Summary

• Mena Massoud discusses his role in the horror thriller film, The Sacrifice Game, and how it differs from his previous work in Aladdin.
• Massoud talks about the challenges of playing a villain and how he tried to bring depth and complexity to his character.
• There is no update on the progress of Aladdin 2, but Massoud hopes the project will eventually move forward.

Mena Massoud talks about taking on horror in The Sacrifice Game, and whether or not Aladdin 2 is part of his future. In 2019, audience members got to visit a whole new world as Massoud got his breakout role in Disney's live-action Aladdin movie, which became one of the more successful remakes for the studio. However, Massoud's latest role is a whole new side of the actor that audience members have not seen before as he tackles a very dark, sinister character.

Directed by Jenn Wexler, The Sacrifice Game is a horror thriller that takes place during the holiday season of 1971, as four serial killers, Jude, Maisie, Grant, and Doug, go from town to town and perform ritualistic murders. Massoud plays Jude, the central figure of the group, as he and his accomplices eventually make their way to Blackvale Academy. The Sacrifice Game also stars Olivia Scott Welch, Gus Kenworthy, Madison Baines, Derek Johns, Laurent Pitre, Chloë Levine, and Georgia Acken.

Screen Rant recently had the chance to exclusively interview Massoud about joining The Sacrifice Game and taking on such a different role from his previous characters. Throughout the interview, Massoud chats about getting to play a cult leader while also playing around with the complexity of being a villain. Massoud also reflects on his time working on Aladdin and whether or not Aladdin 2 is on the table at this point.

Mena Massoud Talks The Sacrifice Game

Screen Rant: Before you booked this gig, how much did horror play in your life?

Mena Massoud: I've watched some here and there. I wouldn't say I'm a huge expert in the genre, but it was nice getting to participate in one after having just seen it all my life.

Do you have an all-time favorite horror movie that still sticks with you?

Mena Massoud: The Exorcist, I grew up going to church quite a lot so that was a film that when I watched it, it scarred me. Both in good and bad ways [laughs]

I can only imagine what it is like to read the script versus shooting it; were there times when you read the script that made you go, 'Oh wow, how are we going to shoot this?'

Mena Massoud: Yeah, definitely, especially working with a lower budget. I think when you're working with a large budget on a studio film, you accept that anything is possible. But there's certain things when you're working on a smaller budget film, that you wonder how we're going to pull this off. But Jenn did an amazing job in putting it all together and the producers obviously for knowing how they're going to execute things.

I am sure that when you're doing a lot of motion capture or green screen or VFX versus actually doing a lot of practical effects, it is different. Was that one of the more fun aspects of shooting The Sacrifice Game?

Mena Massoud: Yeah, prosthetics are always nice. I've worked with prosthetics before and this was, of course, a lot of prosthetics [and] barely any CGI in this. I personally like prosthetics, I think they always come off better on screen even nowadays, when there's incredible CGI, I still think prosthetics read better. Some of my favorite films always utilized prosthetics like Hellboy when you compare that to other films. So yeah, getting back into using prosthetics was definitely fun.

Playing a bad guy must have been so much fun. When they told you about what kind of person this is, what creative input did you get to have in bringing him to life?

Mena Massoud: I've played a couple of prince roles now and I usually play the romantic lead - those are kind of the roles that I'm getting cast in over the last few years - and Jenn wanted to bring that charm to it. But the conversation was really how do we keep that charm but also play him as a troubled cult leader? Tthat was really more of the conversation when I got offered the role, I jumped at it because like I said, I'm usually not getting offered these kinds of roles. I knew that I could do this and that I had a interesting take on it. For me nowadays, being on set is more about fine tuning my craft, becoming a better actor every day that I'm on set and I thought this role could really help me do that.

Would you want to go back to playing a villain at some point? You obviously play a hero as well as you play a villain, so is that something you would want to revisit?

Mena Massoud: Yeah, definitely.

It's not often that we see a horror with a Christmas setting. How much fun was that for you?

