- Dan Stevens and Deborah Ann Woll discussed their careers in genre television and film, including their experiences in horror and sci-fi projects like Legion and The Cycle at San Diego Comic-Con.
- Stevens credited The Guest for propelling him into Hollywood stardom and leading to collaborations with filmmaker Adam Wingard on projects like Onslaught, while Woll emphasized the importance of curiosity and imagination in storytelling and acting.
- Both actors shared their love for immersive horror experiences, with Woll recommending interactive live theater productions like Creep in LA and Stevens revealing his family tradition of attending Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios.
Marvel Television stars Dan Stevens (Legion) and Deborah Ann Woll(Daredevil) were on hand at the Bold Voice of Contemporary Horror panel at San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend to discuss their trajectories throughout <a href="https://parade.com/news/90s-cult-classic-thriller-cast-announces-nostalgic-reunion-tour-36-years-later” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>genre television and film.
For Stevens, his career took a turn when he landed The Guest, an action-horror indie that took him from Downton Abbeyleading man to Hollywood movie stardom. “Shout out to The Guest, it changed my life, but it was also, I guess, the first horror thriller that I had done. And it started an incredible relationship with [filmmaker] Adam Wingard, and we’ve worked with him many times since,” he said, referencing Godzilla x Kong: The New Empireand the upcomingOnslaught, which is being touted as a spiritual sequel to The Guest. “I’m looking forward to what we have yet to create, he and I. We have several ideas in the pipeline. The journey we’ve been on since that little film toOnslaught has been incredible.”
He continued to discuss how he’s gotten to explore genre more deeply, including two mental asylum horror and sci-fi stints, having previously starred in Legion for Marvel Studios and, more recently, The Devil in Silver for AMC+. Explaining that horror is something he enjoys because it’s “in dialogue with the audience, but it is a game. It’s like, if we give you all the information. There is no mystery. If we give you none. It’s impenetrable. And so it’s like that drip-feeding and also sitting in certain tropes that we recognize. So it’s like, ‘oh, OK, I think I know that this is going well. I know that she’s going to be there, and that’s going to happen.’ And then it does it. And just subverting that expectation and just constantly teasing and playing with the audience with sitting in things that are unfamiliar and unrecognizable before a shocking surprise.”
Woll, who is set to star in Shudder’s horror mysteryThe Cycle, added, “We’ve been obsessed with the story our whole lives. And it means the story that we consume and the story that we create, and after you do that for decades, you start to have an instinctual sense of what works, what doesn’t work, where you can break the rules, and how you can take the trope and turn it on its head, and I know for me, it’s always going to be curiosity and imagination first.” the actress shard, “So when I think about Dungeons and Dragons and how much that exercise is my ability to be imaginative and spontaneous, I would say that work is how, like, they each inform each other. So my strength of story is from these years of building that up and doing traditional storytelling. And I can use that in D&D to create narrative. And then in D&D, the spontaneity and flexibility come back, and I think it makes me a better actor and more able to be flexible in the moment.”
As a fan who takes her RPG experience to imbue her performances with, the actress shared a love for other horror mediums in the immersive space. When asked which ones, she pointed to the work of JFI Productions and her friend Daniel Montgomery. “He did Creep in LA as well; it’s extraordinary. So I recommend [it] if you can find these kinds of interactive live theater experiences, especially those done by companies like my friend’s. It’s just a whole other way to experience it in a way that feels safe, but also like you’re stepping into it yourself. So yeah, I really recommend one of those kinds of artistic experiences.”
Stevens agreed and shared his spooky season tradition: “Halloween Horror Nights at Universal. My kids are now of age where my eldest particularly loves going. It’s an annual thing; our birthdays fall around when Halloween Horror Nights comes along.”
This story was originally published byParadeon Jul 29, 2026, where it first appeared in theNewssection. Add Parade as aPreferred
