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Allison Williams on 'M3GAN' phenomenon: People get her energy
NEW YORK, June 27 (UPI) -- Get Out and Girls actress Allison Williams says she remembers feeling relieved when she saw the adorable relentless monster from her M3GAN horror movies was actually resonating with audiences.
"We were like, 'I hope people get her.' She's a very specific vibe. She's like that friend who [says], 'I'll kill him if he's mean to you,' and you're all laughing and she's like, 'No, no, I will.' And you're like: 'I believe you. You will,'" Williams, 37, recently told the crowd at New York Comic Con.
Shortly after the trailer for the first movie came out three years ago, people expressed their excitement about it online and M3GAN became an overnight meme sensation.
"People got her energy," Williams said. "We were so psyched because we were like: 'OK, she's in good hands. People understand.'"
attention all meat sacks: i'll be seeing u on friday. M3GAN 2.0 (@meetM3GAN) June 22, 2025
M3GAN 2.0 -- the sequel to 2022's M3GAN -- opens in theaters Friday.
Written and directed by Gerard Johnstone, it co-stars Violet McGraw, Brian Jordan Alvarez, Ivanna Sakhoo, Aristotle Athari and Jemaine Clement.
The film follows roboticist Gemma (Williams) as she rebuilds the murderous M3GAN so she can take down AMELIA, a robot weaponized by renegade military defense contractor Christian (Clement) with tech stolen from Gemma.
Along for the ride again is Gemma's teen niece, Cady (McGraw), whom M3GAN is determined to protect at all costs.
Williams said she learned a lot about technology on the first movie that proved useful when she returned for the sequel.
"Animatronics are temperamental, a little high-maintenance," the actress explained.
"She's kind of a diva," she added. "When M3GAN rolls on the set -- and I mean it, sometimes she IS rolled onto set -- the vibe shifts in the room and it gets way spookier and it was fun to do it the second time. We were like, 'OK, we know how this is achieved. We know how to do it and, so, now we can have a little bit more fun with it and make it bigger and more expansive."
The actress said the M3GAN robot is disturbing even when she is not performing in front of the camera.
"The creepiest parts are just M3GAN in repose, wherever she's being held and I'm walking past that tent, the M3GAN tent," Williams laughed.
"She's like: 'I will not be with everybody else. I need my own space.' But it's like M3GAN with her costume, without her costume. M3GAN with a body or just a head. Any version of M3GAN is just terrifying and if you look at it for too long, you're like: 'That's gonna move. I'm gonna keep walking.'"
After six seasons starring in the TV dramedy, Girls, Williams admitted she did not expect to find herself working steadily in unsettling sci-fi movies.
"I am really scared of horror movies and [Get Out director Jordan Peele] was like: 'I need a white girl who is so innocent seeming and so white... the whitest girl the world has ever made. A girl so white she might pronounce the 'H' in white,'" Williams said. "He was like: 'And it's you. I choose you,' and I was like, 'I'm honored.'"
She said Peele also told her he thought she was fearless for playing the title character in an NBC musical production of Peter Pan in 2014.
"He was like: 'You were Peter Pan on live television. You'll do anything,'" Williams quoted Peele as saying.
"And I was like, 'You're not wrong.' ... I hadn't really thought about doing a horror movie just because the ones that I'd seen had lived in my psyche so fiercely and had really altered my ability to sleep."
Making Get Out changed her mind, however, and she not only ended up enjoying the movie, but also loving the people she worked with on it and the fans who came out to see it.
"I was like, 'This is kind of addictive.' It's amazing to tell stories in this mixture of genres, where you can really play with archetypes and just make new rules," Williams said.
"In the Blumhouse [production company] model, you get to support these new filmmakers and their vision, and you get to make the thing that they've been obsessed with making for years and years in that very specific way and I just loved it. It's so fun."
The actress said fans who approach her in public seem to recognize her equally for Get Out or M3GAN.
"If they talk to me, it's M3GAN," she added. "If they just look at me with fear in their eyes and cross the street, it's Get Out."
