Allison Williams opens up about the 'M3gan' scene that made her feel 'terrible inside,' possible sequels, and how becoming a mom impacted her performance

• Warning: There are minor spoilers ahead for Universal and Blumhouse's thriller, "M3gan," out now.
• Allison Williams spoke to Insider about landing the lead role via email and potential sequels.
• She also opened up about how becoming a mom changed everything, including her performance in "M3gan."

Allison Williams is ready to be more involved and hands-on with the projects she's attached to moving forward, starting with "M3gan."

"I don't think I can go back to not executive producing," Williams told Insider over Zoom in December while discussing her latest role in Universal and Blumhouse's anticipated "M3gan."

"I'm sure people are gonna try, but I will fight them for it because it's so nice to be as invested as you want to be in a project like this," Williams added. "I love being involved in every draft and then many, many, many months after that — years, sometimes, in this case — every cut of the film and everything in between."

The satirical thriller from director Gerard Johnstone and written by Akela Cooper and producer James Wan ("Malignant") marks Williams' first executive producing credit as she reunites with Blumhouse for the first time since the success of 2017's Oscar winner, "Get Out."

In "M3gan," Williams plays Gemma, a brilliant-but-work-obsessed engineer who is building a revolutionary doll that could change the toy industry — a life-like android named M3gan, capable of walking, talking, and learning.

Gemma's life gets turned upside down when her sister dies and she takes in her depressed and lonely niece, Cady (Violet McGraw). Not equipped with the parenting skills to raise a child, Gemma passes some of her parental responsibilities onto her prototype doll, ordering M3gan to protect Cady from physical and emotional harm, no matter the cost.

Naturally, just about everything goes wrong when the bot takes the order to heart and becomes a killing machine.

Williams spoke with Insider about her return to the Blumhouse family, sequel possibilities, viral M3gan memes, and how motherhood made her performance more nuanced.

I'm curious, how was this movie pitched to you, and what was your reaction when you first read the script?

The only pitch that was necessary to be totally honest, was Jason Blum emailing me, saying, "I think we have the next thing that we wanna do with you." I was basically ready to say yes, regardless of what it was, and then it just got sweeter and sweeter from there.

Then I heard that he was partnering up with James Wan for it, and I was like, "Oh my God. We are now in combined royalty territory of this marriage between these horror corners of the world."

Then I read Akela's script and I thought it was riveting. I couldn't put it down. It made me sweaty and nervous. I couldn't tell who I was rooting for, which is always a good sign in my book.

And then I talked to Gerard and he has this really specific Kiwi sensibility that I thought would just have such a blast with the material. I thought he was going to do a great job of moving in and out of these different tones.

Lastly, but very importantly, I thought Gemma was awesome. I loved the idea of playing someone who is obsessed with what she does — super brilliant, genius — who has never really thought much about life, a family that she wants to build, having kids, or anything like that. She's just like really into her job.

She's so into her job that she's built a workshop in her house. It's her favorite thing to do, and then boom, suddenly her personal life comes colliding into her work life. I liked the idea that her instinct is to use her work life, which she understands completely, to try to help with her problem in her personal life, to mixed results.

Absolutely. I was waiting to see if you would say something. This film kind of strikes me as this generation's Chucky.

Oh my gosh. Well, that would be huge. I mean, Chucky is a name that I think most people recognize worldwide, so that would be a big deal.

Was Megan pitched to you as a one-off or as something that had franchise potential? 

Those of us who were part of making it are not dumb. The idea of planting a little bit of a seed that we might wanna keep going is always a good idea. I think we would all be excited to do another one if there's an appetite for it, for sure.

Have you had any discussions for a potential sequel or franchise yet?

Maybe we have. Maybe we haven't. Maybe we've just been like dreaming, you know, we'll see.

Knocking on wood.

Yes.

Williams was blown away when M3gan went viral online after the trailer's debut

Many people online instantly latched onto M3gan after the first trailer was released in October. One headline from Paste read, "Blumhouse's M3gan is already a queer social media icon."

