Saturday, June 14, 2025
Going from comedy to horror was a big change for former Rockville Centre resident Chris Smith, but the move seems to have paid off in spades.
As one of the leads in “Paranormal Activity 3,” Smith helped the movie break box office records for biggest opening for a movie in October, at $54 million. The movie also had the second biggest horror debut, just behind the movie “Hannibal.”
Smith, who played the character Dennis in “Paranormal Activity 3,” said his experience with his comedy troupe, Harvard Sailing Team, helped prepare him for his role in the movie.
“I’ve done smaller parts in other films, but this is the biggest role of my career so far,” Smith said. “The movie was scripted improv and I do that with the Harvard Sailing Team. I enjoy that way of working because I like doing new things every take.”
Smith said he did not notice much of a difference between performing comedy and horror because of the way the movie was shot and his own experience. “It wasn’t much of a difference. There was a lot of walking around the house, a lot of having to act scared,” Smith said. “At acting school, you do a whole gamut of things and I was able to draw a lot from what I did at NYU.”
Though Smith left Rockville Centre in 2000 to attend New York University to study acting, and then moved to Los Angeles this past January, his ties to the island continued.
During callbacks for “Paranormal Activity 3,” Smith realized that one of the women trying out and receiving the part of Julie, his in-movie girlfriend, was a former aquaintance from Sacred Heart High School, Lauren Bittner.
“It was a fun element throughout because we had a shared history. We were in Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat together at Chaminade,” Smith said. “We definitely had a rapport during the callbacks immediately, and there’s a familiarity being from the same area.”
Smith also noted that he is friends with the directors, Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, from NYU, which helped him through the four-month shooting of the film in California.
Smith’s next role will be with several well known stars, including Kate Hudson, Liev Shreiber and Kiefer Sutherland, in a movie called “The Reluctant Fundamentalist.” Smith said he is especially excited to work with the director, Mira Nair, because he has long been a fan of her work.
Smith returned to Long Island this past weekend to see “Paranormal Activity 3” at the movie theater in the Roosevelt shopping center as well as at the AMC Loews Fantasy theater in Rockville Centre.
