Longlegs Star Kiernan Shipka Reacts to Seeing Nicolas Cage's 'Fearless' Performance: 'Obsessed' (Exclusive)

Kiernan Shipka is “obsessed” with Longlegs costar Nicolas Cage.

At the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday, Sept. 6, Shipka, 24, told PEOPLE that she was “in awe” of Cage’s transformation into the thriller’s titular character. “I love Longlegs — I mean, not really,” quipped the actress of the Satanic serial killer. 

“I went to the theater and saw it and was so obsessed with it,” she added. “And then to be in it, it is crazy.”

Cage, 60, did not share scenes with Shipka in the Osgood Perkins-directed hit. The Mad Men actress told PEOPLE she “didn’t even see him” during her time filming as Carrie Anne Camera, one of Longlegs’ targets interviewed by Maika Monroe’s FBI agent Lee Harker.

The Oscar winner, she said, is “fearless as all hell and it's an amazing performance.”

Perkins, 50, first worked with Shipka in his 2015 horror movie The Blackcoat's Daughter. “When he sent me Longlegs, I was like, ‘I will do anything for you, obviously I'm there in a heartbeat,’” she told PEOPLE. “And to see it take off the way that it has... I'm so happy for him and Maika.”

Longlegs, she continued, is “such a beautiful movie so to even be a small part of it feels really surreal.”

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Of course, the hit thriller is only one of Shipka’s buzzy projects to arrive this year. Costarring in Twisters with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell, she said, “I made some of my best friends on that movie and it was an amazing experience.” It’s been “surreal,” she added, “to see both of those things translate and to have people watch them and dig it.”

And in addition to the upcoming Red One (in theaters Nov. 15), she stars alongside Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl, which premiered in Toronto on Sept. 6. “I'd always admired her from afar,” Shipka said of Anderson, 57. “Getting to know her took everything to a whole new level because she is truly such a genuine, kind, beautiful person, just a pure soul of a human.”

The former Baywatch star is “so unbelievably good” in the Gia Coppola-directed indie, per Shipka. “Every time that she did a scene — I'm in awe of her. She's amazing.”

Longlegs, which also costars Blair Underwood, Michelle Choi-Lee and Alicia Witt, is in theaters now and available digitally on demand. The Last Showgirl does not yet have a distributor or release date. 

The Toronto International Film Festival runs through Sept. 15.