"It Follows" star Maika Monroe knew she wanted to be a part of the film, but she wasn't quite prepared for how grueling the shoot would be. She told HeyUGuys that it was difficult to remain in her character's headspace all of the time, so she spent a lot of time on her own listening to sad music in between takes.
The environment in which they shot the film didn't make the experience any easier. Production took place in Detroit, but rather than it being summertime like it is in the film, they shot in the dead of winter. "It was, you know, freezing every day, and of course David wants it to be summer so we're in tank tops and shorts and it's, you know, 32 degrees outside," Monroe noted. Though she called the shooting process "physically and mentally exhausting," she maintained that it was all worth it for the final product.
There's also the matter of what her character goes through in the film. Monroe told Den of Geek that portraying the horror Jay experiences was difficult because she had never gone through anything like that kind of terror in her life. She had to draw from outside of her own life to embody Jay, explaining, "Running, screaming for my life, frightened I'm going to be murdered, that all has to be your imagination."
