Isabelle Fuhrman Talks Julia Stiles’ ‘Wish You Were Here’ Gift and the ‘Orphan 3’ Script: “It’s So Good”

Isabelle Fuhrman and Julia Stiles’ characters may have been at each other’s throats in Orphan: First Kill, but off camera, the two actors developed a bond that’s now resulted in Stiles’ feature directorial debut, Wish You Were Here. Stiles adapted Renée Carlino’s book of the same name during the making of the 2022 Orphan prequel, and in hindsight, Fuhrman can now see the ways in which Stiles was already beginning to envision her as the main character, Charlotte. The romantic drama chronicles the twentysomething woman’s storybook date with Mena Massoud’s Adam, only it ends with him ghosting her for a reason she never could’ve expected. 

Fuhrman’s breakout performance at age ten in the cult hit Orphan (2009) made such a striking impression that it’s been difficult for her to shake one of the horror genre’s most indelible villains in Esther. Thus, she is beyond thankful that Stiles cast her against type in her first romantic lead role. 

“My jaw hit the floor. I said to Julia, ‘I don’t think anyone has ever considered me for a movie like Wish You Were Here,’” Fuhrman tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Because we got to know each other while making Orphan 2, she was like, ‘I want people to see that you’re not just this scary, creepy-kid movie actress. I want people to see you in a movie where you’re beautiful, vivacious and fun — all the things I know you as.’ In our industry, it’s hard because people will peg you as one thing, and I’m just really grateful that she thought of me in this other way.”

When Fuhrman reprised the character of Esther in William Brent Bell’s aforementioned prequel, it was quite the creative risk for the then-23-year-old to somehow recapture her performance as a 10-year-old in Jaume Collet-Serra’s Orphan. That said, because Esther was actually a 33-year-old Estonian woman posing as a 9-year-old, it seemed rather fitting to have a grown-up Fuhrman follow suit with the aid of crafty filmmaking tricks and techniques. Ultimately, Orphan: First Kill (2022) was well received both critically and commercially despite a day-and-date release, and a third chapter is already on its way. 

“When they first said, ‘We’re going to make another one,’ I was like, ‘You guys are nuts!’ But the [Orphan 3] script is so good. I was like, ‘OK! A hundred percent. This is a great idea, actually,’” Fuhrman shares. 

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Fuhrman also discusses how she developed her indecisive character of Charlotte, before reflecting on her widely acclaimed work in the psychological rowing drama, The Novice (2021).

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I’m glad that your showdown in Orphan: First Kill didn’t prevent you and Julia Stiles from collaborating again. Did she first mention Wish You Were Here on that set? 

(Laughs.) She was actually reading the book and co-writing the script when we were filming [Orphan: First Kill], so we talked a lot about love and loss and making movies. Looking back, I realize that she was testing the waters and seeing if this is the kind of movie that I’d be interested in doing. So I was so grateful when she called me and was like, “I’m going to send you the script and I’d love for you to read it. I’d love for you to be Charlotte.” My jaw also hit the floor. I said to Julia, “I don’t think anyone has ever considered me for a movie like Wish You Were Here.” So I was just really grateful. Julia is somebody that I grew up watching. I’m such a fan of hers. She’s an icon, and while working with her, I was like, “I’ve got to be a professional and not geek out all the time.” But to then work with her in this specific capacity, where she’s directing me in the same romance genre that I watched her in when I was growing up, it was just such a gift. I love her so much. 

I actually clicked on every single one of your movies to make certain that Wish You Were Here was your first romantic lead role, so Julia’s gesture must have been quite flattering in all sorts of ways.

Yeah, because we got to know each other while making Orphan 2, she was like, “I want people to see that you’re not just this scary, creepy-kid movie actress. I want people to see you in a movie where you’re beautiful, vivacious and fun — all the things I know you as.” In our industry, it’s hard because people will peg you as one thing, and I’m just really grateful that she thought of me in this other way. Being the great director that she is, she looked outside the box and used her imagination to see me doing a movie like this.

