Return To Silent Hill's Ambiguous Ending & Maria's Fate Broken Down By Star

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Hannah Emily Anderson's Maria looking intriguingly at James in Return to Silent Hill

Published Jan 27, 2026, 8:30 PM EST

Grant Hermanns is a TV News Editor, Interview Host and Reviewer for ScreenRant, having joined the team in early 2021. He got his start in the industry with Moviepilot, followed by working at ComingSoon.net. When not indulging in his love of film/TV, Grant is making his way through his gaming backlog and exploring the world of Dungeons & Dragons with friends.

Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for Return to Silent Hill!Co-writer/director Christophe Gans made one small tweak from the iconic source material for Return to Silent Hill's ending, and star Hannah Emily Anderson is weighing in with her thoughts on it. The latest installment in the video game-based movie franchise is an adaptation of 2001's Silent Hill 2, centering on Jeremy Irvine's James Sunderland as he travels to the titular town after receiving a letter from his dead wife calling him to their special place.

Along the way, James meets Maria, a woman who looks almost identical to his dead wife, Mary, though displays a more sexually forward and abrasive personality. The two find themselves relying on each other for survival as Return to Silent Hill brings to life many of the iconic monsters from the games, including the towering Pyramid Head and the bizarre-moving nurses.

This all culminates in the movie's final act, in which James has come to realize Maria is a mental doppelgänger of Mary that he's created out of guilt for killing his late wife in an attempt to mercifully put her out of her misery. Accepting he no longer needs her, Maria is brutally killed by Pyramid Head, who is also revealed to be an extension of James, while confronting and apologizing to the real Mary.

Ahead of the movie's release, ScreenRant's Grant Hermanns interviewed Hannah Emily Anderson to discuss Return to Silent Hill. In looking at Maria's fate, the star recalled having "no idea what I was in for" with how much would be involved in filming the sequence. Explaining that it took place "over two days," Anderson was "put in this harness and strung up," ultimately spending "most of the day pretty much upside down, screaming my little heart out":

Hannah Emily Anderson: It was really challenging. It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I'd never really contorted my body in that way, so to be hanging like that and screaming is a really difficult thing, and it's kind of nauseating. So I was really proud of that in the end. I wouldn't say it was fun, but it was interesting.

Despite how challenging it was, Anderson said she's "glad I had that experience" of getting to "try new things and do these stunts," while still ensuring to praise the dedicated stunt performers as being "amazing." Recalling that the team "treated me so well," she still found herself having "felt so bad for Maria" and saying it was "hard to say goodbye" to the character, even though "it had to happen."

In his final interaction with Mary, as well as one just prior to Maria's death, James is faced with a moth-like version of his late wife, which Anderson laughed as she confirmed "It was me!" under prosthetics. Explaining that one of her biggest career goals was "to physically transform" for a role, the Return to Silent Hill star further explained that she is "really fascinated by creature work," joking as she said she wanted someone to "make me into a zombie."

Citing the moth Mary appearance as "the next best thing," Anderson explained that the prosthetics "took five or six hours" to put on and then "an hour to take them off," while praising the prosthetics team as being "incredible." It also provided her with a unique opportunity in the movie's final scene between the monstrous Mary and James, in which she had to confront a few different personal fears to pull it off:

Hannah Emily Anderson: I'm strapped to this bed, and I'm in the Moth Mary costume. I'm a little bit claustrophobic, and I'm afraid of heights, and I'm afraid of fire, and all of those things were happening at the same time. And there was a moment where I was just like, "How did I get here? Can I just do a Christmas movie?" [Laughs] But it was an amazing experience and I would love to do that again. I just need Guillermo del Toro to call me.

With his apology having reverted Mary's body to her original form, Return to Silent Hill offers a somewhat ambiguous ending as James drives the pair into Toluca Lake in an apparent suicide, only to be returned to when he first met Mary and drives them away from town rather than into it, hinting at either a time loop situation or some kind of hallucination from a dying James.

When asked her interpretation of the ending, Anderson describes herself as "a deep romantic at heart," and believes that "James gets a second chance" at life in the ending after his harrowing ordeal. Feeling it would be "too heartbreaking" for him to have confronted the trauma of his past through Silent Hill's terrifying landscape, the star concluded that "I think he gets another go around."

