Actress Tiffany Haddish is opening up about her personal experience shooting the Haunted Mansion reboot, sharing intriguing insights into her spooky and thrilling journey on set.
For context, the film, which is a remake of the 2003 classic of the same name, follows Gabbie (Rosario Dawson), a single mother forced to hire a historian, a priest, a tour guide, and a psychic after uncovering that the mansion she recently moved into with her son is possessed by ghosts. Haunted Mansion also stars LaKeith Stanfield, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jared Leto, Chase Dillon, and many others.
In an interview with D23, Haddish revealed that her inner child came out the moment she walked on set. The 43-year-old disclosed every time she encountered an item that piqued her interest on set, she kept asking “a thousand questions” about the design. Haddish also added that she loved the set so much because it reminded her of the ride at Disneyland:
“It felt like I was a little girl again. It’s super-sized, right? I’m just walking through it like, ‘What are these spider webs made of? What is that made of? What is this made of? Who did that? Who designed this right here?’ I’m asking them a thousand questions and I’m just like—I never wanted to leave the set! I always wanted to hang out on set because it felt like I was hanging out at the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland!”
Haunted Mansion director Justin Simien also touched on Haddish’s nostalgia about the ride while being on set, and seeing the many different designs was one of the main goals he had in mind when creating this project:
“The set was a constant source of inspiration. It was really important to us, with a movie like this, to shoot as much as we could practically—to ground the audience in the film’s reality. The sheer level of painstaking detail that went into such a large practical set was simply awe-inspiring. Darren and his team completely outdid themselves, and yet paid such careful homage to the original attraction.”
When talks about the Haunted Mansion reboot began, many weren’t too fond of the idea because of how highly criticized the original movie was due to the plot’s inaccuracies compared to the famous ride.
Since then, the new adaptation isn’t winning fans over either. As previously reported, the Haunted Mansion reboot debuted to at 56 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 49. The reason for the poor reviews is because of the movie’s dark concept and predictable script.
Haunted Mansion reboot is scheduled to debut in theaters on July 28.