Yeah, you’re known for playing characters who, to put it mildly, are highly determined, so it must have been nice to play someone who’s fickle for a change. Charlotte is a twentysomething woman who’s still figuring things out both personally and professionally. Conversely, you found your profession at age seven. So, what was your jumping-off point with Charlotte?

When we started doing fittings, I tried on that vest and bowtie that Charlotte wears at her restaurant job, and I was like, “This is it.” She is somebody who’s been working in this embarrassing uniform, and she is doing it because she really doesn’t think that she has any other option. She’s just not really sure what she wants to do. So I jumped into this headspace of, “What if acting and being in movies didn’t exist? What would I do?” So that was definitely my jumping-off point, and I honestly wouldn’t know [what to do instead of acting]. During Covid, I had that moment where I was like, “What if people don’t go to see movies anymore? What if it’s not the same? What if I never work again?” A lot of actors have these ups and downs, and I remember being like, “Okay, I need to figure out what my plan B is.” I went to a good school, and while I knew that I had options, it’s really about deciding what you want to do. 

So that’s where Charlotte is. She’s trying to figure out what she wants to do. She’s in that place where her parents hope that she finds a direction in life, but then her mom is like, “If you don’t find a direction in life, at least you can find somebody to be with,” which a lot of young people can relate to, at least in my experience. A lot of people that are my age aren’t really getting married, or they’re not in long-term relationships. A lot of people are doing the online dating thing and working on their careers, and so to make a movie about somebody who is ghosted is very relatable to so many people. But, ultimately, she realizes that it didn’t have anything to do with her, and that’s the impetus for her moment of change.

Do you notice a significant difference with directors like Julia who also act? Are they more attuned to performance than a typical director?

Every director is different. Julia definitely has a great instinct for when to say, “I want you to just do your thing.” But because she’s such a great actress, there were so many times that we would talk about a scene and play with different things. She’d say, “Oh, this might be fun,” or, “Let’s try and make this a joke.” So it felt more playful, and we definitely tried a lot of things. For a small movie like ours, we didn’t have a lot of time, so I was really grateful that we played so much on set. She still kept track of where these characters were in the story and what each moment and beat needed to be in order to make the story make sense in the way that it did. She really knew this story backwards and forwards, and she really imbued a lot of her own wisdom from making movies in this genre to Mena [Massoud] and I. We then worked a lot on building the chemistry that Charlotte and Adam [Massoud] have, and how that could be different from the chemistry that Jimmie [Fails’ character] and Charlotte have. So we talked a lot about those things. 

I saw a clip of the Wish You Were Here cast screening Julia’s classic romcom, 10 Things I Hate About You. Was this a team-building exercise during filming? 

Oh, we were just playing around at the studio yesterday. We watched 10 Things I Hate About You, and we laughed because Julia walked in on us watching it. That scene is just so iconic, and to this day, it’s one of those movies that you can watch over and over. So we were like, “We have to actually film this,” because it’d be funny to have her walk in on us. [Little Fishy Films’] Gabby Kono-Abdy, who plays [Charlotte’s best friend] Helen in the movie, found [Renée Carlino’s] book and got Julia involved. She loves Julia and is obsessed with her, and she DM’d her to get her to work on this movie. And as I said earlier, I’m also obsessed with Julia. So we’ve seen all of her films, and I rewatched Save the Last Dance and 10 Things right before we started filming. She played very strong female characters at a time when most of the leading ladies were not that rough around the edges, and I love that about Julia. She’s got this front-footedness to her in life and in her characters that’s really powerful.

I have to pay my belated respects to Lauren Hadaway’s The Novice. That film and your performance have stuck with me. Was that the most physically difficult job you’ve ever done? 

Yeah, I would wake up at four in the morning to row for six hours before I even started my normal day. And when we were filming, I would go to the tank and row with the team for an hour in the morning. I’d then go to the gym after being on set all day, and once I got home, I barely had enough time to get enough sleep and eat enough for the next day. So all of that played into the emotional state that Alex was in, and it helped me drop into it in a really easy way because I was actually physically and mentally exhausted. I just became an emotional open wound that I tried to cover up, so I really understood what the character was feeling.

