Directed by Jeff Wadlow and produced by Jason Blum, the supernatural thriller Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare follows a tightly knit group of friends – Olivia (Lucy Hale), Lucas (Tyler Posey), Markie (Violett Beane), Brad (Hayden Szeto), Penelope (Sophia Ali) and Tyson (Nolan Gerard Funk) – on a trip to Mexico for their last undergraduate getaway, before they all go their separate ways. While there, they play what they think is a harmless game of Truth or Dare, but the game follows them home and forces them to keep playing, leading them to reveal truths that could turn their worlds upside down and carry out life-threatening dares, or they’ll suffer the consequences.

At the film’s Los Angeles press day, Collider got the opportunity to sit down with actress Lucy Hale to chat 1-on-1 about why she thought Truth or Dare was unique, whether she prefers truth or dare when it comes to playing the game, bonding with this ensemble of actors, the most challenging stunt to shoot, how she felt when she saw how she’d look when her character is possessed, and her reaction to the ending. She also talked about figuring out what to do, when Pretty Little Liars ended, why she found The CW series Life Sentence so appealing, and what she’s most enjoyed about playing that character.

Collider:  This was such a fun movie!

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Image via Universal Pictures

LUCY HALE:  Oh, good, I’m glad! Thank you! It’s so fun to see it with a big group of people because it really is an experience. It’s such a fun ride to go on, so I’m glad you liked it.

Did you get that same experience when you read the script? Did it read that way?

HALE:  It read really fun. It read really messed up and twisted and fun and funny, and I thought it was smart, but there’s also some heavy topics in there. We touch on suicide and coming out about your sexuality to your parents. Each of these characters really harbors a dark secret that eats away at them. I thought it was interesting that the game is what forces them to be their truest self. I thought it was a really unique horror film. I read a lot of these scripts and a lot of them are not great, but I thought this one was cool. I knew it was a risk, but it’s paying off, so it’s great.

When it comes to the game of Truth or Dare, are you somebody that prefers truth or do you prefer dare?

HALE:  Always truth. It’s not that I’m not spontaneous. I like to do fun things. But if you say dare, you’re just asking for it.

I love how real this friendship seems because this group clearly cares about each other, but there’s also a little bit of bickering and fighting, which is much more realistic. When you’re playing part of a group of friends, is it a bit nerve-wracking until you get a chance to see if you guys all get along?

HALE:  That’s always the challenge. You have to fake chemistry. None of us really knew each other beforehand. It was instantaneous that we all just really vibed and got along. There are the characters that make the friendship interesting, like the Tyson character, who’s just a douchebag and has a really love-hate relationship with my character. Even between Olivia and Markie, they’re like sisters and they bicker. I think a lot of that is due to the writing. The writing did the work for us, but we did all get along. It didn’t feel like we had to force anything, at all. It was like we had been friends for a really long time, which only makes our job easier.

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Image via Universal Pictures

Was there a stunt that you found most fun or exciting, and was there one that was most challenging to do?

HALE:  Definitely, the most challenging was the roof sequence. I wasn’t on the roof, I was just running around and we were throwing furniture. I was so sore from throwing all the furniture. I swear, we did it 150 times. I was so sore. Then, we had drones. It was a four-day sequence. There was the car stunt that they didn’t let me do. I wanted to do it, but they wouldn’t let me. The hardest one for me to watch was the neck break scene. I don’t even know how they did it. I’m not sure how they made that look so believable. But, that roof sequence was a challenge for everyone.

What did you think when you saw yourself possessed?

HALE:  You wouldn’t believe all of the text messages I get from my friends, with the screen cap of my face.

It’s not that far off, but just enough to be creepy.

HALE: That’s why it works. Jeff [Wadlow], our director, had this idea of just slightly tweaking everyone’s face. I already look cartoonish, anyway. I feel like I have abnormally big eyes. Some people have been like, “Why does Lucy look so weird in this movie?,” not realizing that it’s a distorted face. That’s what I thought was so smart about it. If you went too far, then it would be cheesy and not work, but it’s just a distorted version of who we really are. It’s the dead eyes – the blacked out demon eyes – that really get me. They did a good job with it.

I think that image is going to haunt me more than any of the death scenes.

HALE:  Oh, good!

(SPOILERS) How did you feel about the way the movie gets left and the fact that Olivia makes a decision that changes everything?

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Image via Universal Pictures

HALE:  And goes against everything she believes in. It’s such a nice play on the first question she gets asked in Truth or Dare. She really opens it up for a lot more people. It just goes to show how much she loves her best friend, and it sets it up nicely for a sequel, if they want to do that.

It also does feel a little bit selfish.

HALE:  It does and it doesn’t. It really made me think, “What would I do in that situation?” When she’s first asked, in the harmless game of Truth or Dare, she’s like, “I would do the noble thing.” But when it comes down to it, that’s not what happens.

You spent a lot of years on Pretty Little Liars, then went straight into doing another TV series, with Life Sentence. Was there a lot of thought put into that decision, or was that a character that you just couldn’t pass up playing for what could be a few years?

HALE:  Pretty Little Liars was coming to an end, and I didn’t really know what I was going to do. I was freaking out because I was like, “Oh, my god,, what do you mean I’m not going to work? What am I going to do?!” I was like, “Maybe I’ll take some time off.” I had a whole list of things that I could do. But then, I got presented with this idea that I thought was really clever and unlike anything I’d heard before. Then, I read the script and it tugged at my heartstrings and I was like, “I’ve gotta do this. I have to play this character. I have to be a part of this story.” It just happened to go immediately after Pretty Little Liars ended filming. I haven’t really had a moment to sit and digest the ending of that, or the beginning of something new, because it all happened so quickly. It was nice to do something totally very different than what I’d been doing for the last couple of years.

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Image via Universal Pictures

Did that make it easier, or did it feel like a big gear shift?

HALE:  It was nice to keep the working momentum going because acting is a muscle and sometimes you lose your acting muscle, a little bit. It was a nice challenge to show a different side of myself. It was so exciting to get to bring a new story into the world and a new character that they really gave me creative freedom to create. I’d never really been able to do that before.

What have you most enjoyed about getting to play that character?

HALE:  What I love most about her is that she’s been given the worst news possible, and then is given the best news possible. She does everything with a wonderful sense of humor and she’s someone that I would strive to be more like. We can all relate to feeling lost and not knowing who we are, and I really respect that she owns up to that. She’s a late bloomer. She’s discovering things a lot later in life. She’s like a lost little puppy, but she’s figuring it out. She’s fun to play.

Truth or Dare opens in theaters on April 13th.

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