Pam Grier talks about how the horror genre has evolved and her "complex" role in 'Them' Season 2 (2024)

Pam Grier is no stranger to the horror genre, having starred in the 1970s movies Scream Blacula Scream and The Twilight People, and more recently, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines. But going into her latest project, Them: The Scare, the actor notes how the genre has changed.

“The genre is growing,” Grier told Decider over a Zoom call ahead of the premiere of the second season of Little Marvin‘s horror anthology. “To see it now at a level that is executed with sci-fi, camera, lighting, and imagination… We only dreamt of it before, but now we’re executing events like, ‘Is that for real? How’d you do that?'”

Them premiered in 2021 after receiving a two-season order from Prime Video. The first season, titled Covenant, takes place in the 1950s in Compton and follows a Black family who moves into an all-white neighborhood and discovers horrors in their home.

Season 2, The Scare, transports the series to 1991 in Los Angeles as an LAPD detective investigates the gruesome murder of a foster home mother amid growing tensions in the community due to the assault of Black activist Rodney King. Deborah Ayorinde returns to the show as Detective Dawn Reeve, the daughter of Grier’s Athena Reeve.

Grier was familiar with the show before accepting her role and said she’s always looking for new platforms and directors to work with. “I hadn’t seen [the show] in its entirety, because I was moving my family from Colorado to New Mexico during the pandemic, so I didn’t have the luxury of watching everything,” she said. “But when Little Marvin found me, he was hunting for somebody to play Athena and I was in his crosshairs. He looked me up and wanted to speak to me about this role.”

Grier recalled the show creator telling her, “It’s a complex role, but I think you’ve lived enough. You have so many experiences under your belt and I think you will find the confidence in my voice to join me.”

The complexities of the character Athena drew Grier to the role: “The woman is from the Civil Rights Movement. She’s standing tall and taking care of her family, and now she’s losing her health and her youth, how is she going to balance this? And she has a secret that can make or break her family.”

Throughout the series, paranormal episodes occur, including one where Grier’s character sees her washing machine turn into a monster and charges towards her.

Grier described filming these sequences as “exhausting” and said they tend to stick with her. While she’s a veteran in the horror genre, she doesn’t welcome that unpredictability into her personal life. “If there’s a dark room, I don’t go in it. I’ll send someone else in first, I want the lights on. I’ve just grown up being protective of myself,” she shared.

While on set, Grier thinks about the viewers and wonders, “Will the audience be as afraid as I am? Will they be that audience we’ve trained to watch horror — to give up their securities and be vulnerable?” She compared working on Them to other moments in her career, like starring in Foxy Brown. “You have to train an audience. They had to train them to watch me in martial arts. As a woman, they weren’t used to seeing a woman doing martial arts on screen. It was traditionally for men. We’ve been training our audience to accept horror.”

Grier continued, “From 50 years ago to six years ago, to today, the element is more in-your-face. Now people have seen it and said, “Okay, what can you do?’ Little Marvin has found a way to smack you upside your head, like ‘Here it is.’ I found that in his voice and his confidence, I knew what was required of me.”

In addition to finding support in Little Marvin, Grier forged a genuine bond with Ayorinde. “I’ve always imagined to have had a daughter who would have the strength that I could teach her, and be independent and adventurous and curious. She has those qualities,” she shared. “In the scenes I was in with her, I got to experience what she had developed, not only from the first installment but the second when she’s playing an extension of the first character.”

ThemSeason 2 is now streaming on Prime Video.