Hold Your Breath Star Annaleigh Ashford Talks Immersing Herself in Terror

When a performer is tasked with bringing to life a story that unfolds outside of contemporary times, they are presented with a number of challenges that they must overcome to breathe life into a role authentically. With the upcoming Hold Your Breath, which is set in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl, Annaleigh Ashford had to travel back a century to tell the thrilling tale, but given the obstacles of the actual filming locations and how closely they mirrored the intense conditions depicted in the script, some elements came much more naturally to the performer. Hold Your Breath lands on Hulu on October 3rd.

“I’m not going to lie, there were moments that were extremely uncomfortable. We were so dirty the entire filming process that, at one point, I took my dress off in my trailer and a cricket came out,” Ashford recalled to ComicBook of the filming conditions. “I don’t know how long it was in there. So yes, it was disgusting and dirty. And we also cleared the plot of land that the house was built on and in the film, and when we did that, Mother Nature did what she does. She yelled back at us. So we had a real dust storm on set. A real one, so it was quite a dirty experience.”

Hold Your Breath is described, “In 1930s Oklahoma amid the region’s horrific dust storms, a woman (Sarah Paulson) is convinced that a sinister presence is threatening her family.”  Also starring in the film are Amiah Miller (My Best Friend’s Exorcism) and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear). The film was written/co-directed by Karrie Crouse (Westworld) and co-directed by Will Joines.  

As if the environmental factors aren’t enough to make Hold Your Breath a paranoid and tension-filled experience, the nature of the premise means there are a number of themes all organically weaving into one another to heighten the impact of the story unfolding. Ashford weighed in on what themes of the film most resonated with her and excited her about the project.

“I think that the way that women are treated in this film is fascinating because it’s such an accurate depiction of the way that women had to navigate this time and space and place in the 1930s, especially the Dust Bowl, where many of them were left at home for months at a time while their husbands went off to try to find some source of income,” the actor expressed. “And they were left with a lack of support. There’s two themes that resonated, uncomfortably and importantly, which were the Dust Bowl was a man-made climate disaster, and that happened 100 years ago. A lot of people don’t know about it, and we’re currently living through man-made climate disasters. When we hurt the earth, she tells us.” 

She continued, “And the other narrative thread that I thought was really fascinating was the idea that these people were stuck inside because they were afraid of dying or getting sick from what was outside, and what does that cause? That causes isolation, loneliness, mental health issues. We just experienced that with COVID. We were stuck inside because we were afraid of what was outside, so I think it’s thematically so fascinating how these parallels from the 1930s are so applicable to our world today.”

Hold Your Breath lands on Hulu on October 3rd.

Are you looking forward to the new movie? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!