One Return To Silent Hill Monster Gave Anderson "Nightmares For Days"

ScreenRant: Hannah, I'm a big fan of the Silent Hill franchise. I'm still trying to process everything that Christophe has done with the Silent Hill 2 game in this film, in a good way. Before coming into this film, how familiar were you with this franchise or did you do a deep dive after you were approached?

Hannah Emily Anderson: I saw the first Silent Hill that Christophe directed in theaters when I was 15 years old, and those images are just burned into my brain. I wasn't familiar with the game, honestly, so when I got the audition, I watched some gameplay just to get a sense of the world, and get some backstory on Mary. It was honestly just a bit too intense for me. I had to stop doing that. [Laughs] It was really cool though, but I'm not a gamer myself. I'm terrible at gaming. I hold a controller like this, so I can't use my thumbs for some reason. So yeah, I had known of the world, but not the game so much.

ScreenRant: So on that note then, what it's like to go from being too scared of a world to then being in the middle of that world when shooting a film like this.

Hannah Emily Anderson: It was all quite overwhelming. The amazing thing about it is that the world was really filled out for us on set. The set design was incredible, a lot of the effects were practical. All the monsters were there in person. These amazing dancers playing these incredible monsters. So, that part of it was amazing, because you often have to use your imagination a lot as an actor. And we still did, but to have everything around us in real time was really incredible, and at times terrifying, especially being chased by the nurses. That was nightmares for days. They're incredible. They're my favorite monster for sure.

ScreenRant: I'd also love to hear what your first reaction was when you saw Pyramid Head in person, because that's the other big one, alongside the nurses, that is just so iconic to see.

Hannah Emily Anderson: The funny thing is that Robert [Strange], who plays Pyramid Head, is the most gentle, sweet, kind man, and has a sweet, gentle voice. And then, to see his Pyramid Head was alarming. Just as scary as the nurses, you really kind of want to keep your distance on set. He was very looming over all of us, but then this sweet voice would come out of the mask, and it made me feel a little bit calmer.

ScreenRant: So now diving right into Mary and Maria, it's so fascinating with this story in particular, how an actor like yourself gets to play two very different sides of essentially the same coin. What was it like for you finding an anchor for both Mary's persona, as well as Maria's persona, when you were switching back and forth?

Hannah Emily Anderson: Yeah. Mary, like you said, was really the anchor for me. When I found out I'd be playing multiple parts — because I only auditioned for Mary — my mind was really blown. So, I started with Mary as a jumping off point. Maria is kind of the polar opposite in a way, but the interesting thing is that all of these characters that I play are fractured versions of Mary. So, it was really just sort of taking the heart of Mary and figuring out how it would be different in Maria's body. Maria uses her sexuality and sensuality to get what she wants, and that's how Mary's trauma is manifested in Maria. So it was really, really fun and challenging to get to play all these worlds, all these versions of one person.

ScreenRant: I know you just said you were really rooted and anchored in Mary, but did you have a mental trick for yourself when you were playing Maria to sort of remind yourself this is still a fractured version of Mary?

Hannah Emily Anderson: Well, the hair and makeup and costume does a lot of that work for me. [Chuckles] I'm walking into a room with a giant push-up bra, and a tiny mini skirt, and it's almost the anime version of Mary. So I had that, and then I had playlists for each character. If I had a second in between scenes, I could just throw in some music, and I did actually have some Christina Aguilera on that playlist, because I know Maria's costume had some inspiration from her. So, that kind of helped me get into the sort of more sensual vibe of Maria. I'd never done that before, but I had heard that Tatiana Maslany, from Orphan Black, had done that. I'm not sure if that's true or not, so I wanted to unleash my inner Tatiana Maslany. [Chuckles]

ScreenRant: I'd also love to hear what it was like finding those two very different dynamics with Jeremy since, again, Maria is coming at him in a very different way and also at a very different time in his life versus Mary, where she is this sort of beacon of light for James for so much of those flashbacks.

Hannah Emily Anderson: It was really fun. It's a completely different perspective. Maria's a lot more headstrong and blunt kind of says it as it is. So it was, I would say, more liberating to play her, because she could poke and prod at James, and it was really fun in that way. Whereas Mary is coming from a more heartfelt, kind of open — not naive, but just her worldview is entirely different. So yeah, it was fun. And Jeremy really helped you. Jeremy was an amazing scene partner, and just gave 100,000% to every single scene, and he just naturally reacted differently off of each character.

Return to Silent Hill is now in theaters!