The critically acclaimed horror movie Late Night with the Devil has hit streaming, allowing a whole new audience to discover the faux documentary with several real scares. Writer-directors Colin and Cameron Cairnes center their film around a late-night TV show in 1977, when television was riskier and a little dangerous. But there's something outright malevolent lurking in this live Halloween night broadcast.

Laura Gordon portrays June Ross-Mitchell, a parapsychologist who is one of the guests on Night Owls with Jack Delroy. June has been studying a young woman named Lilly d'Abo and brings her on the show as Jack aims to boost his ratings with an occult-themed episode. But Lilly's tragic past as the sole survivor of a Satanic church is just one of many things that causes the TV taping to spiral into violence. In an interview with CBR, Laura spoke about her "wonderful" experience filming one of the best 2020s horror films and how she developed the character of June.

What was your initial reaction to the Late Night with the Devil script? Was there something in particular that convinced you to take the role of June?

I thought the script was so compelling from the get-go. When you can sit down and read a script and you don't want to get up... You're like, I just want to finish this. I need to know what happens, and I'm so captivated and drawn in by the characters. It immediately leapt off the page. so for me it was a no-brainer.

By virtue of Late Night with the Devil being structured around the TV taping, audiences only learn a few things about June Ross-Mitchell. Did you work to develop who she was outside of the movie's events?

In this film, I felt very compelled to create my own history. I did have a meeting with the two directors, Colin and Cam, and they were very much like, you go for it and let us know; we've got ideas, but we want to know what you've come up with... But I definitely felt I had to have a clear understanding of what her history was like, where she'd studied. She talks about having a Ph.D. at the Stanford Research Institute and working as a parapsychologist.

But particularly for me, the relationship with Lilly -- because she's sort of had custody of Lilly for a number of years. So I really had to track that relationship, how it started and how it evolved. And also the relationship with Jack Delroy, the talk show host played amazingly by David Dastmalchian. There's little nuggets in the film alluding to a prior relationship, and so I really filled that in, and then when I met David in rehearsals, he had some ideas. We kind of went okay, let's find a middle ground of what we think -- and also let's have our own secrets... because it's all kind of just for us to know privately.

That premise also means that you're on the same set, in close quarters with your fellow cast members, for most of the film. Do you think that helped Late Night with the Devil's success?

Honestly, I think it was wonderful. It was it kind of almost felt like we were a little theatre troupe... We weren't moving around and zipping to this [location], getting in cars; it was just there all day, every day with the crew and the cast. It made it feel like there was less of a suspension of disbelief and we were all getting to know each other. I found it really helpful. We could do really long takes, and there were three cameras going, so everybody sort of knew that they were always potentially going to be on camera. There was a great camaraderie where everyone was on their "A" game every single take, which was really nice. It's such a great way to work, and I found it really creative and fun.

What was it like taking that step back in time to the late 1970s and playing in such a rich environment that really evokes that time period?

A huge part of it is hair and makeup and costume. On Late Night with the Devil, Steph Hooke, the costume designer and Marie Princi, who did the hair and makeup design, they were so great...I've never felt so much the use of hair and makeup and costumes, with how much it helped my character. I've often read about actors being like oh, once I put the hair and makeup and the costume on I just walk on set and that's done. And I'm like yeah, sure, but there's so many other things that go into it -- but it really then makes you believe it and makes you feel that you're in that world and in that era. I found that to be more exciting than on any job prior.

And [then] language and things, just being aware of not having too much of a contemporary... not even accent so much, although that is a little bit of it, but just the the little ways that you might speak that they just didn't do back then. But that's really in the scripting anyway.

Looking back, what stands out to you about Late Night with the Devil? Is there anything you'd tell Shudder audiences to look out for, or anything that you particularly enjoyed?

I just think there's nothing else like it at the moment. It's so unusual. It's [a] found footage [horror movie]. It takes place over one night [on] a late-night talk show. It's really unnerving, it's also funny, it's got great performances and it's bonkers in the best way.

Jack Delroy, he's maybe made some sort of pact with someone to claw back his ratings, to have a breakthrough in his career. And I really loved that June Ross-Mitchell is this parapsychologist who's working with a young girl who she believes has been possessed by some sort of a demon. She's coming on live television to prove the naysayers and the skeptics wrong. She comes from this really male-dominated world; there's not many women doing the work that she's doing. And I think that over the course of the night, she realizes that she's maybe made some sort of inopportune deal to do that, at the cost of what? I think she sees in Jack that he's done something like that, and she starts to realize she doesn't want to be like that -- but it's maybe too late. And that's just a really fun internal journey to play.

Late Night with the Devil is now streaming on Shudder.