A new adaptation of Stephen King‘s classic short story The Boogeyman opens in theaters Friday.

In the movie, Air‘s Chris Messina plays Will, a therapist father of two grieving the loss of his wife, only to have he and his two daughters haunted by a supernatural menace.

The emotionally shut-down character is worlds away from the ranting, scene stealing sports agent David Falk he played in the sports drama Air — and that was intentional, Messina explains to ABC Audio. “It’s the reason why I wanted to do this in the first place,” he says. “The whole acting thing is, play different folks and be in different genres. So what a gift that I have the opportunity to do two projects back to back that I don’t think those guys would be in the same room.”

That said, he admitted it would be funny if the characters swapped places. “That would be a really interesting horror movie,” he says with a laugh, “Yeah. Just screaming at the Boogeyman. Cursing him out.”

Sophie Thatcher from the Emmy-winning Showtime show Yellowjackets plays Sadie, Will’s teen daughter. She explains how she got the spooky movie out of her head after long days on set.

“Music is the escape. Music is the way in. Music is life. Music is everything,” she says. “I had some hard weeks. I brought [both] my sisters plane tickets at different points because I was like, I just need family and I need like somebody that…I can be myself around. And even if we’re silent on our phones for 2 hours, I just need somebody…that can ground me. I think that was the most important thing.”

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