Speaker 1: It's in the news today, but it was actually on
Speaker 1: TV Reload, the podcast last week Their Life Yeaday, guys,
Speaker 1: welcome back to TV Reload. My name is Benjamin Norris
Speaker 1: and this year I've been unpacking some of the latest
Speaker 1: releases with my co host Brosevard, and we have been
Speaker 1: having a lot of fun doing this. But today I
Speaker 1: have a very special episode because I reached out to
Speaker 1: Adrian Chiarella, the writer and director of Leviticus. The film
Speaker 1: has become one of this year's most talked about Australian
Speaker 1: horror releases, premiering in sun Dance, where it sparked a
Speaker 1: bidding war, so to speak, before being picked up by Neon,
Speaker 1: the studio behind some of the most acclaimed independent films
Speaker 1: in the world. But Leviticus is much more than a
Speaker 1: horror film. It's a deeply personal coming of age story
Speaker 1: that explores identity, faith, fear, and the lasting impact of
Speaker 1: conversion practices wrapped inside an intensive, supernatural thriller. Sounds like
Speaker 1: a lot because it is, but it is amazing. It's emotional,
Speaker 1: it's quite confronting and beautifully crafted, and audiences around the
Speaker 1: world have connected with its powerful messages. In this conversation,
Speaker 1: Adrian opens up about his research behind preparing for this film,
Speaker 1: what it was like premiering at sun Dance, working with
Speaker 1: Joe Byrd, Mia, Wissi Kolska and the incredible cast, the
Speaker 1: symbolism behind the film's terrifying monster, and why Australian horror
Speaker 1: is enjoying one of its strongest.
Speaker 2: Creative periods in decades.
Speaker 1: This is one of those conversations that reminds you just
Speaker 1: how powerful cinema can be. So, guys, here is our
Speaker 1: chat with the writer and director of Leviticus. It's Adrian Chiarella. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: my friend, on this response to Leviticus. Like, I have
Speaker 1: been talking about a lot of horror films this year,
Speaker 1: and I feel like a lot of us are talking
Speaker 1: about tighter budgets and better storylines, and you're right at
Speaker 1: the forefront of people talking very positively about your film.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been a real It's been really nice to
Speaker 4: see people's reactions to the films and people reacting very
Speaker 4: personally to it as well. I think even though it's
Speaker 4: a kind of elevated, fanciful concept with this supernatural monster,
Speaker 4: that I think people will kind of get what the
Speaker 4: metaphor is, and I think people are having quite a
Speaker 4: personal connection to it, which is I mean, you can't
Speaker 4: ask for more as a filmmaker, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I mean it must feel like a bit
Speaker 1: of a journey as well, coming from Sundance. You know,
Speaker 1: you turn up at Sundance, which always seems like a
Speaker 1: dream for filmmakers, and then you get picked up by Neon.
Speaker 1: What was that whole Sundance experience like for you?
Speaker 3: It was just quite surreal, the whole thing.
Speaker 4: We had finished the film, like literally just days before
Speaker 4: we got on the plane, so no one had said
Speaker 4: I think I think the only person who saw it
Speaker 4: I think our post production supervisor said she showed her partner,
Speaker 4: and her partner was very.
Speaker 3: Moved by, like she secretly showed her.
Speaker 4: But no one else had seen it, and so I
Speaker 4: didn't really have a sense of like is this going
Speaker 4: to work or not? And so we screened it at
Speaker 4: midnight on the Friday, which is supposed to be like
Speaker 4: the big that's like that was a very good slot apparently. Yeah,
Speaker 4: when we got there, I remember I didn't really know,
Speaker 4: like I didn't know who the who the heads of
Speaker 4: the distributors are. I don't know how any of the
Speaker 4: people are over there, but my producer certainly did.
Speaker 3: And as soon as we got into this.
