‘Heretic’ Star Sophie Thatcher Covers ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’

Bob Dylan‘s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” has been covered by everyone from Avril Lavigne to the Grateful Dead — and, most famously, by Guns N’ Roses, who made it a hit in the early Nineties. Now, actress-singer Sophie Thatcher is tackling the classic for her upcoming horror film Heretic.

The cover sounds like a lo-fi lullaby, with Thatcher delicately laying down her vocals against slide guitar. “The cover version feels very melancholic and feminine, and more dreamy and atmospheric, whereas [Dylan’s] is far more straightforward,” she tells Rolling Stone. “There’s so many parallels to the movie that it was almost an obvious choice.”

Thatcher is zooming from her home in Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles, where she lives with her boyfriend, cat, and dog. “It’s really gorgeous around here, an artist’s dream,” she says. “But it’s a bit isolating, and I can’t drive. That’s not ideal, but it forces me to stay here and do stuff.”

Thatcher was in Vancouver wrapping up Yellowjackets Season Three when Heretic directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods emailed her with the idea of the Dylan cover. “I knew the song, obviously,” she says. “I’d never actually heard the Guns N’ Roses version, which is funny, because when people would bring it up to me I was like, ‘No, what do you mean? It’s Bob Dylan.’ So that was good that I didn’t know that. No shade, but it’s just very different. And I think hearing the Dylan version, I only knew the very soulful approach to it, rather than rock.”

In Heretic, Thatcher and Chloe East play two missionaries who knock on the door of an Englishman (Hugh Grant) in hopes of converting him. Spoiler alert: Things do not go as planned. Thatcher’s rendition of the 1973 hit appears at the end of the horror film. “There’s a butterfly, it’s very ambiguous,” she says. “We were trying to replicate that somber, bittersweet feeling. As soon as I heard it with the slide guitar, [I realized] it sounds exactly like Mazzy Star, in a great way.”

She continues: “It works with the movie because Hugh Grant goes on a spiel about religion and Christianity, [and how] they’re all iterations of each other. And the same goes with music. He goes on this tangent about Radiohead. ‘Creep’ comes from the Hollies’ ‘The Air That I Breathe.’ They were sued. And then Lana Del Rey’s ‘Get Free’ copies ‘Creep.’ So it’s this ongoing discussion where there are only so many chord progressions. And within this cover, it was essentially ‘Fade into You’ but ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.’ It was clever, and it works well at the end of the movie to put a little ribbon on it.”

The “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” cover arrives less than two months before Christmas, when James Mangold’s highly-anticipated Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown arrives in theaters. “I actually auditioned for that a long time ago,” she says of the Timothée Chalamet film. “He’s amazing. It’ll be interesting to see if he introduces a lot of younger audiences to Dylan.”

Thatcher, who released her debut EP, Pivot & Scrape, last month, says music was her first love, well before acting. She grew up with music, singing in choir while her mom was a pianist at their Mormon church. “My mom was really into New Wave,” she explains. “A lot of the Smiths, New Order, Joy Division. The first band I was obsessed with was Radiohead, and then there’s Elliott Smith. When I was very young — I was 10 or 11 — I would just listen to OK Computer every day. That was the first album that actually meant something to me when I was old enough to form my own opinion.”

Thatcher’s favorite albums of the year include Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee, MJ Lenderman’s Manning Fireworks, and Jessica Pratt’s Here in the Pitch. “It’s been a really good year, and I feel like people are doing their own thing now,” she says. “Whereas the past couple years it’s like indie sleaze resurgence, all these resurgences that are disingenuous. But now I feel like there’s a genuine feeling in music that I haven’t felt in a long time.”

As for Yellowjackets Season Three, Thatcher isn’t giving any spoilers, but things are bound to unravel in both the past and present, as the cabin burns down in the wilderness and the older version of Thatcher’s character Natalie (played by Juliette Lewis) dies.

“I don’t know if this is setting the bar too high or if I’m allowed to say this, but people should be expecting answers,” she says. “It’s coming back to where the pilot was, which I think is perfect timing for that. It’s just becoming more and more unhinged, and Natalie goes through more than anything. And I said this last season, but I’ll keep saying it: Now you see what has made Natalie so messed up. There’s a bit more of that connection between me and Juliette now, even though now she’s gone. It was a fun season, but it was really fucking draining.”

So how does one manage an acting and music career simultaneously? “Music is so easy for me, which is why I feel so privileged and almost spoiled in a way,” Thatcher says. “But acting is its own fucking beast. So how do I balance it? I don’t know yet!”