You might know her as Theodora Crain, the somewhat psychic middle child in “The Haunting of Hill House.” Or maybe she’s more familiar as Viola Lloyd, the ultra-stubborn lady of the manor in “The Haunting of Bly Manor.” Or perhaps you identify her as Camille L’Espanye in the more recent “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The point is, Jewish actress and scream queen Kate Siegel has been all over the place and it’s time we learn a little more about her.
Here are 18 things to know about Kate Siegel.
1. Kate Siegel was born on August 9, 1982 in Silver Spring, Maryland to a Jewish family.
2. She’s a Leo.
3. Though she goes by the last name “Siegel” professionally, her full last name is Siegelbaum.
4. She went to high school with comedian Whitney Cummings! Here they are in a podcast together:
5. She got her BFA in acting at Syracuse University in 2004.
6. However, it wasn’t without toil. Apparently, all students in the drama school at Syrcause have to re-audition after their sophomore year and Kate failed the audition THREE TIMES.
“I would drag myself into my advisor’s office and be like, ‘I have to audition again. You have to let me try again. And I’ll study harder and I’ll work harder and I won’t give up.’ And that is the precursor, that level of stubbornness, I think, has followed me through my entire career,” Kate said in an interview.
7. Even so, she almost gave up acting to work in international finance. You can listen to her explain her reasoning in this interview:
8. After playing a lesbian character in the 2007 movie “Steam,” Kate came out as bisexual.
9. She first met filmmaker Mike Flanagan (now her husband) in an audition.
In an interview, she explained how he helped her turn an audition around: “Mike looked at me and he kinda sat there for a second, and he was like, ‘Can you just do one more?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ And I was waiting for the notes he was gonna give me, and I was preemptively nodding because I was like, ‘I’m a good girl and I will take this note and I will do a good job.’ And he looked at me and he waited until I stopped nodding, and he said, ‘Can you just do one just for you?’ And I was taken aback because I didn’t know what that meant. I had forgotten. And something in me was brave enough to take the amount of time, which felt like an eternity, was probably two minutes, and figure out what it was that I wanted, and my acting changed forever on that day.”
10. She and Mike got married in 2016. Here they are on (presumably) their wedding day:
11. Kate and Mike have two kids, a son named Cody and a daughter named Theodora.
12. She’s worked on numerous projects with her husband, including: the movie “Oculus,” the movie “Hush” (which she co-wrote), and Netflix shows “The Haunting of Hill House,” “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” “Midnight Mass” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.”
13. You may or may not be able to get a Theo Crain action figure.
14. Yep, that’s right, Kate’s daughter is named after Theodora Crain! Bonus: here she is being a #workingmom!
15. In “Midnight Mass” Kate immediately felt a connection with the character Erin Greene.
“When ‘Midnight Mass’ came around, I said to him, maybe for the first time in my career, ‘Mike, I have to play this part. I know this woman,’” she told Vanity Fair, adding, “I had just gone through two pregnancies, and I was dealing with focusing on some trauma in my life that I was working through. And I was like, I think I can bring a certain amount of joy.”
16. She’s great at ASMR.
dear lord let the amptp come to their minds and let this strike end soon pic.twitter.com/7DRy6RM12d
— Kate Siegel (@k8siegel) October 25, 2023
17. Camille L’Espanaye, her character in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” was inspired by Mirage from “The Incredibles.”
Kate Siegel talks about her character Camille L'Espanaye in THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. pic.twitter.com/tbY9Au6Gix
— Mike Flanagan Source 🐦⬛ (@flanagansource) October 22, 2023
18. Spoiler alert! Watch her react to Camille’s death scene:
