Alicia Witt reveals she had a 'rare out-of-body experience' while filming Longlegs

Alicia Witt had a "rare out-of-body experience" while filming 'Longlegs'.

The 48-year-old actress stars as the religious mother Ruth Parker in the new horror - which is set in 1970 and tells the story of a little girl with a Polaroid camera who follows a mysterious voice behind her house - and recalled that while shooting one particular scene with co-star Maika Monroe that she ended up in "some other realm".

She told Collider: "That was one of the rare out-of-body experiences that I've had over the course of my life. I had one with Melissa McBride on 'The Walking Dead' — it happened to both of us. I had one with Michael Rapaport in 'Justified 'in the finale scene. We were lost to the world. I had one with Al Pacino where he had to slap me on the face during the camera rolling because I was having a panic attack

"And I had one with Maika Monroe in that moment. We were in some other realm together. I was not expecting that. It happened. The voice that came out of me wasn't mine. I remember looking at her from across the room as we went to our respective corners to get tidied up by the glam squad. I think it was cold out that day, so we were bundled up, and we kind of looked at each other like, ‘What was that?’”

Alicia also noted that there was another scene that she had "dreamt about" the night before she had even read the script and believes that she inspired it in part because she had shared a personal story with Oz Perkins beforehand.

She said: "One scene in particular that sticks out in my memory is the scene with Maika where she comes back to our house and she sees me there with the doll, and she's starting to piece all of this s***together, and the nightmare of that. When I take her in my arms — oh, I'm just remembering this as I’m saying this to you. I had a dream about that scene!

"In fact, I dreamed about that scene before I read the script. The script had arrived in my inbox, and I had a dream that night about that scene. I won't share the specifics because it's too personal, but I did share it with Oz when we had our Zoom because I saw that scene in my dream as it pertained to my own experience.

"I saw a scene that never happened to me in real life, but I didn't know the characters yet, so it was me. I explained to him what I'd seen and the way we ended up filming it was the way I dreamed it. It just happened that way! We didn't orchestrate it. It's how it ended up."

'Longlegs' is released through indie studio Neon and is currently having a limited run in cinemas before making its way to streaming platforms.