Mia Farrow: Returns to horror

Do you know who your children are? In the upcoming thriller remake of "THE OMEN," Robert and Katherine Thorn (played by Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles) are about to find out the unspeakable terror about their son Damien.

In the movie, Mia Farrow plays Mrs. Baylock, the most protective and evil nanny to a seemingly innocent child prophesied to be the Devil's son. Taken in as their own, Katherine and Robert suspects Damien is no ordinary child, as the long-prophesized Anti-Christ - certain events all seeming to revolve around Damien are deeply disturbing. Yet, Mrs. Baylock is preordained to protect the child no matter what.

The casting of Mrs. Baylock, Damien's second nanny, ties "THE OMEN" to Mia Farrow's return to the big screen, who will forever be remembered by movie fans as the unwitting mother of the devil's spawn in the classic Roman Polanski chiller "Rosemary's Baby," in the role that launched her film career.

Farrow's Mrs. Baylock is introduced as a kindly, soft-spoken woman, a career nanny who quickly wins over Katherine and Robert with her gentle demeanor, impeccable credentials, and professed love for children. To the parents' initial concern and mounting terror, Mrs. Baylock is revealed as Damien's protector and facilitator - an apostate from hell who will die before she allows harm to come to Damien.

Farrow embraced the idea of playing, for the first time on screen, a truly evil character. "But I thought, why me," she remembers.

She continues, "In the first 'Omen,' Mrs. Baylock [played by Billie Whitelaw] was from the beginning, very, very scary. I loved being scared by her. I wondered how I could recapture that kind of instant menace. But John Moore said he wanted to take a different approach to the character. 'I'm going to keep the mystery,' John told me. 'Mrs. Baylock has a secret and I'm not going to show her hand until later on in the story.'"

Mia Farrow, found herself in the thick of the action. For a key scene near the story's end, set late at night in a rainstorm, she had to, rather viciously, take a croquet mallet to the windshield of a car driven by Schreiber. "I think most actors will tell you the physical stuff is fun," says Farrow. "It's more like game playing."

The daughter of director John Farrow and actress Maureen O'Sullivan, Farrow made her stage debut in 1963 in an off-Broadway production of "The Importance of Being Earnest." Farrow enjoyed a two-year stint on the popular soap opera "Peyton Place." Her work on the series caught the attention of audiences around the world. Farrow received glowing reviews for her work in Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby," in which she starred with John Cassavetes.

With 1982's "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy," Farrow became Woody Allen's muse and made more than 30 films together. Their collaborations include "Hannah and Her Sisters," "Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Husbands and Wives," "Shadows and Fog," and "Alice"; for the latter, Farrow was honored with an NBR Award for Best Actress.

Rated R13 by the local censors board, "THE OMEN" opens June 6 in theaters from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.