Speaker 4: Pact the act, she was like, everybody is here, like
Speaker 4: that person there's from age twenty four and there from
Speaker 4: ing on, and that person's from focus and so, you know,
Speaker 4: it was real sort of pressure. But I think as
Speaker 4: soon as it started, there's I mean, it's not really
Speaker 4: a spoiler, there's sort of like an opening kind of
Speaker 4: death scene, a sort of traditional horror cold open, and
Speaker 4: I could feel people and hear people reacting to that,
Speaker 4: and I thought, okay, okay, well we're going to be
Speaker 4: all right through this. I think, you know, American audiences,
Speaker 4: Sundance audiences in particular, they're very enthusiastic about genre films.
Speaker 3: So it was quite a nice way to kick things off.
Speaker 4: And then the rest of the festival was just this
Speaker 4: crazy blur of a circus of meeting with people and
Speaker 4: going into sort of like crowded parties, and yeah, it
Speaker 4: was it was crazy.
Speaker 5: Can we say bidding war? We'll say bidding war. You
Speaker 5: don't have to confirm more Ton, but we'll just get
Speaker 5: it out there. Hey what's going to happen?
Speaker 6: And I can't talk.
Speaker 4: About that, but I can tell you that, like be
Speaker 4: On people were very What surprised me is how much
Speaker 4: they connected with the film. Like I just thought they'd
Speaker 4: be business people who were just wanted to talk about numbers,
Speaker 4: but they really, I don't know, They've got all this
Speaker 4: stuff at the kind of like the queer history and
Speaker 4: culture that we were pointing to in little moments in
Speaker 4: the film and stuff, which is very cool.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Do you think the response from Sun Dance and then
Speaker 5: Neon specifically, does it just reinforce I guess, your creativity
Speaker 5: and what you want to make or is it just
Speaker 5: saying this is what audiences want anyway, and they're taking
Speaker 5: your art and saying, let's shell to the world because
Speaker 5: the world's ready.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean it was quite encouraging, I think because it
Speaker 4: is a bit of a kooky idea and so for
Speaker 4: the whole the whole way through the process, I.
Speaker 3: Was like, is this even gonna work? So you keep that.
Speaker 4: Initial like that initial audience reaction from I think it's
Speaker 4: about three or f one hundred people they have in
Speaker 4: that theater, But just to get that initial reaction and
Speaker 4: then to have people actually, you know, be willing to
Speaker 4: put their money with their mouth this for it as well,
Speaker 4: you kind of go, okay, okay, this is actually something.
Speaker 4: It's actually a film that people will perhaps go to
Speaker 4: a movie theater and pay money to see, which is
Speaker 4: really cool. Like I think when you make independent films,
Speaker 4: you just don't know. You don't know if you're going
Speaker 4: to put all of his time and all of these
Speaker 4: years into something and then have it just sort of
Speaker 4: you know, pc by it seemed by maybe a few
Speaker 4: hundred people and then that's it. So yeah, it was.
Speaker 4: It was very very encouraging. It's still at the time,
Speaker 4: I still was sort of waiting. I was waiting for
Speaker 4: sort of I don't know, some reality to kick in.
Speaker 4: People are going to watch it a second time and go,
Speaker 4: oh no, it actually doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Adrian, I've been a good story for you.
Speaker 1: I was at the nov at like an eight thirty
Speaker 1: in the morning screening, and they were doing a screening
Speaker 1: in the cinema next door to Power Ballad. And I
Speaker 1: had a critic in the cinema and the wrong cinema.
Speaker 1: So I'm just going to tell you that the look
Speaker 1: on his face suggested he was turning up for Power
Speaker 1: Ballad and then he got the Viticars.
Speaker 2: He stayed and watched it and loved it.
Speaker 1: So look, you know, great, it permeates very quickly, like, yes,
Speaker 1: it is a horror and you do have that cold opening,
Speaker 1: but straight away you're like, this is more than standard horror,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious. I mean, this film is a coming
Speaker 1: of age story, it's a horror film. And then you
Speaker 1: are also probably educating people on the term leviticus. How
Speaker 1: have you been describing this film to people though?
Speaker 4: I mean, I like to describe it as a coming
Speaker 4: of age love story, Like that's what it is for me,
Speaker 4: first and foremost.
Speaker 3: It's always been that.
