Adam DiMarco is learning to love nightmares

Many of us remember our first encounters with horror — the films we watched a little too young, that crept into our subconscious and shaped our most visceral nightmares. For some, an early introduction to the genre may have birthed a lifelong thirst for adrenaline. But for actor Adam DiMarco, it took a few attempts before he could truly appreciate the wiles of cinema’s most fear-inducing form. “It’s like a roller-coaster,” he says. “Once you take those rides a few times, you start to enjoy the thrill of it.” The 35-year-old actor remembers watching the original Scream franchise as a child and having dreams about Ghostface chasing him with a knife. Then, a sleepover viewing of The Hills Have Eyes left him thinking it was “the most fucked up movie” he’d ever seen. Even the 1982 U-rated animation, The Last Unicorn, made a lasting impression. Despite its supposed ‘fantasy’ label, DiMarco recalls it being a “freaky animated movie” with “seriously disturbing sequences”.

But this March, DiMarco is starring in two nightmare-fuelled projects of his own. In A24’s latest horror film, Undertone, directed by Ian Tuason, he plays one of two podcast hosts covering stories about paranormal activity. After dropping a second trailer, it’s been marketed as “the scariest movie you’ll ever hear”. He also stars alongside Camila Morrone in Netflix’s upcoming series, Something Very Bad is Going to Happen. Produced by Stranger Things creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, DiMarco plays one half of an engaged couple whose ill-fated wedding is derailed — a project he describes as “a horror version of The White Lotus”. The reference is an apt one from the actor, since the show saw him play Albie Di Grasso in season two and marked his first critically-acclaimed role.

Shortly after DiMarco dials into our Zoom call, I ask what drew him to Undertone. He recounts a strange coincidence he shared with co-star Nina Kiri, Tuason and producer Dan Slater, that led him (limping) to the project. “There was this really weird thing where I was in New York and had fallen down eight stairs — fully sober, I might add,” DiMarco says. “So, I had a boot on my foot during my Zoom with Ian. Later, he said that was the moment he knew he was going to cast me, because Nina’s left foot was bothering her, Dan had something going on with his foot and Ian had this photo of his foot all messed up.” It’s the kind of strange, almost supernatural, connection that could have easily found its way into the film they were making. But DiMarco’s recollection of the casting experience is only positive. He describes the director as “someone who notices all positive signs and follows them” and notes that “it’s really hard not to get excited by someone like that”, before apologising for “rambling” and moving on to his second spring project.

“No one is just one thing in life.”

Speaking on Something Very Bad is Going to Happen, DiMarco is equally effusive. “It was so fun going to set and seeing what everyone was bringing to the table,” he says. “And I liked exploring mine and Cammy’s [Morrone’s] relationship, as we wanted to create characters people would root for.” Achieving that, I imagine, wasn’t too difficult for DiMarco. Even during our brief exchange, it’s clear why the actor has a reputation for being just as pleasant as he appears to be on screen. He’s softly spoken and calm, with an instinct for redirecting attention away from himself and towards others. Throughout our chat, he poses his own questions towards me, dissolving any sense of hierarchy and making our exchange feel more like a conversation than a press interview. It doesn’t take long for me to conclude that, if anyone can get you rooting for them, it is DiMarco.

Nonetheless, his role in Something Very Bad is Going to Happen forced the actor to transgress this placidness. “Horror really pushes you into vulnerability, which is something I’m always trying to bring to set when I’m working,” he tells me. “But with horror, you have to crank it up in order for the audience to buy in. There’s a lot of restraint involved at first, and then during those awful, terrible moments, you can really go crazy.” It’s this that leads me to ask whether the lines between reality and fiction blurred on the project, as has often been the case for horror actors. Take Psycho star Janet Leigh who never showered again after filming that scene, or Bill Skarsgård, who suffered bad dreams featuring Pennywise the Clown after playing him in both IT films — or the ‘acting’ in The Blair Witch Project, which resulted from eight days of psychological torture inflicted by the producers.

Luckily, DiMarco’s experience was nothing like that. While his roles were mentally and physically demanding, he was able to leave the work on set. After long, arduous night shoots involving “running around in fake blood”, he would unwind by watching reality TV and chess videos. While the actor is, by his own admission, is “not very good” at the game itself, he tells me he’s drawn to the analytical element. “I’ll watch a YouTuber break down world championship games, go through the moves and the alternatives, and fall asleep,” he says, before comparing it to drifting off to horror podcasts, as one of his close friends does. “She says there’s an ASMR quality to them.” We agree that falling asleep to chess videos feels more normal — though, as DiMarco points out, “way more boring”.

Filming Undertone, however, DiMarco wasn’t sure he’d get off so lightly. The set was Tuason’s childhood home, a detail that initially left DiMarco uneasy. On the first day of filming, he walked into a distorted, eerie, “horror version” of the house, in which — to add another layer of unease — Tuason’s parents had passed away while he was caring for them. It could have easily blurred the boundaries between what was real and what wasn’t, especially as the film’s protagonist sees her caring for a dying parent. But the director reassured DiMarco that, by filming in that space, his mother would be watching over them. “He said she was protecting us and making sure everything was going well in the production,” the actor recalls.

It is clear that DiMarco comes alive in horror. Though his résumé already hints at a long-standing pull towards the genre — including an early guest role on R. L. Stine’s The Haunting Hours, one of his very first acting credits — his 2026 projects only compound the actor’s place within it. But genre aside, both Undertone and Something Very Bad is Going to Happen are yet further examples of the complex characters DiMarco has gained an aptitude for playing since starring in The White Lotus. They are characters whose layers subvert first impressions — like Albie, the certified ‘nice guy’ whose temperament is revealed to be partly performative, or the ‘frat bro’, Peter, in Overcompensating, whose cockiness masks insecurity.

“Once you take those rides a few times, you start to enjoy the thrill of it.”

DiMarco confirms that adding layers has always been the goal. “I’ve always tried to bring depth to characters,” he says. “If it was a drama, I’d try to find the comedy. If it was a comedy, I’d try to find the realness in it. No one is just one thing in life.” As for what’s next, the actor has no strict preference, though he likes the idea of doing an action film where he can perform his own stunts. It makes sense given his athletic background, which, he tells me, includes high-level ice hockey. And it’s this that leads us back to where our conversation started — with nightmares. While DiMarco no longer dreams about Ghostface, he still has the occasional nightmare about being a child on the ice and something going wrong. Though, admittedly, with much lower stakes: forgetting his gear or losing his sticks. Nowadays, DiMarco can save the slasher stuff for the screen.