‘I’m a Halloween scare actor who terrifies people for a living – I love helping people escape from their ordinary lives’
Hayleigh has been a horror performer for a decade and loves ensuring guests ‘enjoy every second’ of their Halloween nights.
A Halloween scare actor who has been terrifying guests for a decade said there is more to the job than jumpscares and screams – though “getting reactions from guests is an amazing feeling”.
Hayleigh, 28, who did not wish to share her surname for privacy reasons, has been portraying the character of Molly Mayhem at immersive horror experience The Nightmare Realm since 2018 after starting out in scare acting through smaller roles from 2016.
She describes Molly Mayhem as “definitely a diva”, explaining that her backstory goes that she is the product of an “intimate, passionate evening” between a witch and the devil, lending Molly the “sinisterness of the devil and the cunning of a witch” – though she also acts as a hostess for the night’s terror.
“I always love to say that it’s Molly’s world, and you’ve just entered it,” Hayleigh, who is from southern Ireland, told PA Real Life.
“She’s a chatty character, but I also have moments where I get to scare.
“I had a woman last week, I didn’t even do anything – I just went up and said hello, and she started crying… breaking out sobbing!
“So I turned around and I was like, ‘Doll, I’m just the appetiser. If you can’t handle me, don’t look inside!’”
While Hayleigh has made a successful career out of playing her larger-than-life character at The Nightmare Realm – an immersive horror experience that started out in County Kerry, Ireland in 2009 but has come to London for the first time in 2026 – she said “scare acting was definitely not on my bingo card at all, because horror was never really my go-to”.
She has loved acting and drama since she was a child, “constantly making our own little shows in our bedroom” with her twin brother and starting stage school at the age of four, and had her first foray into scare acting at 18 when she was cast as a “friendly girl in a hallway” at The Nightmare Realm in Dublin in 2016.
The following year, she portrayed one of the twins from The Shining, before being offered the role of Molly Mayhem in 2018.
“I feel like from the moment I stepped into the costume all those years ago, I just transformed into the character, and it was so much fun,” Hayleigh said.
“In a way, I grew with Molly as the years went on.
“She always has that feistiness about her, but I feel like as the years have gone on, rather than intentionally scaring customers silly, Molly Mayhem is a character that wants guests to feel safe despite the environment.”
Hayleigh said that nowadays, Molly’s role has become something of a “guardian angel” for guests – helping them to navigate the experience’s horrifying twists and turns and immersing them in the world so they can get the most out of the experience.
“Every actor is given an identity to become that character, and they grow themselves in the character as the nights go on, and as you get customer interactions,” she explained.
“I think with Molly, she has so much history with the fan base. Molly’s grown attached to the customers of Ireland, and it’s insane – I’m still getting messages on the Molly Instagram going: ‘Miss you, queen’; ‘I’m coming over, doll, see you soon’. It’s insane, the impact.
“When you truly believe the character and you know your character inside out, it makes the customers want to engage more – though you need to be quick with improv, you need to know your backstory inside and out, because customers will throw random things at you, so you need to be quick on the spot!”
However, Hayleigh’s job is not all spooks and scares. By night, she is running around The Nightmare Realm as Molly Mayhem, but by day she’s at the office from nine in the morning handling emails and other admin for the experience.
“And then all of a sudden, it’s half four, and it’s like: ‘Oh my God, now it’s time to get ready, time to get into costume and transform’,” she said.
Hayleigh said The Nightmare Realm has “an incredible team” of make-up artists and costume designers who help her get ready for the night, and it takes just 15 minutes for them to create Molly’s make-up look, including prosthetics, from scratch each evening.
Molly Mayhem’s antics start before guests have even entered the gates of the event, as she and “the whole entire cast of Halloween Town” – comprising around 15 actors – come out and begin “taunting you before you even step foot inside”.
“It’s a lovely little glimpse of what guests are to expect before their journey even begins,” Hayleigh said.
“Then throughout the night I act as team leader. I’m ensuring that everyone is doing their job, that they’re having their great interactions with guests, and then entertain guests myself as well.”
“If you asked me when I was 18, I would have turned around and said it’s all about the scare – I want them to cry, I want to make them uncomfortable, I want them to be horrified,” she said.
“But the older I get, and the more I build the character at the Realm, the more I realise it’s not all about the scares. It is about people enjoying themselves.
“I love having chats with customers because you just really get a glimpse of who they are, and guests themselves love those one-on-one moments…
“Because why do customers come in? It’s because they want to escape from their ordinary lives.
“I want to make sure they enjoy every second of it, and it’s a memory that they’ll never forget.”
For more information about The Nightmare Realm, visit thenightmarerealm.com.