Maika Monroe

“I grew up watching horror movies with my dad. For as long as I can remember. I grew up loving being terrified. 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' at sleepovers. Hiding behind my fingers.”

“I'm working on a movie called 'Labor Day' with Kate Winslet while still balancing kite boarding. Being an actress and an athlete is a challenge, but I'm excited to see what happens.”

“I have my own past and my own personality. I'm going to relate to the material in a completely different way than somebody else might.”

“If you've got people around you that are like, 'Oh, you're so good,' this and that, it becomes unhealthy. My friends are like, 'You look like a doofus.' I'm like, 'Thank you. Thank you for that.' It keeps me grounded.”

“I like challenges. I think that's important.”

“I grew up in the indie world, and that's what I'm used to, but there's something really incredible about having money behind a film and having the time to do as many takes as you want.”

“You go to see movies to feel something, and being terrified - there's something so fun about that.”

“Acting is such a crazy industry, but kite boarding keeps me grounded.”

“If I met Jack Nicholson, I would probably get a little flustered. Not going to lie. I've watched his movies since I was so young. Such a fan.”

“I have a rule now that I can only watch a movie twice. By the third time I was watching 'The Guest,' I was hating everything about it, but the first time, I loved it. The first time you watch it, you watch it as a whole. And the second time, I think you can learn a lot. By the third time, you are just picking everything apart.”

“I started kite boarding when I was 13. My dad was a kite boarder, and I begged him to teach me until he finally agreed. He made me wait because it can be dangerous.”

“There's a lot of comedy in 'The Guest,' so it was a bit more fun in a sense - it wasn't so heavy like 'It Follows.'”

“There's a lot of garbage, and then there are those ones that just stand out so incredibly. You fight for those roles; you do everything in your power to get it.”

“My goal is to continue to act and still be a professional kiteboarder.”

“When you watch a film, a huge part of it is the music and the coloring and everything that comes together to create such a unique film. So, reading the script, I had no idea what it was gonna be.”

“My dad took me to see James Brown live, and that's so cool, cause I don't think many people my age can say they saw James Brown. I'm pretty proud of that. That's the thing about me that no one really knows. I had to have been 6 or 7, but I remember it vividly.”

“What I love about my job is challenging myself and finding weird, different roles.”

“I'd love, love, love to do a comedy. I can't imagine being on set and being happy and cheerful. That seems so foreign.”

“A lot of times, I'll get roles where it's the dumb blonde or the cheerleader, and I just have no interest - and it can be a great movie, it really can - or the mean girl; those things don't intrigue me much.”

“You can learn more from a person just from their observations and how they see the world. More so than just talking.”