Night Hunter Star Alexandra Daddario Details Her Interest in the Creepy Thriller and Vigilante Justice

Alexandra Daddario has had a diverse career, from family-friendly endeavors like the Percy Jackson series to comedies like The Layover and Baywatch to blood-soaked horrors like Texas Chainsaw 3D. In her latest film, Night Hunter, Daddario is tasked with interrogating a man accused of kidnapping women, forcing her to use all of her resources to either sympathize with the man and earn his trust or intimidate him into revealing key information that can lead to the discovery of more victims. Not only was she drawn to the riveting plot, but starring alongside actors like Sir Ben Kingsley and Henry Cavill was an opportunity too difficult to pass up.

“Initially I was like, ‘Oh, Sir Ben Kingsley,’ I really, really wanted to work with him, and Henry Cavill as well was attached when I signed on,” Daddario shared with ComicBook.com about what attracted her to the project. “And I really wanted to work with him as well. So when I read the script, I thought it was a really interesting role, and it’s something really different, and an opportunity to work with people who I was very curious about. And I think that we made a really scary, creepy thriller and I got to experiment with a different kind of character than I normally get to play, and that was really, really intriguing to me.”

Falling more in line procedural thrillers like Silence of the Lambs, Night Hunter‘s unsettling subject matter sticks with audiences longer than the crowd-pleasing carnage of the Texas Chainsaw films, marking a somewhat new opportunity for the actress. As far as whether or not this is a path she’ll continue to explore, it all depends on what future opportunities within the genre come her way.

“I think my career has gone a completely different way than I ever anticipated,” Daddario pointed out. “You can’t really expect anything and I’ve been really lucky and I’ve worked really hard. A combination of factors have led me to be in a different place now than I was five years ago, or 10 years ago. And I’ve found some peace with the lack of ability to control where things go, and I’ve really tried to focus on finding things that suit my life, that are adventurous, that shoot where I’m at the time that helped me grow, that are experiences learning from other people, learning about myself through doing different kinds of characters, different roles. And I think I really try to focus on that.”

She added, “I try to have business sense as well, and there are certainly things that don’t make sense to do, but it just depends. If something like this could come along that intrigues me for some reason or something could come along like this that doesn’t, but it wouldn’t specifically be one genre. Like maybe I’ve just gotten out of a relationship and I’m depressed and there’s a thriller shooting in Fiji and I just want to go lay on a beach. Not that that’s a good reason to take the movie, but that’s just an example that there are all kinds of different reasons to do things.”

In the film, Cavill plays an officer who wants to find justice by following protocol, while Kingsley’s character takes the vigilante route towards getting the job done. When it comes to more mundane social situations and codes of conduct, Daddario admits she’s much more likely to follow the proper chains of command.

“In my just private life, I’m certainly a rule follower,” the actress admitted. “I get very nervous about getting involved, very scared of people’s reactions to things. I can be very shy and I also am of the opinion that we should all mind our own business. And sometimes people are doing things that maybe aren’t appropriate, but I don’t get my blood boiling about that kind of stuff.”

She continued, “As far as vigilante justice versus going through the proper channels, as much as people get irritated by bureaucracy, there’s a reason why that’s all in place, because people are endlessly fascinating. As they can be kind and well-intentioned, they can be impulsive and misinterpret things, and be filled with fear and that combination can result in unfortunate circumstances. So there’s a reason why all of that’s in place and we do deal with that in the film. Even if it’s totally wrong that this person is doing this, at what point is it appropriate to step in or not? In the film, the severity of justice is higher than just somebody on their phone in a movie theater, which I would be more inclined to ignore. But it’s interesting how we delve into that in the film.”

Night Hunter lands in select theaters and On Demand this Friday, September 6th.