Actress Maria Bello tapped into her bipolar disorder to portray a mentally unstable mother in new supernatural horror movie Lights Out.
The Coyote Ugly star opened up about how the disorder has affected her life in her 2015 memoir, Whatever...Love Is Love: Questioning the Labels We Give Ourselves, and her personal ups and downs proved to be invaluable as she got into character as Sophie, a woman who is haunted by a scary entity, for Lights Out.
"I was able to use my experience from that and put it on the screen for the first time; remembering what it was to be that person who couldn't get out of bed for three months," she tells WENN. "To really try to understand what it would be like to have my child at a time when I was in that space of not understanding what reality was; that was a real gift."
Her onscreen daughter Rebecca was played by Teresa Palmer, and the Australian actress was so in awe at how Bello pulled off the part, she is convinced Maria deserves Oscar recognition for the role.
"I know so much about mental illness. It's all through my family. I've experienced it, I know it so well that I'm very sensitive to when it's portrayed on the screen," she explains. "Then, when I heard it was Maria Bello, I thought it was the best thing to ever happen to this movie. I saw her on day one and what she did with it and I was so moved by her little nuances of behaviour. It was a performance to be nominated for an Academy Award. It was so real."
Palmer is also a big fan of Alicia Vela-Bailey, who portrayed the dark entity, and she was genuinely scared the first time she encountered her former I Am Number Four stuntdouble on the Lights Out set.
"I knew that she was in the suit but they didn't tell me when she was on the set for the first time when we were shooting so I would be taken by surprise," Teresa recalls. "I didn't realise she was down there scratching on the floor. Then when I saw her I actually screamed out loud and everyone started laughing. I was so sorry we had to start again! Initially it was really shocking to see her. I had no idea what she was gonna look like. Just the way she was able to contort her body is terrifying. Then seeing her in the chair during breaks and reading a book or texting selfies of her as Diana (her character) was really bizarre."
Director David F. Sandberg decided to amp up the feeling of unease by keeping the whole house they were shooting in very dark, and Teresa admits it really added to the cast's performance - because they were all genuinely scared.
She says, "The energy kind of followed you around too. I think everyone felt a little uneasy in that house. No offense to the owner but it was really creepy and we were all afraid in your house! I ended up being transported into this world and it was terrifying."
The extra effort has paid off with film fans after Lights Out enjoyed an impressive $21.7 million (£16.5 million) opening weekend (22-24Jul16) in North America. The movie was made on a budget of just $4.9 million (£3.7 million).
