Apart from Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) once again fighting with a formidable demon named Valak (Bonnie Aarons), The Nun sequel has also seen the return of Jonas Bloquet as the charming and kind Maurice “Frenchie” Theriault. However, at the end of The Nun 2, Frenchie met his cruel fate — and the director had even planned to kill off the character earlier than expected.
Speaking with /Film, The Nun 2 director Michael Chaves — the filmmaker behind The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and The Curse of La Llorona — explained that making audiences fall in love with Frenchie has always been their plan.
“Yeah. That was always the plan. I mean, I think coming out of the first movie, people really love Maurice. I mean, Jonas is so charming. He’s just as charming in real life. As it was being developed, we discussed where in the timeline does it fit. Because, I mean, there was even an early discussion about maybe this leads right up to the exorcism,” said Chavez.
The sequel expanded Frenchie’s story by placing him with a family and giving him a fatherly role. While they had hesitations about giving the character a brutal fate, the director believes it could help build some sort of “angst and anxiety.”
“That was something that I think we all had hesitations about. We love this character so much and audiences loved him so much. We weren’t sure we wanted to kill him off. But definitely, I think building the tension and putting him with a family and having him fall in love and just having him become this father figure . . . I think all of it is just more . . . It just builds the angst and anxiety. You can just feel the heartbreak coming,” he added.
What is The Nun 2 about?
A sequel to 2018’s horror feature The Nun and a part of The Conjuring Universe, The Nun 2 — set in 1956 France — follows Sister Irene as she has to yet again come face-to-face with the demon nun known as Valak. Joining Farmiga, Aarons, and Bloquet are Storm Reid as Debra, Anna Popplewell as Marcella, Katelyn Rose Downey as Sophie, Suzanne Bertish as Madame Laurent, and Natalia Safran as Sister Chloe.
