Megan Lawless is up for a wild ride. At press time, it would be coming up to two years since the Obsession crew (of which Lawless plays fan-favourite character, Sarah) first huddled together to shoot the horror film that would go on to become one of the top-grossing and most discussed productions of 2026. It has been a hazy daze for both the film’s cast and director, Curry Baker, who have been basking in the well-deserved limelight as the world becomes enraptured by the crucifying horror of Obsession. Much unlike the trick of the One Wish Willow however, nothing about it happened overnight.
“I was submitting three or four self tapes a week, because it’s just the standard way that you audition for a role. Barely any of them you actually book. I had a callback with Curry and Haley (Johnson), our producer, and Cooper (Tomlinson) was my reader. After that I didn’t hear anything for three months, so I assumed I didn’t book it,” Lawless candidly shares with me. “I remember being kind of upset because I really liked the script.”
Sarah would eventually find her way back to Lawless though. Some more months later, Baker set up another fateful Zoom meeting with her: she was going to be their Sarah. All as long as she was cool with changing up her look. So Lawless cut her hair short—for the first time in her life.
“It was really hard at first. I felt like a completely different person, and I didn’t know how to style it. I was trying to figure out how to style it to make it look good on me, and I just didn’t feel like myself. But it was really good when I was on set because I felt so in character,” she laughs. “Once I put on a whole wardrobe and I had my hair and my eyeliner and my septum piercing on, I felt like Sarah.”
Sarah’s wardrobe, I note, is something that really adds this additional layer to the film—especially in relation to the ending scene, when Nikki strips her and wears Sarah’s clothes. The clothes had to be distinctive enough, for the audience to recognise it too. True enough, Lawless tells me there is an archetype that Blair James, the show’s costume designer, was confident about piecing together: “She was telling me: “She’s a Silver Lake (a neighbourhood in LA), artsy fartsy girl, and we’re making her look so cool!””
The archetype that Sarah really represents however, extends beyond her artful, hippie glamour. “People all love Sarah so much because we’ve all had a crush that didn’t reciprocate our feelings. She represents this girl that was right in front of him that he just didn’t value, you know? And he couldn’t see because he was so blinded by what he selfishly wanted. She’s someone that was right there in front of Bear the whole time,” Lawless starts, when we start talking about all of Obsession’s characters.
As much as Sarah is a beloved character, she isn’t perfect. But between Bear, Nikki, Sarah and Ian, none of them are. “The beauty of the film is that no one is perfect, and all of the characters are very human. When I saw the character description on paper, it was like ‘tattoo artist’, ‘edgy’—it tells it like how it is. I read that and I was like yeah I know this girl, but I want to bring a lot of heart to her. I didn’t want her to just be an archetype per se,” Lawless quips.
It is precisely Lawless’s charming portrayal of Sarah that draws the audience in, only to be ruthlessly met with her dreadful fate. Even if the audience knew it was coming, the true upset is in knowing her could-have-been future: revealed when Bear opens up her acceptance letter to pursue art at her dream school.
We talk more about the horrifying car scene, to which I wonder out loud about whether she knew the extent of the scene when she first read the script. “I still have the original script. But you know when you write on paper ‘Nikki bashes her head into the steering wheel over and over’, that’s one thing right? When everything was brought together though, it had way more of an impact, even though we knew it was going to happen. We didn’t understand the gravity of what it would actually be like to watch that on screen, I don’t think, not really,” she shares.
It is a horror to watch on screen, but there is a real horror that sits at the crux of Obsession. “It’s scary to exist as a woman. What happens to Nikki is the epitome of so many things that women experience on several different levels. Our biggest fears culminate in what happens to Nikki,” she starts. “I love that Michael (Johnston) and Curry explore that because (Johnston) brings such a likability. At face value, you can think that he is a protagonist if you ignore Bear’s actions because he comes off so sweet but then you really meditate on everything that happens and it’s one huge, giant sigh,” she adds.
“I’ve had several experiences with the quote-unquote nice guy that you think you can believe and trust, and it’s easy to kind of be optimistic about a guy you like and ignore all these subtle red flags that are being presented to you. But they’re subtle ways in which men are disrespecting us, and it’s easy to create excuses for them,” she continues, impassioned about the impact of the film, and how it is creating conversations around the world.
Above all, she—like so many women out there—is of the camp that Bear’s actions are inexcusable. “I love people holding each other accountable in the comment sections and stuff in their interpretations. For me, personally, I fight against making excuses for behaviour like this because I think the repercussions for women are exactly what happens in the movie. It comes back to cause you a lot of harm.”
“Bolstering the ego of insecure men is so dangerous. It was really important for these things to have been classified on screen as a horror. It’s a horror for everyone in the film, but this is a horror for Nikki,” she emphasises, as we get deeper in thought about the film, and whether or not Bear really ever cared about Nikki at all.
As we get to talking about hypotheticals, and what Lawless would wish for if there was an additional five minutes of run time for the film, we agree on one thing: that Bear would still make the same choices. Every pathway forward for Nikki seemed devastating—even if someone, like Sarah’s dad Carter (played by Andy Richter) were to come in and use his One Wish Willow to reverse everything.
Things might have gone real south for Sarah, but in time to come, Lawless might be able to live the sort of life Sarah dreamed of: full of creative passion. We talk about her creative inspirations growing up, and a slew of Asian women naturally turn up in her roster (As far as actors go though, Kate Winslet is her top choice). Both Chloe Zhao’s and Lea Salonga’s names are surfaced. “[Chloe] is a female director that I really admire, and would love to work with.—she’s one of my biggest inspirations. And then my first ever inspiration to be a performer was Lea Salonga. I loved Disney movies growing up. I loved her voice as Mulan, as as a big theatre nerd, I loved her in Miss Saigon. I just admired her so much that I would watch keep singing videos of her on YouTube. She’s everything to me.”
Beyond the craze (or obsession) surrounding Obsession, what does Lawless see herself doing next?
“It’s hard for me to answer this because ultimately, I’d love to do everything at once, and I really want to try out more genres on both TV and film. I’d love to be the romantic lead of some sort of romance, and I actually would love to do some comedy. I love doing comedy,” she quips.
“When I said Chloe Zhao, like Hamnet was incredible to me, and that’s really aligned with my favourite work to do as an actor. I really love grounded dramas too. I would love to explore characters and stories that really take you to the depths of your soul. But ultimately, I’m going to take things as they come, and choose with purpose.”
Purpose, it seems, is integral to Lawless’s work as an artist. ‘I don’t try to live in the future too much. As an artist, I just want to do work that makes me proud and represents me authentically, and influence those around me or whoever I can in a positive way.” With the way Obsession has moved the needle for women around the world, it’s safe to say that Lawless is already on the right path.
Photography Jack Morris
Stylist Annunziata Santelli
Make-up Tracy Raffelson
Hair Annette Davenport
Lighting designer Keegan Attlee
Photography assistant Josh A Katz
