Nasty is a working title for the new Warner Bros. movie written by Isabella Jarosz and directed by Mary Bronstein, which follows a gymnast (Jenna Ortega of Wednesday and 2022’s Scream) who is hoping for a spot on the Olympic team but is challenged by her manipulative coach (Rose Byrne, who Bronstein directed to an Academy Award nomination in 2025’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You). The movie is expected to kick off production in New Orleans in November.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Jenna Ortega and Rose Byrne have been joined by Justin Long. Long will play Byrne’s character’s brother and co-coach. While he at first seems more approachable than Byrne’s character, he will be revealed to have a dark side.
Long is no stranger to the dark side, having made a name for himself in horror movies. While he has held roles in many genres, notably appearing in the action sequel Live Free or Die Hard and playing the “Mac” character in a series of popular Apple commercials opposite John Hodgman as “PC,” horror has been a major throughline for his career. His status as a scream king was cemented when he played a major role in Zach Cregger’s 2022 hit Barbarian, following that with an appearance in the director’s Oscar-winning 2025 follow-up Weapons.
Below, see a breakdown of every horror movie starring Justin Long (which doesn’t include his television appearances in horror series such as Creepshow and Goosebumps):
With this addition, the three biggest roles in Nasty have so far gone to actors with experience in the horror genre. While Long might be considered a scream king, Jenna Ortega is a scream queen in her own right. In addition to starring in Netflix’s Addams Family reimagining Wednesday, she has appeared in a number of major horror movies, including Death of a Unicorn, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Studio 666, X, 2022’s Scream, Scream VI, The Babysitter: Killer Queen, and Insidious: Chapter 2 (in which she appeared opposite Rose Byrne).
While Byrne’s horror roster is slightly smaller than Ortega’s and Long’s, she appeared in four out of the six Insidious movies in addition to playing a major role in the 28 Days Later sequel 28 Weeks Later.
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While Nasty is not being billed as a horror movie, the fact that so many horror veterans have been assembled does indicate that Mary Bronstein will most likely be using a similar tone to If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
While that movie was technically a psychological dramedy (following Byrne as a stressed mother going through a singularly awful period in her life), it presented its story in such a harrowing, unflinching way that many critics compared it to a horror movie (including Alistair Harkness of The Scotsman, Margot Harrison of Seven Days, Kathy Fennessy of Seattle Film Blog, and Dan Scully of ScullyVision).
If Nasty captures that same tone and garners similar attention from critics and the establishment, it could potentially earn Rose Byrne her second Oscar nomination and Jenna Ortega her first.
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