Speaker 4: And I sort of tapped into horror as a genre
Speaker 4: because it's what I loved when I was the same
Speaker 4: age as these characters who I was writing about when
Speaker 4: I was working on the script, and so the horror element,
Speaker 4: it sounds so weird, but it actually kind of emerged
Speaker 4: sort of organically through the whole process, I think, because
Speaker 4: you know, I made this film that seemed to have
Speaker 4: very heavy themes of homophobia in the story, and it
Speaker 4: was kind of like, as a filmmaker, how do you
Speaker 4: engage with fear? Will you go to the genre that's
Speaker 4: all about fear, which is horror, which luckily was something
Speaker 4: that I was always very passionate about. So that's kind
Speaker 4: of how I describe it, sort of first and foremost
Speaker 4: as this sort of love story between these two young men.
Speaker 5: The basis of the film, for You was based on
Speaker 5: stories you're reading conversion practices, which are horrible, horrible things.
Speaker 4: So it got a bit hooked on the idea of
Speaker 4: like exorcisms being performed on queer teenagers and that it
Speaker 4: was being done in lots of different cultures, not just Christianity.
Speaker 4: And I started asking myself about sort of what they're
Speaker 4: really doing, Like they claim they're something taking something out,
Speaker 4: but then the more I sort of looked into it,
Speaker 4: I was like, they're not. The reality is they're sort
Speaker 4: of putting something in. They're kind of really like leaving
Speaker 4: them with this sort of these scars when they do that.
Speaker 4: And so that's where the idea came from. And then
Speaker 4: there was another The other image that really stuck with
Speaker 4: me in the research was I spoke to someone who
Speaker 4: was actually from who had like, because I'm from I
Speaker 4: have Chinese heritage on my mom's side of my family,
Speaker 4: and I was speaking to someone who had twist parents
Speaker 4: and their towerst parents took them to this priest who
Speaker 4: like mind cutting the queerness off him like with a knife.
Speaker 4: Like there was like, uh yeah, anyway that that sort
Speaker 4: of stuff that and it just sort of made me
Speaker 4: think about, yeah, practices.
Speaker 3: That are just immediately traumatic.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you know when I first and almost feel
Speaker 1: like it's so weird when you're sharing something so personal
Speaker 1: about this particular take. But like when I was coming out,
Speaker 1: before I ever even experimented, I felt like something bad
Speaker 1: would happen to me if I did it. So it's
Speaker 1: such an interesting breeding ground for a conversation like this.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how you feel about this, but
Speaker 1: in some ways, I feel like the coming of age
Speaker 1: story almost supersedes the horror in this. And I was
Speaker 1: having a conversation with David Knox from TV Tonight, who
Speaker 1: also was reviewing it, and I was curious about how
Speaker 1: you balance horror with the queenness, Like I think that
Speaker 1: balance would be really difficult to put together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 4: I think it was really just that I knew that
Speaker 4: I'd landed on a premise that sort of would work,
Speaker 4: like the horror movie, the horror movie Monster. The entity
Speaker 4: and the rules around it seemed to mirror, as you're saying,
Speaker 4: a lot of the experiences that we go through at
Speaker 4: that stage in our lives. Even just the idea of,
Speaker 4: you know, if you're growing up queer and you you're
Speaker 4: attracted to someone, you have to know whether or not
Speaker 4: they actually identified that way as well, And it's just
Speaker 4: this doubly sort of it feels incredibly dangerous to express
Speaker 4: how you feel about someone else, and are they just
Speaker 4: going to hurt me if I tell them?
Speaker 3: And so that, you know, like all of that.
Speaker 4: Was tied into this sort of horror movie mythology as well.
Speaker 3: So I think it.
Speaker 4: Helped that I really kind of hit like I hit
Speaker 4: on something that I really believed in that I believed
Speaker 4: was kind of expressing what I was trying to say.
Speaker 4: But that consideration of tonally just balancing is are we
Speaker 4: too much in the horror?
