Today, the new horror film Smile 2 opens in theaters nationwide. A sequel to the original film, Smile 2 follows Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), a pop star who is about to start a global tour when she starts experiencing terrifying and unexplainable events, including hallucinations of people smiling. Overwhelmed by the pressures of fame and what is happening to her, Skye is forced to face her dark past and get control back of her life before it’s too late.

Peter Jacobson (House, Colony) plays the role of Morris, a mysterious outsider who has a connection with the terror and crosses paths with Skye. Morris tries to convince Skye that he can help save her.

Recently, Jacobson spoke with SciFi Vision about working on Smile 2 and a bit about some of his other projects.

Watch the full interview and read the transcript below and check out Smile 2, now in theaters.

Photo © Luke Fontana

***edited for length and clarity***

SCIFI VISION:   To start off, why don't you sort of talk about the character you play?

PETER JACOBSON:   I play Morris. It's a great name. Sort of a every guy kind of name, and he's an every guy kind of guy. He's this mysterious outsider who crosses paths with Skye Riley, who's Naomi Scott, who is the lead of the film, who is in the throes of the terror. If you saw the first film, you know that there is a terror that, to put it mildly, upends one's life. Put it quite mildly.

So, she's trying to figure this out. Her life is becoming increasingly unhinged by what she thinks she knows and what she doesn't know.

This terror is building and building, and my character, Morris, he's what I loved about the guy. He's sort of a simple man. He's an ER nurse, but he has a dark past, and he has had an experience with this terror himself. He spent his time desperately trying to figure it out and learn about what it is, and he thinks he knows.

So, when I cross paths with Skye, I try to help her and to help save her and to help save any further damage done by this mysterious, hideous darkness. So, the scenes that we have together are me trying to convince her that I can help her, trying to also educate her about what's going on, and then, in the end, ultimately, try to help save her and frankly, save humanity in the process.

SCIFI VISION:   Now, this is different in the sense that it's more [in the public eye]. It's not just her running around different places seeing this. How does that kind of change it from your perspective?

PETER JACOBSON:   Well, one of the genius things about the first one was that Sosie Bacon[’s character] was just, yeah, she's living her own private life, and this hell is happening. And the acting, the level of anxiety and terror that she sustained for so long in the film is what drew us in and what made that movie so successful.

Naomi's task is to do the same thing on an even grander scale, because this movie takes all of that that went in the first and just ups the ante, ups the stakes. It's on an almost universal scale now, and her character, as you pointed out, is a public figure and she's doing it in a context that is outside in public with others wanting things from her. So, the terror, really, she doesn't know where it's coming from.

And part of the terror of the terror is what's real [and] what's not. I mean, that's a pretty common theme. But again, Parker Finn, the director and writer, has done such a genius job of keeping her character grounded.

Like, this is what it would be like for a public person to be going through something so privately terrifying, and what is that mental struggle? What does that look like?

And from her perspective, the people coming at her, who's real, who's not, what's a smile, what's not. Is she safe with her mother? Is she not? Is she safe in the world?

So, again, as you pointed out, for a public figure, it's beyond scary. And Naomi so beautifully carries that tension and that terror on such a bigger scale throughout the film. She's remarkable, does a fabulous job.

SCIFI VISION:   How did you become involved in this? I mean, was it an audition or did somebody ask you to do it? How did that sort of happen?

PETER JACOBSON:   …I auditioned for Morris. I got the script, read the character.

Somebody out there thought that a sort of a messy, anxious person would be right for me. I don't know why. Anxiety is my thing.

So, I just, I read this character and there's something very sweet and human about him. He's just wants to help, and he's very smart, and he's extremely compassionate, and he is very focused, but there's something sad about him because of how this terror has impacted his life. But there's something really focused and intelligent, and he's really working hard to help, and I just loved his anxiety, and he just fit me like a warm blanket. And I guess Parker felt so too. So, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to do it, [to] bring him to life.

SCIFI VISION:   Talk about working with Naomi from an acting standpoint.

PETER JACOBSON:   Fantastic. I did not know Naomi. I'd never met her. I knew of her work. I was instantly blown away by just her presence, her intensity, how real she is. I mean, she's just a fabulous actor.

