{"id":341832,"date":"2026-03-16T09:31:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T09:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/341832\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T09:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T09:31:11","slug":"weapons-star-amy-madigan-praises-the-horror-genre-sinners-and-dei-following-historic-oscar-win-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/341832\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Weapons’ Star Amy Madigan Praises the Horror Genre, ‘Sinners,’ and DEI Following Historic Oscar Win [Exclusive]"},"content":{"rendered":"

For decades, horror has had a weird relationship with the Oscars<\/a>. The genre can dominate the culture, launch careers, and produce some of the most unforgettable performances of any given year, but when awards season rolls around, it still too often gets treated like it belongs off to the side. Amy Madigan knows that feeling exactly.<\/a><\/p>\n

Fresh off winning Best Supporting Actress at the 2026 Academy Awards<\/a> for her performance as Aunt Gladys in Weapons<\/a>, Madigan spoke with Collider\u2019s Maggie Lovitt<\/a> and did not shy away from what the moment means for horror as a whole. Her win is already being framed as one of the biggest genre breakthroughs of the night, with multiple outlets noting how rare it still is for a horror performance to be recognized this prominently by the Academy. Asked what horror\u2019s rise says about the industry right now, Madigan put it perfectly.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, horror, as we all know, it was kind of looked at like you\u2019re at the little kids table at Thanksgiving. You\u2019re just kind of over there, which, as we know, is not true. You just look at the great silent horror films that started our business. I mean, you still need a great writer, you need a great director, you need wonderful actors and crew.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s important to note that Madigan\u2019s win did not happen in a vacuum. Weapons was part of a broader conversation around genre filmmaking during this awards season, with titles like Sinners<\/a> and Frankenstein commanding far more serious attention than usual. Madigan herself tied that shift to the larger range of films being recognized right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I mean, this year is pretty amazing. Look at ‘Sinners,’ deals with such racial inequities, but yet they do it in this vampire way with the Irish mind you, where my people are from. So, you know, it\u2019s just kind of, I like DEI, because everybody can be in the mix, you know. So it just makes me feel really happy, and I hope it\u2019ll continue to open it up for others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madigan sees this year not just as a personal win, but as evidence that the Academy may finally be widening its idea of what prestige looks like, and it’s about time. Horror has been an important part of cinema since the dawn of the moving picture industry, and it’s high time it was more fully recognized<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Collider Exclusive \u00b7 Oscar Best Picture Quiz
\n Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie?
\n Parasite \u00b7 Everything Everywhere \u00b7 Oppenheimer \u00b7 Birdman \u00b7 No Country<\/p>\n

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be \u2014 and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.<\/p>\n

\ud83e\ude9cParasite<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udf00Everything Everywhere<\/p>\n

\u2622\ufe0fOppenheimer<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc26Birdman<\/p>\n

\ud83e\ude99No Country for Old Men<\/p>\n

\n FIND YOUR FILM \u2192\n <\/p>\n

01<\/p>\n

What kind of film experience do you actually want?
\n The best movies don’t just entertain \u2014 they leave something behind.<\/p>\n

\n ASomething that pulls the rug out \u2014 that makes me think I’m watching one kind of film and then reveals I’m watching another entirely.
\n BSomething overwhelming \u2014 funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once.
\n CSomething grand and weighty \u2014 a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I’m watching.
\n DSomething formally daring \u2014 a film that pushes what cinema can even do.
\n ESomething lean and relentless \u2014 pure tension with no wasted frame.\n <\/p>\n

NEXT QUESTION \u2192<\/p>\n

02<\/p>\n

Which idea grabs you most in a film?
\n Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?<\/p>\n

\n AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity.
\n BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart.
\n CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back.
\n DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you’re still alive to watch it happen.
\n EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does.\n <\/p>\n

NEXT QUESTION \u2192<\/p>\n

03<\/p>\n

How do you like your story told?
\n Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.<\/p>\n

\n AGenre-twisting \u2014 I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different.
\n BMaximalist and genre-blending \u2014 comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride.
\n CEpic and non-linear \u2014 cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence.
\n DA single unbroken flow \u2014 I want to feel like I’m living it in real time, no cuts to safety.
\n ESpare and precise \u2014 every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.\n <\/p>\n

NEXT QUESTION \u2192<\/p>\n

04<\/p>\n

What makes a truly great antagonist?
\n The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?<\/p>\n

\n AA system \u2014 invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face.
\n BThe self \u2014 the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most.
\n CHistory \u2014 the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect.
\n DThe industry \u2014 the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance.
\n EPure, implacable evil \u2014 a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical.\n <\/p>\n

NEXT QUESTION \u2192<\/p>\n

05<\/p>\n

What do you want from a film’s ending?
\n The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?<\/p>\n