Mena Massoud: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. For me, it was really interesting too, because the couple months before I had shot Hotel for the Holidays, which was, again, a romantic comedy Christmas movie on Prime Video. So to go from doing that to doing this with the same setting, but completely different genre, completely different character, completely different story, that was a lot of fun [in terms of the the juxtaposition. It's almost kind of like I jumped between from one Christmas movie to another.

But like I said, everything about it was different. That was a ton of fun, because I could really focus and isolate the acting in the performance of it, because the setting was similar in that it was Christmas. We all treated the Christmas part of it as the backdrop. But the meat of the story was the same, which was the performance, the theme, the genre, all that kind of stuff.

Were there any challenges that you faced during the production that you overcame that have now given you something more to your toolbox as you go into your next project?

Mena Massoud: Yeah, I think the difficulty with playing a villain, which, I knew going into it, but you realize quickly when you're doing it is, how do you not portray an image of someone evil or an image of villain, quote, unquote, like you said, It's really easy to go up there and pretend to be bad, but what does it really mean to be a villain? What does it mean to be a cult leader? What do those things actually mean?

I think there has to be some deep motivation for a character when they're carelessly going around killing people. Obviously, back in the time, there wasn't DNA, there wasn't forensics, things like that. That gives a little bit of justification of how this gang went around killing people without really caring about the consequences. But at the same time, I didn't want to have Jude come across as just like your stereotypical [evil guy.] I wanted to ground him a little bit more and I think that was a challenge, how do you ground this person? Give them that charm that Jenn wanted that we talked about while at the same time, have them come off as a serial killer, essentially,

Is there any horror property that you would love to tackle in the future?

Mena Massoud: I wanted to be a part of American Horror Story when it first came out. That was really interesting, but I don't know how much more they're going to do that project. But I think FX, the true crime stories. I think those are interesting - not necessarily horror, but I think being part of those would be interesting.

I wanted to check in on Aladdin 2. I love the live-action version, and it was so successful that I'm shocked that we haven't heard more about a sequel. Do you have any updates on if that's something that's moving forward? I know the strikes delayed a lot of things but is that something you see moving forward in the foreseeable future?

Mena Massoud: I don't have any updates No, I think like you said, the strike kind of just put everything on hold. I know they were trying to get it off the ground for a long time but I have no idea where it's at.

Does that shock you when you see something like Aladdin, being such a huge hit both financially and critically, not moving forward? The world of Aladdin is so rich and you guys had such a good time making the first one that I feel there are so many more stories you could explore.

Mena Massoud: Not anymore. Listen, we shot in 2017. It's been six years now since we shot and wrapped the project. So to me, at a certain point, life just goes on. So not really, I'm sure they have their reasons. I know they were trying for a long time. So I don't know what the obstacles exactly were. But maybe now after the strike is over, they'll continue to try to get it off the ground.

But I hope, I hope definitely that it happens in some way. You know, because I again, I love what you did with it because Atlanta Atlanta as well was one of my favorite characters since growing up and you. I mean, you didn't just play you, you were have you know, that's how much I appreciate your performance of hoping that something comes out of it. But what is the you know, as we have no, of course, no, but as we get ready to close out the year, what uh, what are you working on? What is next year? What can we see you next if you if there's anything you can tease or share with us?

As we get ready to close out the year, what are you working on?

Mena Massoud: I'm actually in Japan, and just wrapped up Season 2 of Evolving Vegan as a food vegan travel show that I created, executive produced and the posting as well. It's not available in the States yet so that's why people haven't really heard of the first season but we just wrapped up our second season. We went to some really cool cities. I've also got an Arabic language film, which is my debut Arabic language film, it's called In Broad Daylight.

My production company also helped produce that in Egypt. So that'll be an Egyptian film. But I'm hoping that it'll be on one of the International streamers so that everybody can watch it subtitled. That's like an action drama. It's got elements of romance and very classical kind of Egyptian film. So I've got those two projects going and now that the strike is over, we'll see what's next.

About The Sacrifice Game

The Blackvale School for Girls, 1971. It's bad enough that students Samantha (Madison Baines) and Clara (Georgia Acken) can't go home for the holidays, but things take a deadly turn when a gang of cult killers arrives at their doorstep—just in time for Christmas.

The Sacrifice Game is now streaming on Shudder.