Updated 3/2/09

Just because Virginia Madsen doesn't show up at a lot of horror cons -- like many other scream queens of the '80s and '90s -- don't make the mistake of doubting her love of the genre. We chatted with Madsen on Friday at Wondercon 2009 in San Francisco, where the Oscar-nominated actress appeared to promote the new direct-to-DVD Wonder Woman animated film from DC (for which she provides the voice of Wonder Woman's mother, Queen Hippolyta). When we spoke with her, Madsen opened up about how her love of our favorite genre led to her role in the upcoming Haunting in Connecticut, due out in theaters later this month.

Were you a fan of horror, fantasy and science fiction when you were growing up?

Yes, I was a huge fan of the whole genre. I mean, I was an actress from day 1. So if I was reading The Wizard of Oz, I lived in that world while I was reading it. And if I saw an old Boris Karloff horror film, I lived in that movie, while I was watching it. When I first went to Hollywood, and had one of my first films be Dune, where I actually got to go into that genre and be a part of it... That was a dream come true. In a way, it's more fun when you're doing fantasy, horror, sci-fi. Because it's truly playing make-believe. And it challenges you more than anything as an actor, to react to things that aren't there. And it's really like playing make-believe. It's really like playing dress-up when you go to work.

Your next film is The Haunting in Connecticut. What attracted you to the project, and what do you think makes it unique for a horror film?

I'd been looking for a good horror script since Candyman – actively looking for a good horror script.

Was The Number 23 part of that search?

Well, Number 23 to me was a thriller. It wasn't horror. It was classic thriller. It was a little scary, but this is a full-on horror film. Those are sometimes the hardest scripts to find. Because they tend to take shortcuts, and they think that if there's just gonna be somebody bloodletting then it's gonna scare people. And it doesn't, especially nowadays it doesn't. So I think that when a movie has a really solid script, when you care about the people that are in the horrific situation, then the stakes are higher, and the audience is invested. And so the whole movie experience becomes more intense and scarier. So this movie was [like that], and then I just had to make sure it was the right director and the right cast, even down to the music – I wanted to know everything before I signed onto it. I wanted to know everything they were gonna do, because it was that important to me. I loved Candyman, and I love the genre. I love the genre, and I feel like it's kind of gotten lost in gore. And that's okay – a lot of kids have fun with that stuff. But to me those aren't good movies, and they're not good stories. And even if they start with a good story – and I'm not gonna name the particular films – they may start with a good story idea, but it falls apart in context. Then you're just waiting for the next slice and dice. That's not a good horror film to me. A good horror film has to have a good story.

And whatever I did, would be compared to Candyman. Even though it was such a long time ago, Candyman, it was such a good horror movie that... I wanted it to be scary on that level. On a very deep level, where you can't stop thinking about it – really dark. And it needed to appeal to some really base fears in our humanity.

What films do you most admire within the horror genre?

I would probably have a pretty long list, but I can go all the way back to the original Mummy. I think that's a great one. And the original Frankenstein and Dracula and all those, which I showed to my son. He loves it. Now I've made a monster of my own -- he's very snobby about horror films, because I gave him a real appreciation of what the real ones are, and he didn't like the gross-out movies, because he thinks they're stupid. But, oh my God, when the first Halloween came out, for that age I was at then, sneaking into the movie theater... That was a great horror film. It had a great story, it had a great villain. I'm trying to think [of something] more recently… It's not coming to mind. I'm gonna regret it later. I'm blanking on it. But I actually have quite a long list, and there are some good ones recently.