\n AShock and inevitability \u2014 a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it.
\n BEarned emotion \u2014 I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess.
\n CDevastation and grandeur \u2014 an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after.
\n DAmbiguity \u2014 something that leaves enough open that I’m still thinking about it days later.
\n EBleakness \u2014 an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is.\n <\/p>\n

NEXT QUESTION \u2192<\/p>\n

06<\/p>\n

Which setting pulls you in most?
\n Where a film takes place shapes everything \u2014 mood, stakes, what’s even possible.<\/p>\n

\n AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside \u2014 beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation.
\n BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite \u2014 the multiverse of a single ordinary person.
\n CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point \u2014 where decisions echo for decades.
\n DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood \u2014 fame as both destination and trap.
\n EVast, indifferent landscape \u2014 desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason.\n <\/p>\n

NEXT QUESTION \u2192<\/p>\n

07<\/p>\n

What cinematic craft impresses you most?
\n Every great film has a signature \u2014 a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.<\/p>\n

\n AProduction design and mise-en-sc\u00e8ne \u2014 every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface.
\n BEditing and tonal control \u2014 the ability to move between registers without losing the audience.
\n CScore and sound design \u2014 music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you’re watching.
\n DCinematography as performance \u2014 the camera not recording events but participating in them.
\n ESilence and restraint \u2014 what’s left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could.\n <\/p>\n

NEXT QUESTION \u2192<\/p>\n

08<\/p>\n

What kind of main character do you root for?
\n The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.<\/p>\n

\n ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure.
\n BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary.
\n CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other.
\n DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing.
\n EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense.\n <\/p>\n

NEXT QUESTION \u2192<\/p>\n

09<\/p>\n

How do you feel about a film that takes its time?
\n Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.<\/p>\n

\n AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic \u2014 patience for a devastating reveal.
\n BGive me relentless momentum \u2014 I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end.
\n CEpic runtime doesn’t scare me \u2014 if the material demands three hours, give me three hours.
\n DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening \u2014 restless energy throughout.
\n EDeliberate and unhurried \u2014 I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action.\n <\/p>\n

NEXT QUESTION \u2192<\/p>\n

10<\/p>\n

What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema?
\n The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?<\/p>\n

\n AUnsettled \u2014 like I’ve just seen something I can’t fully explain but can’t stop thinking about.
\n BMoved and energised \u2014 like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto.
\n CHumbled \u2014 like I’ve been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming.
\n DExhilarated \u2014 like I’ve just seen cinema doing something it’s never quite done before.
\n EHaunted \u2014 like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days.\n <\/p>\n

REVEAL MY FILM \u2192<\/p>\n

The Academy Has Decided
\n Your Perfect Film Is\u2026<\/p>\n

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.<\/p>\n

Parasite<\/p>\n

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously \u2014 that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that \u2014 a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.<\/p>\n

Everything Everywhere All at Once<\/p>\n

You want it all \u2014 and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point \u2014 because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.<\/p>\n

Oppenheimer<\/p>\n

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale \u2014 films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important \u2014 to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.<\/p>\n

Birdman<\/p>\n

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction \u2014 that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else \u2014 a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.<\/p>\n

No Country for Old Men<\/p>\n

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil \u2014 implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.<\/p>\n

\n \u21bb RETAKE THE QUIZ\n <\/p>\n

\"friday-the-13th-collider-quiz\"<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\tStrap on Your Hockey Masks; It’s Friday the 13th \u2014 The Collider Movie Quiz!
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Because today is Friday the 13th, let’s march our way through the iconic slasher franchise. Ch-ch-ch-ch. Ha-ha-ha-ha.<\/p>\n

Who Else Stars in ‘Weapons’?<\/p>\n

In addition to Madigan, the cast of Weapons is led by Josh Brolin<\/a> as Archer Graff, Julia Garner<\/a> as Justine Gandy, Alden Ehrenreich<\/a> as Paul, Austin Abrams<\/a> as Anthony, Cary Christopher as Alex Lilly, Benedict Wong<\/a> as Andrew, Toby Huss as Captain Ed, and June Diane Raphael as Wendy. The supporting cast also includes Whitmer Thomas as Chad, Whitney Peak as Holly, Luke Speakman as Matthew, Marlene Forte as Marcus\u2019 mother, Greyson Lewis as Logan, Molly Carden as Jenny, Shannon Woodward as Regina, Fabianne Therese as Margie, and Clayton Farris as Terry.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned to Collider for more coverage from the 98th Academy Awards.<\/p>\n

\"01892952_poster_w780.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Release Date<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAugust 8, 2025<\/p>\n

Runtime<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t128 minutes<\/p>\n

Director<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tZach Cregger<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For decades, horror has had a weird relationship with the Oscars. The genre can dominate the culture, launch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,85,46,397],"class_list":["post-341832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}