Madison Davenport Discusses the Twist Ending of It’s What’s Inside, Shares Advice from Amy Adams and More (Exclusive).Linh

The actress breaks down the mind-bending ‘It’s What’s Inside’ ending and ideas for a potential sequel

Madison Davenport basks in being the center of a twist ending.

The actress plays the pivotal character Beatrice in It’s What’s Inside, a sci-fi thriller about a group of reunited college friends who play with an experimental device that allows them to swap bodies.

Turns out Forbes (played by David Thompson), the one who brought the high-tech party game, was actually his younger, tormented sister Beatrice all along, taking over his body to get her revenge.

The movie, written and directed by Greg Jardin, features a core ensemble cast of Brittany O’Grady, James Morosini, Gavin Leatherwood, Nina Bloomgarden, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Reina Hardesty and Devon Terrell.

To catch all the clues, viewers have to “pay attention” during the mind-bending puzzle-of-a-movie, Davenpor — meaning they can’t “immediately brain-rot scroll” on their phones while watching.

Here, the star, 27, discusses the ending, ideas for a potential sequel and more.

Madison Davenport: I was the last person cast, and it all happened really fast. I get this script in my email and a Zoom audition. It’s amazing. I like to think that I’m the type that could really plan out intricate revenge like this, because I still have some intricate revenge plans that I haven’t finished yet. But I feel like it could be on this Beatrice-level planning.

I really loved the character. I loved getting to play her, and I just went ham. I was so excited that I got to be the twist ending, the girl that finally got revenge after being wronged. And she was; she was wronged.

So you see it as justice for Beatrice in the end?

Yeah. She’s the ‘bad guy,’ but is she really? When you look at it, you’re like, okay, first of all, she did have mental health issues, and then they exploited that against her after seducing a 14-year-old when they’re in college. I don’t think Beatrice is the bad guy.

The film keeps audiences on their toes, tracking who is inside whose body throughout. Did it ever get confusing during filming?

No, because they did a really job in the script. They put parentheses, so it would be like “Forbes (Cyrus),” so you were kind of like, oh, I understand what’s going on. I’ve really been calling this one a psychological thriller. It makes you think. Then, when I got to come in and do all of my parts in the red light, where you see that it was me the whole time, I got to mimic. I got to see what they had already done. I had to watch them do their thing, and then just try and get the head movements and the expression but add my own flavor into it, because I have crazy eyes. There’s something going on. I’m not [crazy] though….

Does that help you get roles, the “crazy eyes?”

Actually, I think it’s a hindrance, more than anything! No, I’m just kidding. I think each character is different. I have a really fun time playing characters like Beatrice, where you do get to kind of turn on something inside of you that we all have the capacity to have, which is that long con, “I’m going to make you pay.” But I think my real personality is a little bit more like, I’ll get real angry if you hurt somebody that I love, but then other than that I’m just kind of a duck: Things just slide off my back.

After the ending, it feels like there is so much more that could be explored. What would you want to see in an It’s What’s Inside 2?

One of the things I thought to myself when reading the script was, I think it would be fun for a man to go into a woman’s body. I can’t imagine being a man and having all the privileges that a man has, and just not even privileges but the strength. It really is a different thing.

I would hope that maybe we can go back to me and my body, and see the struggle of being a woman after being a man. But I think Beatrice isn’t done switching bodies. She said it. I mean, Forbes said it by being like, “Once you start, you’re not going to want to stop,” and I don’t think she is.

She’s been planning this for a long time while in a mental health facility involuntarily. I think she sat there and a little part of her broke. Whatever was remaining broke, and she was like, “It’s time to switch bodies. That sounds fun.”

Did you really tackle David Thompson for that scene, or was it a stunt performer?

Yeah, it was really fun — that was me. There was no stunt man involved. I was stoked about it. David was like, “You’re a little too excited about this tackling.” I was like, “I know.”

At one point, I’m beating his chest and stuff and slapping him — not really, I didn’t actually hurt him — but he told me to go harder, and I was like, “I don’t want to cause damage!” But I did cause damage to myself: I ripped my hand open on his zipper. All of a sudden, they were like, “What’s that blood?” I was like, “Method acting, that’s what it is!”

If you could swap bodies with anybody in the world for a day, who would it be?

