Catching up with the Crain kids from The Haunting of Hill House
I remember watching Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House series on Netflix for the first time in 2018. One of the many things that absolutely thrilled me about it was the fact that the youngest cast members were such great actors. That’s not always the case, but Lulu Wilson, Violet McGraw, McKenna Grace, Julian Hilliard, and Paxton Singleton proved that kid actors were not always over-emotive or cloyingly sweet. Instead, these kids gave heart-wrenching performances that felt real.
Given the level of talent each of them proved in The Haunting of Hill House, it’s no surprise that they have continued their acting careers. And yes, they have all appeared in other horror-related projects as well. Let’s see what they’ve been up to since 2018.
Paxton Singleton (young Steven) – Paxton’s mother says she knew he had unmistakable talent when she saw him audition for a play, but he claimed that he wasn’t really very interested in theater. Instead, he wanted to act in front of the camera, and one of his first big auditions was for Mike Flanagan’s upcoming series for Netflix.
Since Hill House wrapped, Paxton has appeared in multiple tv series, including Supernatural, in which he portrayed a young Dean Winchester. He has also appeared in 2021’s Alice Fades Away.
Lulu Wilson (young Shirley) – Now 21, Lulu has stayed very busy since her time on Hill House. She has been acting since she was three years old, and her first film appearance was in 2014’s Deliver Us from Evil. After that, she appeared in the prequels Ouija: Origin of Evil (which was also a Mike Flanagan project) and Annabelle: Creation. Both of those films were far superior to the originals, and in my opinion, that is largely due to her.
She also appeared in The Fall of the House of Usher series, as well as playing the title role in the Becky trilogy (Becky, The Wrath of Becky and the newly released The Last Temptation of Becky). Bottom line is, Lulu Wilson is a total badass, and I will see any movie she is in!
McKenna Grace (young Theo) – McKenna now does double duty as an actress/singer, and has been acting since she was five. Her genre performances pre-Hill House include The Vampire Diaries, Independence Day: Resurgence, Amityville: The Awakening, and the remake of The Bad Seed.
Since Hill House, she has appeared in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Anabelle Comes Home, The Handmaid’s Tale, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, and Scream 7. For Scream 7’s soundtrack, she also joined metalcore band Ice Nine Kills on the song Twisting the Knife.
The twins from The Haunting of Hill House have appeared in other horror films
Violet McGraw (young Nell) – Violet began acting when she was five years old, and appeared in Ready Player One at the age of seven. She was also only seven during the filming of The Haunting of Hill House.
The following year she played a doomed child named Violet in Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep. She would later appear in Black Widow before taking on the very important role of young Cady in 2022’s M3GAN and the sequel M3GAN 2.0, and she worked for Flanagan again in The Life of Chuck. Her next film will be a horror-comedy called Anything but Ghosts. *Fun fact: Violet’s older sister is Madeleine McGraw, who gave very solid performances as Gwennie in Black Phone and Black Phone 2.
Julian Hilliard (young Luke) – Julian made hearts melt as “Baby Luke” in Hill House. As a fan of the Marvel Universe, he was thrilled to later be cast as Billy Maximoff in WandaVision and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Julian’s other horror performances include Tom Craft in Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, the tragically doomed Jack in Color Out of Space, and as the possessed boy David Glatzel in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. He reprised the role in a cameo performance in 2025’s The Conjuring: Last Rites.
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