In An Enemy of the People, Scream Queen Victoria Pedretti Confronts the Horrors of Humanity

With starring roles in the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor and You, Victoria Pedretti has spent a remarkable amount of time shrouded in darkness, dealing with ghosts, ghouls and harrowing situations. In 2021, she won the award for Best Frightened Performance at the MTV Movie & TV Awards. A headline from that year read, "You Star Victoria Pedretti Gives Good Despair."

Now, the scream queen of the screen is making her Broadway debut. In Amy Herzog's new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, Pedretti plays Petra, the confident daughter of the righteous whistleblower Thomas Stockmann, played by Succession’s Jeremy Strong. Petra stands by her father as he is persecuted for his truth-telling, including by his mayor brother, played by The Sopranos’ Michael Imperioli.

In the new role, Pedretti has found herself confronting yet more disturbing forces—such as institutional corruption, public opinion and the limits of democracy.

But she’s also enjoying a part in a story built around more human-scale relationships and situations. “A lot of the stuff I've done has been very action-driven,” she said. “The language in this show is just so beautiful and perfect. Every night I feel like I'm trying to dig deeper into just letting the language be the star.” That doesn’t mean Pedretti is asking any less of herself as a performer, however. “I still have the same expectations for myself. I always try to dig deep.”

She’d always hoped to wind up working on stage. “I mean, if I could be primarily doing theater for the rest of my life, that's what I'd always kind of hoped for.”

Pedretti grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, immersed in the performing arts. Her father, a college theater professor and director, was also artistic director of Movement Theatre International. Her mother danced, choreographed and taught dance at Temple University and in her own studio in Philadelphia. “I had the opportunity to see a lot of different forms of theater, whether that be dance, mime, puppetry, one-person shows, music,” she said. “All kinds of things that really captivated me.”

A VHS box set of Rodgers and Hammerstein movie musicals—a gift from her parents—was formative, as was her discovery of the Broadway musical Hair and her first exposure to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. “I think I drew inspiration and excitement from all of it.”

If anything, failing to land a part in her school production of Into the Woods—she was turned down for being “too confident”—deepened her desire to pursue a career in acting. Worse was being summarily told by her teachers, while studying for her BFA in Acting at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, that maybe she should pursue directing instead. “It felt like somebody telling me that I shouldn’t act,” she said. “But as much as that felt crushing at that time, truth is, they were not wrong. I was showing curiosity and insight, and thinking in a way like a director—because directing is also something that I should be doing.” She added, “Rejection really builds character. I'm not mad about it."

After college, Pedretti moved to New York with, as she has said, “a suitcase and a dream.” When she booked the role of the tormented Nell Vance in The Haunting of Hill House, she didn’t have a single professional credit on her resume or a current headshot. And yet, as show creator Mike Flanagan told Business Insider, “A minute into her self-tape, I knew she was Nell. And that she was a star.”

If Pedretti brought the hauntedness to The Haunting of Hill House and its follow-up The Haunting of Bly Manor, in An Enemy of the People it’s her character’s strength that resonates with the actress. “She's managing a job [as a schoolteacher] and household all on her own, as well as carrying these exciting new political beliefs. I think it's pretty relatable to a modern woman.”

Admirers of Pedretti's self-described “resting existential-crisis face”—her knack for wordlessly conveying intense inner turmoil—will not be disappointed, though, as the events of the play chip away at Petra’s faith in humanity.

During the rehearsal process, Pedretti marveled at the collaboration between adapter Amy Herzog and director Sam Gold (“Every change in the script has just made the story clearer and deeper, which is a really exciting thing to watch”). And, though she is wary of divulging too much about the show, Pedretti does promise that her co-stars are at the top of their game. “Jeremy and Michael are playing these incredible characters so beautifully,” she said. “It's really beautiful to watch people so dedicated and passionate. I don't even think they understand how much I admire them because I don't want to make them uncomfortable; I don't want to just be around them with my jaw dropped.”

She added, “I think we're in a show that's really saying something. I just hope it sparks respectful conversation among people. And we have free shots.”