But for me, an important thing at this point in my career is that I like to work with people who bring a level of generosity and integrity and intelligence. We all want to, but just, I guess, as you get older, and you do it more and more, there's a higher premium on that, because you don't want to waste time. You want to work with people that you enjoy. And that's almost always the case, because I think actors by and large are lovely, but Naomi's really lovely. She's really smart, and she's really poised, and she's really generous. So, to get that right out of the gate, it was like, “Oh, this is going to be comfortable. This is going to be fun.”

You know, our scenes are intense. I have a lot of dialogue, and I'm going to pepper her with information…Acting always is listening, and, you know, my job is to have the words. Her job is to listen. She and I are doing this scene 50-50. She is a great listener in that kind of scene.

She's just game. I mean, we went to like four in the morning, and she was just outlasting crew. She's outlasting everybody and committed 100%. It's a relentless film. It's relentlessly scary. And she has to live that. There wasn't a second that she was not 100% committed, and I just have just nothing but awe for her. She's fabulous. You'll see [that] when you see the film; she's a star. She carries this thing, and not anybody could do it.

SCIFI VISION:   Yeah. Now, are you normally a horror person? I don't, at least I haven't seen you in a lot of horror in any rate. Well, Fear the Walking Dead though, I guess. That is horror.

PETER JACOBSON:   I got to kill some zombies. I had a pretty decent zombie kill for a rabbi.

No, I'm not a horror person in my career. I did a movie called The Midnight Meat Train with Bradley Cooper decades ago. That was a horror film, a gory horror film.

I worked on House's medical team which some would say would be a horror show unto itself, but in the best way. Yeah, I saw a lot of blood and guts in a medical show.

I'm in a lot of legal dramas, and that's horrifying in its own way, but no, I'm being silly. The horror genre, I've never been in an actual horror film. Certainly not in a film of this scale. And I just loved it. I would love to do more.

And again, because of the talent and finesse of Parker, the writer and director, the experience of it was like anything else. I say that in a complimentary way, because, again, it comes down to character and relationship. When that's real and human, then you got your terror. You don't have it just by a jump scare here and a jump scare there. You can't do it in a thin way. It's gotta be real, and the audience has to really believe people and relationships. That's what we care about and therefore we can then be scared.

And Parker kept it down on that level for us so that we were getting something very real, and that meant that the horror was gonna be absolutely hideous. So, the experience was one with a wonderful director and writer and a wonderful actor and the rest did the work itself.

SCIFI VISION:   Are you someone though who watches horror movies, or are you like me scared of most things? I'm okay if it's supernatural stuff like this, but -

PETER JACOBSON:   Yeah, I'm a sci-fi guy. I am definitely like you. I'm scared of everything, on-screen and off. I don't know if you're scared of everything off screen. I am.

I don't gravitate towards it, but if somebody says this is a smart, good, scary film instead of just a scary film, I will watch it, because I don't wanna just be scared just to be scared…I wanna be scared because the relationship and the character and the situation creeps me out, and I know that I'm in the hands of a good film. And so I'll watch.

And I don't think there's a lot of that out there, frankly. To be honest, I think that's why Smile made its mark. This one will, I think, make an explosion, because it's real, and it's coming from a real place.

So, this movie, I would love to watch. I would love to be as terrified as you will be when you see it in the theater.

SCIFI VISION:   You just made me curious, though. What kinds of other horror movies have you liked? I'm just scared if they're serial killers - I don't need that kind of stuff.

PETER JACOBSON:   I get scared when I remember when [Nightmare on Elm Street] - that came out when I was a teenager, and that movie, I remember I was like, wait a minute, this is not fair. Because suddenly, he's coming to you in your dreams, and if you don't know what's real, I was like, wait a minute now. When I go to sleep tonight, now I'm terrified. And I was kind of angry, because I was like, you've now blasted out the boundaries. So, I felt that the movies that followed that copied that sloppily.

This movie, what's great about Smile is that that edge between what's real and what's not, that Skye is just desperately trying to manage and figure out. It's a wonderful thing to have in a horror film, but it's got to be done with integrity, and it's got to be done in a real way. And this movie leans on that insecurity, and it does it in a completely legitimate, scary way. The writing and the acting combined between those two allow us to really not be sure what's real and what's not without just crappy jump scares. It's very real and therefore very terrifying. So, that is a movie that I would, if I saw the - I mean, I was interested in Smile, the first one, because of that, loved it because of that. I mean, I grew up on movies like The Shining, The Exorcist. Those were reinventing horror. Now there's a lot of horror. But if I sense that it's more than just gimmicky, and it's really deeply humanly scary, then I'll go for it. I'll watch it.

