What Mckenna Grace Wanted To Make Sure She Got Right In The Bad Seed Returns - Exclusive
When Mckenna Grace began writing "The Bad Seed Returns," she had the perfect writing partner by her side: medical professional Ross Burge, who also happens to be her father.
When it came to writing some of the most intense scenes in the film, Burge was an expert on the effects of such situations on the human body. Even the film's producer, Mark Wolper, was excited to have such a specialist available on set. "He is always asking a bunch of questions and trying to get the info out of my dad since he's a medical professional," Grace said during an exclusive interview with The List. "He's like, 'Instead of hiring a medical professional, we can just consult your dad.'"
While it was important for the father-daughter duo to get all of the medical-inspired scenes as accurate as possible, there was still one other thing that Grace wanted to get right when it came to the script: Emma's dialogue. "Sometimes whenever an adult writes for a teenager, it doesn't always sound ... How do I say? The most natural?" the actress laughed.
Mckenna Grace wanted the teen slang to sound authentic
As Mckenna Grace and Ross Burge were writing "The Bad Seed Returns," the young actress was given total control over her character's dialogue. She wanted to make sure that 15-year-old Emma's lines were words that would actually come out of a teenager's mouth. In one scene that her father had originally written, she explained, "We had a whole speech where I was like, 'This is so fire.'" (Needless to say, that "lit" line didn't make it into the final cut.)
Even while on set, Grace wasn't afraid to change any of the lines she and her father had originally written. "I always try to help a little bit, help my dialogue feel more natural if something doesn't feel right and bring that up with the director or whatnot," she told us.
Getting to write her very first film as well as read those same lines on screen as Emma was a dream come true for Grace. "It was really fun to be able to explore her as [a] teenager in this new social environment," she said.
"The Bad Seed Returns" premieres Labor Day (Monday, September 5) at 8 p.m. (7 p.m. CT) on Lifetime.