, as well as up on the big screen with moviegoers.
Best known so far for playing Gwen Shaw in the 2022 Universal Pictures and Blumhouse horror movie The Black Phone, a pleasantly surprising box office hit, grossing $161.4 million globally, McGraw has reprised her beloved character in The Black Phone 2 sequel, which is scheduled for a theatrical release on October 17, 2025 - just in time for Halloween.
Finney Shaw (Mason Thames) and Gwen Shaw (Madeleine McGraw) in "The Black Phone"
In this growing Black Phone cinematic universe, directed and co-written by Scott Derrickson, Gwen is a tenacious, young girl in the late 1970s, who discovers that she has a psychic gift to see prophetic images and symbols in her dreams, a rare ability that ultimately helps her find her kidnapped older brother Finney (played by actor Mason Thames) from a menacing masked killer, publicly known as 'The Grabber' (played by Ethan Hawke) for abducting young boys.
On April 3, McGraw was honored as the 'Rising Star of 2025' at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Nevada, which annually brings together movie theater owners, vendors and other exhibitors to watch major movie studio presentations about their upcoming slate and to celebrate the evolving future of the moviegoing experience.
Speaking with McGraw while she was at CinemaCon for her special recognition, I first congratulated her on her strong on-screen character Gwen, telling McGraw that her protagonist persona is so mature for her age and ahead of her time.
McGraw said, 'She's iconic - and honestly, more mature than some adults, too - as we can see in the first movie.'
So, how does McGraw feel about receiving the 'Rising Star of 2025' CinemaCon award from her moviegoing community?
Madeleine McGraw accepts the "Rising Star of 2025" award during the CinemaCon Big Screen Achievement ... More Awards at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace during CinemaCon on April 03, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
'It means truly everything,' McGraw said. 'I don't know where we'd be without movie theaters and people going to see movies in theaters. A lot of people have stopped going - we're going to get them back in the theaters with their popcorn, watching it on the big screen. Me and my friends - we try to keep it alive as much as we can.'
While McGraw did play a significant role in the first Black Phone movie, she does play an even more central character in the upcoming sequel, as seen in the new trailer shown during the Universal and Blumhouse presentation at CinemaCon, but has yet to be released to the public. This time, the story is set a few years later in the 1980s at a winter camp, with 'The Grabber' continuing his terror in new ways. Knowing this, I wondered what it means to McGraw to get to play such a pivotal role this time around in The Black Phone 2?
McGraw said, 'Everything. When I read the script for the first time, I was in complete shock. I'm just so honored to have the part that I have in the movie, and for Scott & [C. Robert] Cargill to write the story that they wrote for the second one. I think people are going to just be amazed. It is truly such an insanely good story - it is so emotional, it's got some funny moments - it's also very dark, though, at the same time. Very scary! Seriously, I'm just so grateful for Scott & Cargill.'
McGraw is not the only one in her family making a name for herself in the horror genre. Her younger sister, Violet McGraw, starred in Blumhouse's other hit movie, 2022's M3GAN, with that sequel arriving in theaters on June 27, 2025.
Madeleine McGraw and Violet McGraw attend CinemaCon on April 2, 2025, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
So, in an entertainment industry where sequels are quite popular to make, but do not always have the same lasting impact on moviegoers as the original, I was curious what McGraw thinks makes The Black Phone 2 worthy of telling, in bringing this expanding story and these established characters back to the big screen?
"The Black Phone 2" - in movie theaters October 17, 2025
'Scott has never directed a sequel before, until now. I think it's because he knew that we could go to new places with these characters that everyone loves so much. So, I feel like people will go, just to see the new storyline. These characters are older now, so they are going through different things. It's a lot different from the first movie, so I'm hoping that people love it as much as they did like the first.'
As I concluded my conversation with McGraw, I wondered (without spoiling any sequel plot points) what she would say to her Black Phone character, Gwen, if only she could?
McGraw said, 'Keep being that feisty girl that she is, because we need more feisty women out there.'
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