Priah Ferguson and Marlon Wayans Embrace A Father-Daughter Bond In Netflix’s The Curse Of Bridge Hollow
Priah Ferguson takes on her first leading film role in Netflix’s The Curse of Bridge Hollow opposite comedy legend Marlon Wayans. The duo play a skeptical father and an openminded daughter who get caught up in a spooky curse in their new small town that brings the town’s Halloween decorations to life. I caught up with Ferguson and Wayans about their bond and what they learned on set.
“I always wanted to lead in the film so I definitely prepared myself for it,” the Stranger Things star told me. “There were things that I had to work on by being the lead. Like responsibilities I had to work on such as being on time because when the lead's not on time the whole production gets set back and knowing my lines. […] I caught on to those pretty fast.”
While Wayans is known for comedy-horror projects like Scary Movie and A Haunted House, this is his first family-friendly Halloween movie. “Maturity,” he said, about what he learned on set. “Learning to just sit in the pocket and be a joke teller, not be so broad and overreaching like I […] tend to do. I still love doing that, but this movie called for something different and it was good to play a dad and make a family-friendly comedy for Halloween. I thought [we did] a a great job and I learned a lot from [Priah] because when you work with the youth you remind yourself of the fun that it is to be youth and to go into every experience with those doe eyes just wanting to learn something new. […] She learned from me and I learned from her.”
The heart of The Curse of Bridge Hollow is the strong relationship between father and daughter. “I adopted her and then I just paid her off. Hush money and titles. Kids love that,” joked Wayans about how he and Ferguson built their bond, with Ferguson sharing that being “open” is the key to a strong relationship between parent and child. “Having a parent to talk to about your problems or just vent in general, that’s always good,” she said. “And also the parent letting their child grow and learn on their own and make their own mistakes by themselves. Not hovering over their child trying to create the perfect child because there is no such thing as the perfect child. Teenagers are going to make mistakes and that’s how they grow and become them as a person.”
During a fight against clowns in the film, Wayans references his brother Damon Wayans’ character Homey D, Clown from the first season of In Living Color, saying, “Homey don’t play that!” “I had a clown in front of me and I was just like, what would I say if I’m about to whoop a clown’s ass? Homey don’t play that just came out naturally,” he said about improvising the moment. “I think that happens often when you do movies. You’re just in the scene and you’re thinking one way and the character’s feeling this way and you say it and you go with it. They go cut and the crew’s laughing and you go, ‘Oh that worked?’”
And while this might be Ferguson’s first leading film role, it’s not her first time in the supernatural space following her success as Erica in Stranger Things. “Sydney would enjoy being in the Stranger Things universe, the upside down. I definitely think she’d want to explore it a bit more and see what it’s about,” she said about how her characters in Stranger Things and The Curse of Bridge Hollow would fair in each other’s worlds. “I think they’ll adapt pretty easily to each other’s supernatural habitat [or] interests.”
The Curse of Bridge Hollow is streaming on Netflix.
