Sam Raimi Says Rachel McAdams Was “Underutilized” in DOCTOR STRANGE 2 and Promised To Work With Her Again
Sam Raimi has always worn his fandom on his sleeve, but it turns out he also carries a little director’s guilt. After making Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Raimi walked away feeling like he didn’t fully tap into what Rachel McAdams could do. That feeling stuck with him long enough that he made a promise to himself to fix it the next chance he got.
That chance came with Send Help, a twisted horror-comedy that lets McAdams stretch into darker, wilder territory, and Raimi couldn’t be happier about it.
Looking back on his Marvel outing, the filmmaker admitted that even though Christine Palmer had more to do than in the first Doctor Strange, it still didn’t feel like enough.
“She was the perfect person [to play Linda] because she's such a brilliant actress. I had a chance to work with her on my last film, and I saw how talented she was – and actually underutilized – and I promised myself that I would work with her again,” Raimi said in an interview with GamesRadar+.
“Then this film came up. Her warmth is wonderful, and the fact that she had not really played a dark character before – as [producer] Zainab [Azizi] pointed out to me – was the perfect set-up for the audience to be surprised. The movie is not a whodunnit, but a 'what comes next?' That's what we did.
“The movie doesn't want the audience to know what's right around the corner. It turns left when they think it's going to turn right,” he continued. “That was an important factor – and [Rachel] was great in that she's this good person that we know and love, so it's more of a shock when she becomes this terrible villain.”
In Send Help, McAdams stars as Linda Liddle, a quiet, overlooked employee who ends up stranded on a remote island with her nightmare boss Bradley Preston, played by Dylan O'Brien.
What starts as a survival story quickly mutates into something far more uncomfortable. The power dynamic between the two flips, twists, and eventually goes full nightmare fuel. Raimi has described the vibe as closer to Misery than Cast Away, which should tell you exactly how nasty things get.
The script comes from Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, the duo behind Freddy vs Jason, and it gleefully messes with the idea of who you’re supposed to root for. Early on, it’s easy to sympathize with Linda after Bradley humiliates her at work and blocks her promotion. But as time drags on and desperation sets in, those lines blur in unsettling ways.
McAdams was clearly game for that kind of moral chaos. In a separate interview, she explained why leaning into that turn was so appealing.
“Likability is so overrated. It's so boring,” McAdams said. “This sounded so fun, to have them flip and see if we could, like, then grab the audience back again. And it's just so much more representative of actual human beings. A little bit of good, and then some not so good.”
After realizing he didn’t give McAdams enough room to shine in the MCU, Raimi built a movie that thrives on her unpredictability. The result is something meaner, stranger, and more character-driven than a superhero epic.
Send Help is now playing in theaters.