Kathryn Newton says seeing Sarah Gellar at rehearsal left her 'on the floor'

Kathryn Newton says she was overwhelmed when she discovered she’d be acting alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar in Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. 

Speaking during an onstage conversation at CCXP in São Paulo on Sunday, the actress looked back on both the upcoming sequel and the moment she realised one of her childhood heroes had joined the cast.

Newton thanked fans for the massive response to the film’s first look. “I just wanted to say thank you for looking at the trailer because it was the No. 1 trailer for Searchlight of all time,” she told the audience. “It means a lot to all of us who made the movie.”

While recalling rehearsals in Toronto with Samara Weaving and directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, Newton said she suddenly spotted Gellar’s headshot. 

“I saw Sarah Michelle Gellar’s photo on the wall and I was like, ‘She’s in the movie?’ They were like, ‘Yeah, we just got her yesterday.’ And I literally fell on the floor because Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a huge inspiration of mine.”

Newton also shared that the directors crafted the sequel with her in mind after working together on Abigail. “They called me after Abigail came out, and they were like, ‘We told you we were going to work with you again. We wrote Ready or Not 2, and you’re the girl.’ I was screaming and crying and rolling on the floor because they wrote it for me.”

In the new film, Weaving returns as Grace MacCaullay and Newton plays her estranged sister, Faith. Newton praised her co-star, saying, “Honestly, she’s the coolest girl in the world… She likes video games.” 

She also revealed Weaving once helped her flirt via text, adding, “It went really well. And then I blew it.”