Ti West took the horror world by storm in 2022 when he debuted X—a love letter to 1970s slasher movies—at SXSW and revealed that not only had he shot a prequel in tandem with the first film but that it would ultimately be a trilogy centered around two characters played by Mia Goth. Currently on the press tour for Brandon Cronenberg's new cult-themed body horror Infinity Pool, Goth is one of Hollywood's leading scream queens right now having solidified her place in the horror genre with outstanding performances in both X and Pearl.
Goth has already teased West's upcoming finale, MaXXXine, as the best script of the X trilogy and at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, Collider's own Perri Nemiroff asked Goth about what sets this film apart from its predecessors. Goth revealed that MaXXXine, which follows the titular final girl to Hollywood, is the "biggest of the three movies." She told Nemiroff:
"It’s just such a fun film. Ti, really, I don’t know how he does it. He’s just able to come up with these worlds. It’s just the biggest of the three movies. The stakes are the highest and Maxine has been through so much at this point."
In X, Goth plays both Maxine and Pearl—Maxine is a young starlet looking to catch her big break in her boyfriend's adult movie, and Pearl is an elderly woman with a tragic past whose jealousy of Maxine drives her into a bloody rampage. Pearl took us back to a pivotal moment in the latter character's life when her own quest for stardom was abruptly cut short. MaXXXine is set to follow the X final girl as she makes her own name in the VHS craze of the 1980s. Goth teased a bit of what we can expect from Maxine in the finale, saying: "She’s just such a badass character and is not the kind of person that you want to cross the wrong way, and so she’s gonna protect what she has."
MaXXXne Expands the World of Ti West's X Trilogy
Goth reiterated that MaXXXine, which is set to film in the coming months, is her "favorite script of the three." While she couldn't reveal much in terms of the plot for the horror slasher, Goth did elaborate on the third film being the biggest of the trilogy. Nemiroff noted that both Pearl and X were centralized to Pearl's family farm, and though we've only gotten a taste of MaXXXine, its Hollywood setting instantly expands upon the scope of the first two films. "It’s the biggest stakes, the biggest world," Goth told Collider. "I’m very excited. I’m in the middle of prep and I’m having a lot of fun with that."
Be sure to check out the rest of our conversation with Goth when it goes live, as well as all of our coverage from Sundance 2023. In the meantime, you can watch a previous conversation between Goth and Nemiroff down below and watch the breakout for the interview above.
Special thanks to our 2023 partners at Sundance including presenting partner Saratoga Spring Water and supporting partners Marbl Toronto, EMFACE, Sommsation, Hendrick’s Gin, Stella Artois, mou, and the all-electric vehicle, Fisker Ocean.