This ‘Haunting of Bly Manor’ IRL Couple Named Their Daughter After a ‘Hill House’ Character
Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor is one big gothic love story, but what fans might not know is there’s a real love story going on behind the scenes of the show.
Actress Kate Siegel, who played Viola Willoughby/the Lady in the Lake in The Haunting of Bly Manor and adult Theo in The Haunting of Hill House, is married to show creator/director Mike Flanagan.
What are Kate Siegel and Mike Flanagan’s kids’ names?
The two met while filming Flanagan’s 2013 horror flick Oculus, which Siegel acted in. They got married in February 2016, and have collaborated on just about every horror project Flanagan has directed ever since. (They co-wrote Netflix’s Hush, which also starred Siegel and was directed by Flanagan, and their next work will be Netflix’s Midnight Mass.)
The couple shares two children—Cody Paul Flanagan, 4, and Theodora Isabelle Irene Flanagan, 22 months. And if the name Theodora sounds familiar, it should.
Theodora is named after her mother’s character in The Haunting of Hill House. Siegel played the child psychologist Theodora, the middle child of the Crain family who has psychic abilities. She goes by Theo for short. And apparently, so does Siegel’s daughter.The toddler was born on Dec. 3, 2018, just two months after The Haunting of Hill House came out on Netflix. Clearly, this name carries a significant meaning for the couple.
Why did Kate Siegel and Mike Flanagan name their daughter Theodora?
The toddler was born on Dec. 3, 2018, just two months after The Haunting of Hill House came out on Netflix. Flanagan excitedly announced the arrival of his and Siegel’s daughter on Twitter.
“Today, Kate and I welcomed our daughter, Theodora Isabelle Irene Flanagan, into the world,” he wrote. “Mom and baby are both fantastic, tired, and so, so happy.”
And their daughter has a stronger connection to Hill House than just her name. In an interview with SyFy published Oct. 25, 2018, Siegel revealed she found out she was pregnant with her daughter while filming a rather intense episode of the Netflix horror series.
Kate Siegel found out she was pregnant with her daughter while filming ‘The Haunting of Hill House’
“Hilariously, I found out that I was pregnant while we were filming episode six,” Siegel told the outlet. “That long one-take episode where I have to fall down.”
The 38-year-old actress then revealed they had already been rehearsing the fall when she realized she was pregnant. She said:
I was working out with our stunt coordinator, and we were doing it over and over and over again. And there had been some interesting math with my cycle, so I was like, ‘You know what? I’m just going to take a test to make sure.’ And I told Mike that night, because we were going to be shooting the episode the next day, and the terror in his face was like nothing I had ever seen! He was like, ‘I’ve just been throwing my pregnant wife on the ground all day!’
Let’s also point some attention at Theodora’s first middle name, Isabelle. Fans of The Haunting of Bly Manor will remember that Siegel’s character, Viola, had a beloved daughter. When Viola died, all her ghost thought about was her child. That daughter’s name? Isabelle.
And that’s what we call continuity, folks.
