‘Darby and the Dead’ Star Nicole Maines Loved Having ‘So Much Room’ to Improvise: ‘I Was Able to Just be a Dick’ (Video)

“That’s so my sense of humor too, is I am very much the sarcastic, deadpan, take the piss out of everybody,” Maines told TheWrap

If you had to sum up Nicole Maines’ character in “Darby and the Dead” it would go a little something like this: “We love Piper, but she hates us.” At least, that’s how Maines herself would put it. According to the actress, she had free reign to make the character as much of “a dick” as she wanted — so she ran with it.

The movie, now streaming on Hulu, follows Darby Harper (Riele Downs) as she navigates through her teenage years, all while running a side hustle communicating with ghosts. Thanks to a near-death experience as a kid, Darby can not only see dead people, but communicate with them, so she helps them take care of their unfinished business so they can move on to the great beyond.

Unfortunately, a freak accident at school results in the death of Darby’s former best friend and current popular mean girl Capri Donahue (Auli’i Cravalho), which means Darby now has to reluctantly help her frenemy knock out her unfinished business. In Capri’s case, it’s executing what would’ve been her 17th birthday party, and that requires Darby getting close with the friends Capri left behind. Among those friends is Piper (Maines), a girl with a dry wit and scorching one-liners.

And, according to Maines, Piper provided a unique opportunity to just…be herself.

“That’s so my sense of humor too, is I am very much the sarcastic, deadpan, take the piss out of everybody,” Maines explained to TheWrap. “I always have to remind myself when I meet people that I’m like, ‘OK, they don’t know I’m joking. And they think I’m an asshole.’ So with Piper, I was able to just be a dick. And it worked!”

As a result, Piper turned into a pretty dark character. In fact, Maines is pretty sure that, if this movie were to expand into a series, it would eventually come out that Piper is actually the orchestrator of Capri’s death.

“I mean, I kind of want like, at the end of it, do like crazy series plot twist reveal and like, it was never an accident,” she joked. “Piper was killing everybody.”

Of course, it was admittedly a bit hard to be mean to the cast and actually mean it, particularly in the case of Auli’i Cravalho who, as Maines tells it, really is “fully” Moana.

“That’s the thing, everyone in this movie was so spectacular. And I think that’s why it was so much fun to do,” Maines said. “And I think that’s why the relationships play so well on screen, the comedy plays so well on screen, because it was such a safe environment.”

She continued, “And everyone felt so comfortable on set, that we were in this place where we were like, ‘Yeah, let’s take the piss out of each other. Let’s just, you know, have a fun time and goof around.’ And, by the end of it, we were just able to do whatever stupid stuff popped into our mind.”

Maines means that quite literally too. According to the actress, improvising started early in “Darby and the Dead,” and was a regular practice by the end of the shoot.

“The movie offered so much room for improvisation,” she added. “And by the end of it, we would walk into set, and Silas [Howard], the director, who’s amazing, would just be like, ‘Yeah, do whatever you want. Improv whatever you want.’”

You can watch TheWrap’s interview with Maines in the video above.

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