[Laughs.]

And then a comment on the first trailer read, "She's an icon. She's a legend, and she's the moment." What was your reaction to how people instantly received M3gan?

We're absolutely thrilled.

As we make a movie, we're doing our best to make it as good as possible, but there's no guarantee that everything is gonna line up. There's no guarantee that it's gonna turn out the way you all wanted it to.

Then as it was starting to shape up in a way that we were all super proud of, the challenge is, let's introduce her to the world. How do we do it in a way that they get her? She is such a specific energy and tone. The trailer's job was not only to position what's the storyline of the movie — what happens — but also who this lady is. Who is M3gan?

To our great joy, basically the second the trailer hit the internet, they just got it. The memes, the copies of the dance. People understood her in this way that I absolutely loved, and we just thought, "OK. Job done. They get her, she belongs to them now." This is amazing.

They are taking great care of her. They're deploying her in the most hilarious ways to make fun of people. They just got this fierce best-friend vibe from her and it's been an utter joy. I mean, what more could you want?

Working on 'M3gan' while pregnant informed Williams' performance as a caregiver to 2 kids in the film

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that you're a new mom. So, congrats!

Thank you.

Were you working on this film while pregnant?

From the moment that I read the script to now? Yes. So what's really interesting is — I don't mean I was pregnant for three years. [Laughs.] But it's really wild that when I first read it, I was not a mom. It wasn't a part of my life. By now, I am fully a mom. I have a baby.

For someone who's playing Gemma, so much of her character revolves around the question of motherhood. In a very interesting way, she kind of has two children: One of them she made from scratch and she feels very responsible for, but she's somewhat neglectful of because of this other child that she didn't raise from the beginning, but she inherits and she's also a little bit neglectful of because both of them are kind of fighting for her attention and her focus.

To have a shift in perspective on this subject area while we were working on the movie made the job of performing her very different and nuanced.

It was already hard. This is something that Gerard and I talked about. I love kids. I always have. I've always loved the idea of being around them. They are so much fun to me. Holding myself back from hugging Violet and wanting to cuddle with her and have fun with her and being really warm and nice and engaged was very hard. That was the hardest part of playing Gemma.

Some of those scenes, like when she's sort of quasi-manipulating her into going to the presentation, even though she's had an injury, that was one of the hardest scenes I had to film because it felt wrong. I felt terrible inside.

But Gemma has a different incentive structure than I do. And so that's just one of those moments that you have to navigate.

Has your view on Hollywood or acting changed at all since becoming a mother?

What if I was like, "Nothing's changed since all this?" [Laughs.]

No, everything changes.

Your view on literally — your view on a trash can changes and you're like, "I wonder how many diapers are in this trash can." It changes literally everything about your whole life. You look at your bed differently. It becomes this stranger that you used to know so well and you're just never there anymore.

It's a seismic shift in everything, as it should be, and it's not all perfect, but all of it feels profound in a really good way. And I'm happy.

'M3gan' is Williams' first executive-producer credit and she plans for it to be the first of many

When we meet your character Gemma in the film, she's chipping away at her dream project, M3gan, while working on something that she's not as passionate about. You're an executive producer on this film. I believe this is your first executive producer credit, correct?

You're right.

Are you hoping to be behind the camera more in the future? Is there something you're working on in your spare time while working on other roles? What is Allison Williams' dream project? What is your M3gan, so to speak?

Honestly, I feel like I've had several. I feel so lucky. I also feel really lucky that there's no part of my job that feels like drudgery. There's no part of it that feels like homework.

Right now, I'm filming a limited series for Showtime that's in a completely different universe from M3gan. It's been so much fun to kind of toggle back and forth between the two worlds. I feel like I've had so much fun going from one genre to the next, from one medium to the other. I guess I feel like I've had several M3gans and what more could you ask for from a career?

"M3gan" is in theaters now. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.