Crystal Balint Talks ‘Midnight Mass’ and Dolly’s Choices [Interview]

The latest Flanagan-verse entry tells the haunting tale of what happens when the prospect of a miracle and unyielding, unquestionable faith leads to all-around tragedy on Midnight Mass.

One of the Crockett Island citizens that becomes wholly enthralled is Dolly Scarborough after her family is given a gift in the form of their daughter’s ability to walk.

Dolly is one of St. Patrick’s Cathedral’s inner circle throughout and is ultimately held hostage at the hands of the tyrannical Beverly (played by the phenomenal Samantha Sloyan). Watching Dolly struggle is heartbreaking, and that inner turmoil in the face of everything is played incredibly well by Crystal Balint.

I recently got to chat with Balint about Dolly Scarborough’s issues with what Father Paul and Beverly asked of her and how she tuned into specific aspects of her character, as well as what initially drew her to the role.

“I think that was what was most impressive after watching Hill House, then getting the scripts for [Midnight Mass], and reading the scripts was just Mike [Flanagan]’s incredible ability to create these really relatable characters, I think, and the role of Dolly is one that I found to be fairly relatable because she’s not really on either end of one of the spectrums that are created in the show.”

“She’s sort of just your average kind of person who just has her faith, loves her community, and loves her family. And that I think is a pretty relatable kind of person. So, I was really drawn to that.”

Dolly’s relatability and her circumstances are paired with intriguing questions and her agency through it all.

“The questions that always have answered for herself, which are, where is the line? And how far does one go to sort of, maintaining your faith and your love and all those things?”

It is a great question to gain perspective on these characters. Balint shared a question that came to mind when preparing for the role, looking to cult-like research.

“Before we even went to camera, I had an opportunity to sit down with Mike and discuss Dolly, and have him provide some insights for me,” she said. “He asked me to look at a few things in sort of popular culture. And one of the things he sort of threw at me was the idea of the Jonestown massacres.”

“It’s a really frightening and harrowing experience listening to it because you have these people who primarily are women. You can hear them in the background echoing Jim Jones’ comments, ‘have faith,’” Balint explained what she felt in the course of researching and listening to the haunting tapes as she prepared for the Midnight Mass role.

“Just talking about it now gives me goosebumps about the idea of those people who really, right up to the bitter end, believe that what they were doing was for a greater good. That they were really following the word that they believe was for good, despite the negativity, the death, and destruction that came out of that,” she added.

“So, I think for Dolly, I tried to imbue her with a little bit of that. She’s at such a desperate place in her life when we meet her. She really needs a miracle, she really needs something significant to happen to change everything for her, and it does. It comes in the place where she’s sought solace, which is in her church, in her faith, and so she really clings to that idea that this is the right thing right up to those final moments until it’s too late.”

Balint zeroes in on what makes the Scarboroughs’ fate heartbreaking to watch, explaining that Dolly and her husband’s motives were always rooted in desperation and love for their family.

“What I really appreciated about the storytelling, for kind of all the characters for the most part, except for very few, but especially for the Scarboroughs, like everything they’re doing is really for love, right? Like it’s for the love of Leeza. It’s the love of the community. It’s for the love of one another. And especially for Dolly.”

“It’s not zealotry the way that, say, Bev Keane approaches the scenario of up for power or anything like that. It’s really about love,” Balint explained.

The actress also shared that some of her own experiences as a parent informed her emotional perspective as she stepped into the role, channeling that understanding of a parent’s determination to keep their child safe.

“I had sort of a difficult time during my pregnancy, and my girls were born a little early, so they spent some time in hospital. Fortunately, my girls are healthy now, and they are thriving, and I feel very, very fortunate for that. So I know what it’s like to worry about those you love more than anything, the innocent ones around you who are struggling. But I know I spent a lot of time around people who didn’t have those same outcomes.”

“You get to observe what it’s like when you feel for your own helplessness. You also observe other people’s helplessness, and it’s a really overwhelming experience, so I did try to sort of lean into some of that I think in those moments where if things could be different if you could just have the power to make something different,” she explained.

Considering everything Dolly and the Scarborough family are subjected to throughout the seven-hour limited series, that feeling accurately encapsulates her emotional journey, culminating in the profoundly intense Easter midnight mass during Season 1 Episode 6, “Book VI: Acts of the Apostles.”

The experience of filming that pivotal moment was not as intense as it played out, according to Balint. But it did involve some intensive filming.

“We shot all the church scenes kind of all in sequence, starting from episode one straight through to the last episode. We shot them over, I think about 12 to 14 days full shooting days,” Balint explained. “What was lovely is so much of the show takes place in the church. The way the schedule lined up is that they shot that all in sequence. We did shoot that big final Easter service that Midnight Mass service was kind of the last time I was in the church. And that took about, I think, four days to shoot.”

Balint mentioned just how in-depth the scene initially was on the page.

“That scene actually was basically the second half the entire second half of that episode. The scene itself is something like 25 pages long or something. It’s just one continuous scene you think it might be broken up, but it’s not.”

The actress attributed the smooth filming to the crew, director and producer Mike Flanagan, and producer Trevor Macy.

“It was so fine-tuned and so detail-oriented with Mike at the helm, who is a really detail-oriented director and producer. And Trevor Macy, who is just producer extraordinaire, had every little detail worked out. Combined with these incredible crew members, we had our hair and makeup team, our costumes department, and our stunt team was unbelievable. They had these fantastic stunt people. And we had shot lists for everything. So, it happened kind of seamlessly. But it was really a marvel to watch because you knew all these parts had to go into it.”

You can also catch Crystal Balint on Supergirl’s final season and Mike Flanagan’s next Netflix project, The Midnight Club. No affiliation to Midnight Mass, the actress teases.

“It’s Christopher pike adaptations. And [Mike Flanagan] once again, sort of just with his talent of creating interesting characters, creates these lovely characters who bond together in a hospice environment,” she says about the upcoming series.

“They get into these great little stories, adaptations of some of the Christopher Pike novels that people really know and love. So that was a lot of fun, and I got to work with some familiar faces. I’m excited for people to see it because there are some really terrific actors in it.”

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You can watch Crystal Balint on Midnight Mass out now Netflix. Supergirl airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.

*Featured image credit: The Portrait Sessions

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