SCIFI VISION:   It makes sense. Well, in this film, was there anything in particular from an [actor's] perspective that you struggled with doing with the role? It's hard for me to ask specifics without having seen it, but was there anything difficult?

PETER JACOBSON:   Well, blocking is always hard for me. I mean, I can't give anything away, but there's a certain, you know, I'm trying to help Skye survive, and that requires certain activities, which required certain manually dexterous things for me to be able to do.

Having been on House, a medical drama, for five years, you learn how to sort of do this all at once and act and be in the moment and also do something else. There's a little bit of that required in this, and it was a little bit challenging.

I haven't been on House in years and again, this thing was a little bit hard to find, but I found it again. And, you know, it's not actually scary, scary because there's a million people around while you're shooting it and, you know, you're shooting it. So, you're on the other side.

But there's some dark scenes I had to hit. I was more scared that I wouldn't hit my mark, because the lighting was so low, and I didn't want to mess everything up and keep people from getting lunch. That was the scariest part for me.

SCIFI VISION:   That's fair. Now you've done a variety of different kinds [of projects]. Like you said, this is your first horror, but what's something like you'd still love to do? Do you have like a dream role or a type of role or just something that you'd really like to be able to do?

PETER JACOBSON:   I was talking about this the other day. Just, as actors, we often get stuck. I mean, stuck isn't necessarily a good word, because there's a beauty in playing who you are, and, you know, typecast[ing] makes sense. That's how the business works. But I used to, when I was younger, I was like, “Well, I should be playing the romantic surfer lead.” And then I was like, “No, I shouldn't, because that's really not me.”

And that's a good thing. I have a certain energy and things that I do and know and do well, and I've made a career out of that, and I feel lucky. That being said, there is a level of, you know, if I'm going to play another lawyer or a doctor or sort of a regular guy who's anxious, I'd love a chance to really carry it to the nth degree. Something like, you know, a character like in Breaking Bad. I mean, Bryan Cranston, this is one of the great characters of all time. He was a mild mannered character. That's somebody that I might play, a teacher, but who's got a dark side, that's not just dark. It's like way dark and doing things that you never would have expected him to do. That's the genius of that show. You see him realize just how out of bounds he is. And I don't often get a chance to go so out of bounds, be it some just crazy drug induced insanity or just insanity induced insanity. Just to stretch the boundaries of the sort of, you know, I'm often wearing a tie, which is what I love about being in Smile, because this guy doesn't wear ties. He's pretty downtrodden. So, that was fun. And if I'm going to be in a tie and a suit, I want to be a guy in a suit and a tie who's really out there.

SCIFI VISION:   That makes sense. Have you ever wanted to write or direct your own project?

PETER JACOBSON:   I have, and I'm working on it. I'm not really a writer, but I'm conceiving of two different shows that I've been conceiving with a writing partner and producer, and we're developing both. And to be on the other side of it is really wonderful, because I've only ever come at it through the inside as an actor for 30 years.

So, to be commenting and looking and adjusting and debating from the outside is a wonderful experience. So, I look forward to that part of my career when I have that kind of input, and I'm hopefully creating something that I'm also playing that I've had full input on who he is.

SCIFI VISION:   That's always a good thing.

PETER JACOBSON:   I've been lucky. I've been worked with some just amazing writers. So, I've been happy to ride on their words forever.

SCIFI VISION:   Do you have any other projects that you can promote that are coming up that you're allowed to talk about?

PETER JACOBSON:   Well, yeah, I just shot an independent film called Welcome to the Fishbowl with some terrific actors. I did that; I just wrapped that a little while ago, and that will be coming out. That's an independent feature, but these are just in the can, so it might be a while. And [there’s] another independent film I'm gonna work on next week, and I can't talk too much about it, but no, nothing like Smile. That's my jam right now. That's as big as it gets. So, I'm pushing that.

SCIFI VISION:   Well, I'm looking forward to seeing it once it's out.

PETER JACOBSON:   Good, good. Don't be scared. I mean, be scared.

SCIFI VISION:   I was gonna say, you're gonna be scared somewhat.

PETER JACOBSON:   You will be, believe me.