I would love to have the opportunity to do more movies like that. There’s nothing better to me than feeling exhausted after a day of being on set. It is so fun that we get to make movies and play make-believe, and like you said, I’ve been doing this since I was seven years old. I love it. I wouldn’t still be doing it if I didn’t love it. But there’s something about finishing a day and feeling so emotionally and physically drained. It’s when I feel like I’ve surpassed what I mentally thought I could do that day, and I feel like I wasn’t even a part of it. Instead, I was just there as this character, living in these moments with other people, and that’s when you find real magic. So those movies can really connect with people if you’re feeling something deeply [on the day].

Have you incorporated a rowing machine into your own life, or did you quickly retire from that form of exercise? 

(Laughs.) I was like, “I’m totally going to keep this up. I’m going to do it all the time.” I actually have a sitting row machine, and the truth is I barely use it. I didn’t realize how much trauma I would have around the rowing machine until I finished doing all the press and everything for the movie. It’s a really tough sport, and I have so much respect for the women who ride crew. So I’m very grateful for that experience, and it’s one of the many reasons why I love what I do. You get to dive into a world that you’ve never been in, and with Charlotte, I got to dive into a mental space of not knowing what I want to do. I literally get to step into another person’s shoes and understand why they feel the way that they do. It’s helped me with my own empathy, but it’s also helped me in my own self-discovery as I’ve grown older. So there are definitely things I take away from my characters, and then there are things that I leave behind, like that rowing machine.

I’m assuming your second-most difficult role was playing your 10-year-old self in your twenties. Did you think that William Brent Bell and co. were insane when they first proposed that idea for Orphan: First Kill? 

What’s funny is that I was the one who actually spearheaded the second one. They had written a script already. David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, who wrote the first film, basically had David Coggeshall write the script for Orphan: First Kill. It was a little different at the time. They had tried to get the movie made earlier because Orphan became such a big cult classic after it was released [in 2009]. But people looked at certain markers and box office, and they were like, “No, I don’t think that’s something that we want to make.” This was when I was still a kid. 

And then, before The Curious Case of Natalia Grace became a show, she was on Dr. Phil [in 2019], and it went viral on the internet. So everybody I knew or ever met messaged me about it. I then called David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick to have coffee with him, and I said, “I think you guys should take the script out right now. I just have this gut feeling.” Then Covid happened, and literally, the movie came together like that. (Fuhrman snaps her fingers.) It was crazy. Julia then got involved.

But the only time I thought they were crazy was when they were like, “We’re going to do forced perspective, like they did in Lord of the Rings, to make you look smaller.” And I was like, “What!? How is this going to work?” Julia also wore these massive platform boots that dancers wear; they’re not for walking around. I would then walk in a squat, and they made me a [big] chair so it made me look smaller. We would do scenes where we weren’t even looking at each other in the eye. Julia would be looking here, only I would be ten feet behind her. So there were many times while we were filming where I was like, “Is this going to look horrible? Is this going to be the worst thing ever?” But, no, it worked. When I watched the movie for the first time, all of that worked.

So I trusted the team, and very often, that’s something that you just have to do. You have to trust that the people around you want to make something great, too. And I knew that Brent, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, [producer] Alex Mace and Dave Coggeshall wanted to make a great film. So we really worked together as a team to make it happen, and now we’re making another one.

Yeah, Brent told me in December of 2023 that you’ll be revisiting your 10-year-old self again in Orphan 3. Have you begun to think about that yet? 

I’ve begun. I’ve read the script, and while I don’t want to give anything away, it’s the only reason I would go back and do another one. When they first said, “We’re going to make another one,” I was like, “You guys are nuts!” But the script is so good. I was like, “OK! A hundred percent. This is a great idea, actually.” So I’m really excited for the fans of the franchise. It’s funny to even say that because it wasn’t a franchise when I signed onto it at nine years old. So I’m just really grateful that it has turned into something that is so much bigger.

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Wish You Were Here is now playing in movie theaters.