Nell Tiger Free didn’t know what was going to happen when director Arkasha Stevenson called “action” on a scene where her character is possessed by the antichrist in The First Omen.
“We didn’t have a choreographer. We didn’t have any rehearsal,” the 24-year-old British actor told Decider. When it came time to film the scene—which pays homage to Andrzej Żuławski 1981 horror classic, Possession—Free recalls that “this feminist rage took over me.” Some members of the crew were so disturbed by the performance—which Free says included barking—that they walked off set. “Scaring grown men has become a bit of kink of mine,” Free said with a laugh.
The First Omen is the sixth film in the horror franchise, and a prequel to the movie that started it all. The Omen (1976), follows a young boy named Damien, who—it’s slowly revealed—is the antichrist. The First Omen stars Free as Margaret, a young American nun-in-training sent to an orphanage in Rome. There, she soon discovers that certain members of the Church are actively trying to breed an antichrist child. And they need women’s bodies, like Margaret’s, to do it.
Directed by Arkasha Stevenson in her feature film debut, The First Omen was critically praised for its depiction of forced birth and female body horror when it opened in theaters in April. As of today, May 28, The First Omen is available to buy on digital platforms, and will be streaming on Hulu on May 30. (It also comes to Blu-ray and DVD on July 30.) Decider spoke to Free ahead of the streaming release about the fear of forced birth in a post-Roe world, the vagina shot that had to be cut to avoid an NC-17 rating, and her hopes for a First Omen sequel.
Warning: The First Omen spoilers ahead.
DECIDER: This idea of forced birth in The First Omen is especially scary to American women, following the reversal of Roe V. Wade and diminishing abortion access. I realize you’re not American, but did you and Arkasha Stevenson talk about that political angle?
NELL TIGER FREE: Yeah, definitely. Kasha’s a big fan of female body horror, and so much of this movie is the idea of being forced to bear a child that you didn’t want to bear. Obviously, that strikes up a political conversation, just naturally, because it’s very topical for women. It’s a topic that’s discussed about us, a lot. Sometimes it feels like our bodies are being spoken about, and spoken for, and that’s an incredibly frustrating feeling—to feel like what I can do with my body is somebody else’s decision. That’s a big theme of this film. It’s not in the movie to make a political statement—this is a horror film, and it’s part of the storyline.
But it’s something that Kasha and I were really conscious of, and we had lots of conversations about what we were comfortable putting on film. We didn’t want anything to feel gratuitous, because it’s not there for any sort of macabre pleasure. We’re not making torture porn. We’re here to tell a story, and to tell it well, and to handle it with care and respect.
For me, the most heartbreaking and scary moment was during that birth scene, when Margaret was pleading, “I’m in pain,” and she’s completely ignored.
I remember when that was on the page, Margaret’s line was, “Help me, I’m in pain.” Yeah, it kind of takes your breath away for a second. It’s so fragile and scary—such a scary thought. I repeated it over and over, and that ended up in the final take. But that’s just because that was the way I was genuinely feeling in the moment, too. She’s being so observed, treated like an object—almost just like a vessel for breeding this creature. She becomes the forgotten thing, in that moment. Her cries fall on deaf ears.
How did working with a woman director, on a horror movie that is so specific to woman’s fears, affect your experience on this project?
I think that’s a pertinent question, but it’s funny how often that question comes up. If I was working with a man, nobody would ask me about it, do you know what I mean? There are women who aren’t sensitive to the topic of women’s bodies, and there are men who are obviously not sensitive to the topic of women’s bodies. It just had to be a human being who had those sensitivities, and who had that lens, and had those feelings. Kasha was just the best person for the job, in my opinion.
But you know, bringing more women into directorial positions and bring more women into horror—that’s a fantastic thing. I hope that it continues and grows, so much so that it’s not an anomaly anymore. That it’s not something interesting anymore, because it’s so common. Honestly, I don’t think anybody knows horror more than women do! I think we’re the ones who experience the most of it, and there’s a lot of real-life horror in this movie.
Talk to me about filming that possession scene. You gave a fantastic performance—and you said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that some of the crew were so disturbed, they walked off set?
We didn’t have a choreographer, we didn’t have any rehearsal—we didn’t actually know what the fuck was going to happen. Nobody really know, most of all me! All I had was this reference from this one movie, [Andrzej Żuławski 1981 horror classic] Possession. I watched that clip. It was maybe two minutes long. Kasha and I had a lot of conversations—me and Kasha love to talk!—and then it just got to the day. It was somewhere in Northern Italy, and honestly—I wish I had a more interesting answer—but I truly just did it and hoped for the best!
We had two takes. It was weird, this feminist rage took over me. We spend so much time being told to look pretty, perfect, beautiful, put-together, attractive. To be asked to do the exact opposite, to be as free with your body as you possibly can… I mean, I was barking, at one point! All the rage in my body came out. Funnily enough, the only people that walked off set were the men. Scaring grown men has become a bit of kink of mine. [Laughs.] You know, I’m pretending, I’m telling stories, this isn’t real. But in that moment, to make people feel like it is real—to have people who know me as the bumbling British peanut that I am, and then to have them be scared—it’s a really cool feeling.
I read that the movie nearly got an NC-17 rating. Do you know what was changed to keep it rated R?
Originally, [in a scene where Margaret witnesses a different nun giving birth] there was a shot where it was just vagina. Vagina, and then the jackal hand comes out of the vagina. The NC-17 was because there was just vagina, before the hand came out. They wanted to cut the scene where it was just the vagina, and only have the bit where the hand was coming out. The vagina being mutilated was less scary than just a plain old vagina, which I thought was really interesting. It was originally like two minutes long, that shot. So it had to get truncated. There was no plain vagina allowed!
The ending sets up another movie for your character, Margaret. Have you heard anything about another prequel movie happening? Any conversations with Arkasha?
Me and Kasha talk about that all the time. No official conversations, or anything, but me and Kasha like to chat about it—what it would be, what it would be called. Today, literally twenty minutes ago, we were thinking about maybe starting a conspiracy that The First Omen exists in the same universe as Sister Act. [Laughs.] We’re actually going to be making Sister Act 3.
Love that, let’s get Whoopi on board! Would you want there to be another Omen movie, or do you feel ready to move on to new things?
I would love to. I love the story. I love the character. I’d jump in front of a train for Arkasha. So if it’s Arkasha, and me, and The Omen, I feel like I’d make a hundred of them.
A lot of people will watch The First Omen for the first time on Hulu this week. Any suggestions for them for the best at-home viewing experience? How do you watch horror movies at home?
Well, you’ve got to turn off all the lights! And I think also, watch it with people. I’m a weirdo, so sometimes I will curl up and watch something horrifying on my own. But I think the best experience is to experience it with others. It’s always more fun, isn’t it?
