Five minutes with the not-so-scary star of Orphan

You’ve seen the eerie posters staring down at you asking, “Can you keep a secret?” But even if the shriek-inducing, Bad Seed-style camp of Orphan isn’t your cup of tea, it’s worth noting that the film’s young star, Isabelle Fuhrman, nails her role as the evil tween villain so precisely that it’s, well, scary. We were so freaked out by her performance, we insisted on speaking with her.

Have you seen the finished film? I’ve seen it twice! I thought it was really, really scary and really good. Usually I can’t even see PG-13 movies unless my mom sees them before me. The only reason I was allowed to see *[the R-rated Orphan*] is that when we were on set in Montreal my mom said, “I’ll let you see the scenes you’re in.” And then a producer tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Uh, that’s every single scene!”

So you saw the whole thing? My sister sat next to me in the theater and covered my eyes during scenes of Vera [Farmiga] and Peter [Sarsgaard] um, you know.

The movie poster is so frightening! I know! There’s one on the Beverly Center and when I saw that I screamed my head off: “Oh my gosh! I’m on the Beverly Center!” By the way, it’s totally Photoshop. They moved my eyebrows up, added shadows and mirrored half my face to make it completely symmetrical. Symmetry is freaky!

What kind of movies do you like watching? I want to see the new Harry Potter! I’d like to see it this weekend but I’m going to see Orphan again instead.

You’ll see it in the theater with an audience? Yes, I’m going to go with a group of friends and dress like Esther and scare people! I actually wanted to do it at the midnight showing on opening day—but that’s too late at night for me.

Photo: Eric Charbonneau/WireImage