Oh, God. See, I’ve thought about this ever since reading this script: It would have to be a man. Because I’d want to know what it’s like to pee standing up. I know that makes me sound 14, but I want to know. I have to know. A Shewee does not cut it. Oh, [I’d be] Hugh Jackman.

Why him?

You know why. Come on, you saw Deadpool & Wolverine. I just want to know what it’s like to be a distinguished, older gentleman who is just so “zaddy.” I want to know what that life is like. But I have a feeling that it would come time to work out, and I’d be like, “No. He can go without it for one day. While I’m driving this ship, there will be no working out.”

You’ve been acting for so long. When did you know that this was your career path?

Well, it all started many moons ago in Texas. I was in all the things that you put kids in to try them out, like baseball, swimming, and the first things were ballet and gymnastics. When I would do those things, I either wanted to stare at myself in the mirror, or I pretended to faint. The first time I did it, everyone surrounded me, and then I was like, “Well, this gets me out of doing the splits. I am going to do this more.”

Somewhere along the way, my mom put me into a Broadway class when I was 4 or 5 because of all the fainting, obviously. I had to have an outlet. Otherwise, I was going to be a cult leader, that was just the pipeline! She put me in it, and they were like, “She’s a little young,” then I went up there and sang some Annie song and they were like, “Never mind. She can stay.” It was a bug that I caught, that I didn’t want to get rid of. Then, it became a real thing that I was doing, like commercials, voiceover, and Over the Hedge. It was always like my after-school activity.

I worked my ass off in school. I wanted to get into college, and I wanted to be either a child psychologist or a lawyer, which is very different from acting. Now I just get to play them. I love every heartbreaking, wonderful, intense second of this horribly wonderful career that I decided to get into.

One of your most memorable roles is as Ashley Wheeler on the HBO limited series Sharp Objects opposite Amy Adams. What do you remember most from that experience?

I would do about 80 million more seasons of that show. … I had a really fun time playing Ashley because she’s just such a bitch. I based her on someone in my family, that’s what I’ll say. They were like, “Wow. You’re really good at Southern passive aggression.” And I was like, “I know.”

Did Amy Adams give you any advice?

I want to say this without sounding cheesy as hell. Already she was such an inspiration for me before meeting her, but then after working with her it got cemented. I don’t even know if idol is the right word. She was so nice to me, and she didn’t have to be.

We only had a couple of scenes together, but each scene that I did with her was impactful. Then we got to have dinner together separately, and she was herself. She’s so kind. She’s stunningly beautiful inside and out, and I cannot say enough amazing things about her.

She’s been in this for a long time and she’s had major successes, things that we can only dream about having, and she is so wonderful. You can tell she has stayed true to who she is, and that is inspiring to me, because I want people to enjoy working with me, like I enjoyed working with her.

The advice she gave to me was, she was like, “You remind me of a young version of myself.” I was like, “Shut up.” I didn’t say that to her, but in my head, I was like, “Shut up.”

She goes, “Something that I wish I would’ve known being young and in the industry, don’t ever look to the director, the producers or anyone else for approval of what you’re doing. Know what you want to do, put it all out there on the screen, and if somebody wants you to try something different, they’re going to tell you. But don’t automatically have the scene end and then be like, ‘Am I amazing?’ Because you are. You’re amazing.” I was like, “Thank you, Amy.”

And you worked with Miley Cyrus on an episode of Black Mirror titled “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too.” How has she impacted your career since?

For a lot of it, we were acting with the robot version of her, who was not yet voiced by her. But Miley was great. She was wonderful. I think she is so extraordinarily talented, and I can only imagine what she went through as a child, because being a kid in the industry is scary. It is.

I didn’t reach any sort of level of fame as a kid — and I’m thankful for that. But she was really nice, and she was going through s—. Her house was burning down in Malibu when we were filming, so I just was so feeling for her. She was going through a rough time and she still killed it in that episode. Absolutely killed it. We had so much fun.

How have you stayed grounded while being in the business since you were a kid?

It was always really fun to me, but it was a job, and I took it really seriously and I loved every second of it. I did see people that maybe had let it go to their head or they just weren’t kind anymore. I think somewhere along the way, I realized, I was like, “Who the hell cares what movies I’ve been in? Who the hell cares? I’m not curing cancer, okay?”

This interview has been edited and condensed.