Alice Krige interview: From Borg Queen to Witch in Gretel & Hansel

The Borg Queen Cometh

1428 Elm: You also appeared in Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers, The Calling, Haunted Summer and Silent Hill prior to Gretel & Hansel. The darker world seems to fascinate you. Were you a fan of the horror genre prior to your roles in those films?

Alice Krige: No, not at all! There was a lot of work between those movies.

I think what happens when one plays out of their archetype, the role becomes memorable. I have portrayed many regular people but the ones for example, like the Borg Queen become a receptacle for people’s fears.

I would get approached by individuals who would tell me, “This is what the Borg Queen is.” And there is an extraordinary spectrum of how people experience her. But it is usually about dread, misgivings or fears realized and that stays with people.

I am not especially drawn to darker characters, but on the other hand, it is a very interesting thing to be allowed to inhabit that space without consequences. To play the Borg Queen, you don’t have to deal with the consequences when you walk off the stage.

It’s kind of fun, you know, to be so weird, so wild and so out there! However, there is a part that I played that still worries me.

In Silent Hill, I played Christabella and she was unrelentingly dark. I do worry that she is out there. You know, she is out there. People can pick up that movie and watch it.

Being Human Isn’t Easy

1428 Elm: Speaking of dark, tell us about your role as The Witch in Gretel & Hansel.

Alice Krige: In Gretel & Hansel because Osgood Perkins is compassionate and extremely empathetic as a human being and interested in what makes people do what they do… the audience should walk away feeling sadness and heartache for The Witch.

My character was overcome by what happened to her by this child who she loved who had this dark gift that was taken away. The way she coped with it was by eating her other children and then she couldn’t stop doing that.

And she is ashamed, she can’t stop, she is horrified and exhausted. Its not just unrelenting darkness, there is some light shone on the human condition, right? We all have bits of ourselves that we wish we didn’t have, we are all flawed, one way or another.

The Witch is flawed and these big, iconic, archetypal characters are massively flawed but they are also very human. I think that is why they stay with us because somehow, they must resonate with us. We are all human, we didn’t ask to be here but we are and its not easy.

Somehow these “villains” strike a chord because there is a tiny bit of us that is also that. And so, I think the experience of watching them stays with us.