Gracie Gillam (formerly credited as Grace Phipps) has been working within the horror world for a number of years. Gillam’s very first acting credit was as Bee in the 2011 remake of Fright Night. From there the young actor went on to star in Some Kind of Hate, Dark Summer, and Tales of Halloween, as well as a recurring guest spot on The Vampire Diaries, covering a vast range of genre content. Interestingly, at the same time as building a portfolio within horror, she starred in Disney Channel movie sensations Teen Beach Party and Teen Beach Party 2. The juxtaposition of projects might seem like strange bedfellows, but in hindsight all of them have helped prepare Gillam for their latest venture, Superhost.
In Superhost, Gillam plays Rebecca, an AirBnB superhost who comes unstuck during a visit from travel vloggers Claire (Sara Canning) and Teddy (Osric Chau). Rebecca is a larger than life character, socially awkward and overly polite, her behaviour quickly becomes a concern for her current customers. As Rebecca is pushed to the brink, she finally unleashes her inner darkness and that leads to some very serious trouble for Claire and Teddy. Rebecca really does feel like a role that has been created especially for the star and early reviews have all praised her performance.
We at THN first spoke with Gillam back in 2015, ahead of the release of Dark Summer. Not long after that Gillam enrolled into college and put acting on the back-burner, opting to only film during summer vacations. With such little time available, projects that Gillam opts to make are super special and Superhost is no exception.
Ahead of the home entertainment release of Superhost we reconnected with Gracie to find out more about how she prepared to play such a complex character.
Superhost is available on Blu-ray, DVD and digital from 4th April from Acorn Media International.
