MaXXXine's Mia Goth, Ti West look back on carving a hit horror trilogy: 'I find it quite emotional'

There's a scene in MaXXXine, the latest film from director Ti West, when the titular Ms. Minx, Mia Goth's top-of-her-game porn performer, rushes to tell a friend in 1985 Los Angeles that she landed her big break in an upcoming Hollywood flick.

"Name five celebrities who got their start in horror movies," she tells Leon (Moses Sumney), a video shop owner. He starts rattling off names like Jamie Lee Curtis, John Travolta, Demi Moore, and Brooke Shields before she interjects.

"And Maxine f---ing Minx!"

Truer words have not been spoken. To horror fans, Maxine Minx is a f---ing movie star.

Audiences began flocking to see her in West and Goth's X, the 2022 film about an amateur porn crew trying to shoot a smut film at a farmhouse in 1979 when they are set upon by their elderly hosts. Then came the prequel Pearl (also 2022), this one about the younger years of one of the X killers, who looks eerily identical to Maxine and is also played by Goth. And now they have a full-fledged trilogy that's both meta-commentary on movie-making and the Hollywood machine, as well as all-around blood-soaked debauchery.

At the Vista Theater Hollywood on June 21, a planned double-feature of X and Pearl turned into the surprise first public showing of MaXXXine, the trilogy's grand finale. With West in attendance for a Q&A with one of his actors, Lily Collins, they were drowned out by the exultant reaction from the crowd, representing the hardcore fan base that grew around these films. "You couldn't hear us through the mics anymore," West says. "It was so loud in that room, and it went on for so long. It was a really nice relief because I've been working on this nonstop. And credit to that audience! People have not spoiled it."

Goth saw signs of this popularity early on. She says she was nine-and-a-half months pregnant when X opened in theaters, so she couldn't do much press at the time. "I was on my computer keeping track of everything each day," she recalls. "I was just really floored by it because it was something that grew and evolved and was snowballing. Then Pearl was announced, and it just took on a life of its own."

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West first met Goth over Zoom in 2020. Known at the time for roles in Suspiria and A Cure for Wellness, the actress was living in London and "going through quite a challenging period of time," she says. She received an email about West's interest in meeting with her. Goth was at the top of his list to not only star as Maxine Mink in X, but also play the elderly Pearl role under heavy prosthetics. "The big challenge of this movie was that the script was pretty out there, so it was not going to be for everybody," West says. "You need someone who's pretty fearless and who's willing to go for it, especially in playing both roles."

"I read through [the script]. I loved it," Goth says. "I read it again, and then I started making all these notes. I was like, I have to have really interesting questions so that he thinks I'm smart, and then I have to really come at it from a different angle so that no one else brings that up. I've never done that before. I haven't done anything like that since where I mapped out how I think the whole conversation should go."

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To West, it feels like they haven't stopped making movies. Because New Zealand was the only country in the world at the time that had pretty much eradicated COVID cases during the height of the pandemic, the filmmaker convinced A24 to let them shoot the small-budget prequel, Pearl, which took inspiration from classic Tinseltown musicals as the future stab-happy farm girl attempts to claim the life she sees in movies.

West edited both films simultaneously with a surprise announcement for Pearl in the end credits of X, to the delight of the growing fandom. This was all while he wrote the movie that would become MaXXXine, a big, sprawling Los Angeles-set film that plays with the perception of Hollywood versus the reality of the industry. In it, Maxine Minx finally breaks into the mainstream as a lead in the sequel to a buzzy indie horror hit while making sure her past stays dead.

"I was trying to set a movie in 1985, which was a very censorship-laden [time], particularly with music and things like that," West explains. "To have a cultural, moral outcry felt aligned with the themes of the trilogy."

West and Goth are both still stunned to be sitting together speaking about a complete trilogy. The filmmaker theorizes they would've probably only made one movie if they decided to shoot it in Texas or Louisiana, where the pandemic ravaged the population. "It was such a moment in time that has dictated the last four years of our lives," he says.

On her way to this interview with EW, Goth drove past a poster for MaXXXine. "It just so happens to be at the very first hotel I ever stayed in when I came to LA when I was 17 years old for an audition for a cat lady, where she's like a model in the day and then she becomes a lion at night," Goth remembers. "They never made the movie, but there's just something so full circle about that."

She looks off to the side of the room, thinking about what to say next. "I find it quite emotional," she finally remarks, turning back to West. "There's life before X, Pearl, and MaXXXine; there's life after X, Pearl, and MaXXXine. There was a fork in the road, and we met and went off to make this movie [X] for the pure love of it. It's evolved into something extraordinary, and I'm still in the midst of processing it all. I'm very proud of what we have made."

MaXXXine opens in theaters this Friday.