In recent years, she worked with director Mike Flanagan on both the small screen (The Haunting Of Hill House) and the big (Doctor Sleep), and as of this year, she now has a starring role in her own genre franchise.
The child star is set to reprise her role as Cady in 2025's M3GAN 2.0, a sequel that was fast-tracked into development before the first movie even arrived in cinemas due to the viral success of its camp first trailer.
Speaking to Zavvi as the gorier Unseen Edition (which promises "more blood, more violence, more M3GAN") arrives on Blu-ray, the actress already had her own theories about where the story could go next, with M3GAN seemingly defeated - although her AI presence is still felt in the home of Cady and her aunt Gemma (Allison Williams).
She said: “I don’t know what’s going to happen yet; I haven’t seen a script so it’s still a surprise to me, but I do have a theory about what we can expect.
"As well as more dancing and singing, I feel like she’s going to make other robots and build up a giant robot army. I want her to stay a villain, but I think it would be really funny if her and Cady ended up best friends again”.
When she first arrived in New Zealand to shoot the movie back in 2021, McGraw immediately fell in love with M3GAN, but admits that a sequel was never on her mind back then.
She continued: “I never knew M3GAN was going to be this big when we were shooting it. I knew people would fall in love with her, but I didn’t realise that they’d love her this much – I was so shocked that we went straight into announcing a sequel, it all happened so fast, you can never prepare for that!
“I still haven’t watched the full Unseen Edition yet, but luckily my parents will let me see it. Having starred in a few horror movies now, I know how the blood and special effects work, so I can watch something this violent and crazy and have a good time."
When it comes to bringing M3GAN to life, the special effects were used to heighten the performance by the young dancer Amie Donald, who portrayed the character on set. However, Donald doesn't voice the character, nor did she star in every sequence, with a M3GAN puppet on hand for several scenes, making it a particularly surreal experience for everybody involved.
McGraw added: “When I first saw the doll I thought she was a little creepy, but I became very close with Amie Donald and I just pictured her in the costume. By the end of shooting, I was close with both her and the puppet, on and off set.
“It was never challenging or weird to be acting alongside the puppet, it was only ever weird when the director (Gerard Johnstone) was calling out her lines for her whilst shooting – he doesn’t have a voice that should be coming out of that body!"
The bigger challenge came when filming the film's climactic fight scene: a battle between M3GAN and Bruce, the first robot Gemma ever built which still takes pride of place in her garage. Unusually, this sequence was shot between continents, with McGraw back in the US filming her movements in Atlanta, reacting to unfinished footage shot back in New Zealand.
She explained: “We had a whole day of rehearsing the scene with Bruce the robot, to get the motions right with the gloves, because at this point all of what was happening was only going on my head – in front of me, I just had camera and crew. It was a little overwhelming at the time trying to get the movements and the eyelines right, but I think it looks amazing in the film."
Even though she's not in the film's most famous scene, the actress was on set to witness an iconic moment in cinema history being filmed.
“It was so amazing seeing her dance for the first time. I knew people were going to love it, but I never guessed it would go that viral, even though I knew it was iconic!"
With more M3GAN on the way, her icon status is only likely to rise from here: she truly is the defining horror character of the decade so far.
Shop M3GAN: Unseen Edition on Blu-ray.Read our interview with Allison Williams and director Gerard Johnstone.
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