Speaker 3: Are we too much in the queer?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I've been telling a lot of people
Speaker 4: we had a much much longer first act to this film,
Speaker 4: and we didn't really get to that scene with Nicholas
Speaker 4: Hope and the deliverance heal and all that. We didn't
Speaker 4: really get to that till much later in the earlier
Speaker 4: cuts of the film, and you know, we had a
Speaker 4: much more complicated story between the two lead boys, just
Speaker 4: to sort of set everything up with them. But we
Speaker 4: realized what I actually realized when I shot the film
Speaker 4: and then when I got into the edit, is that
Speaker 4: Joe Burden, Stacy class and were such incredible actors and
Speaker 4: they had this incredible natural chemistry that I didn't need
Speaker 4: to spend a lot of time setting up the attraction
Speaker 4: between the two of them.
Speaker 3: It was aaron in those opening scenes.
Speaker 5: I think the way you handled the it's almost like
Speaker 5: the I don't know, the masculine kind of bullying, but
Speaker 5: teasing between the two of them.
Speaker 6: That whole build up is so good and.
Speaker 5: It feels realistic, and you're right, you don't need any
Speaker 5: extra words. Their physicality and their chemistry is just amazing.
Speaker 5: Setting up that well, you know, whether it goes one
Speaker 5: way or another, and we know which way it goes,
Speaker 5: it's just a beautiful way to do it right right.
Speaker 4: And we did have more overt scenes of the bullying
Speaker 4: involving other characters and all that sort of stuff, but
Speaker 4: it sort of.
Speaker 3: Took away from the heart. Yeah, so, yeah, is.
Speaker 1: It wrong for me to ask what, actually, can you
Speaker 1: give us a little bit more detail on what was
Speaker 1: put from the setup?
Speaker 4: A little bit more bullying from Ryan and Hunter, who's
Speaker 4: the character that's the pastor's son. There was a little
Speaker 4: bit more of that overtly going on, and then you
Speaker 4: sort of had that and that. But what it did
Speaker 4: is created this whole other mini arc that we had
Speaker 4: to go through because we had to see that. We
Speaker 4: had to see the boys sort of fight and have
Speaker 4: been this argument and then make up again and then
Speaker 4: he gets sort of betrayed by the past. So it
Speaker 4: was sort of like we had an extra mini movie
Speaker 4: within the film, and so it just sort of dragged
Speaker 4: on and on and on for a bit, and it
Speaker 4: was just a big ask of everyone. But they were
Speaker 4: very beautiful scenes. One day and people keep asking me
Speaker 4: to release them.
Speaker 3: Maybe one day.
Speaker 1: You know you've got a good movie. When people are
Speaker 1: already asking you for the director your cinemas, You're like,
Speaker 1: you know what.
Speaker 3: I have to say.
Speaker 4: One of my favorite favorite shots that I have in
Speaker 4: the entire shoot, my favorite shot that the entire shoot
Speaker 4: actually is in one of those deleted scenes. And so
Speaker 4: it is a big thing is a filmmaker, I have
Speaker 4: to you know, people told me, and I always thought
Speaker 4: it was just a philosophical, dumb you know, teachers thing
Speaker 4: that they tell you that you have to be prepared
Speaker 4: to lose your favorite scene or your favorite shot, And
Speaker 4: I really did have to cut my favorite shot to
Speaker 4: do it.
Speaker 3: True.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I can feel that pain.
Speaker 5: So in this film that the monster's not just terrifying,
Speaker 5: like it's not just this incredible bad character that's you know,
Speaker 5: destroying people. It weaponizes love and attraction, which is amazing,
Speaker 5: and you build that between the two main characters and
Speaker 5: then the bad guy takes advantage of it. It's just fantastic,
Speaker 5: very unique. How long did you arrive that idea or
Speaker 5: did you start from there and build out?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the concept was I mean sort of
Speaker 4: like I was saying before, I'd just been looking at
Speaker 4: different conversion therapy practices and when I had hit on
Speaker 4: this idea of like, okay, so well, I discovered this
Speaker 4: idea that exorcisms were performed on queer teenagers and that
Speaker 4: it's not really I think at first I was like,
Speaker 4: I'm going to do a queer version of the Exorcist,
Speaker 4: and which sounded like a cool thing, Like you go
Speaker 4: to parties and people are.
Speaker 3: Like, what are you working on?
Speaker 4: And you give you a little thirty second pitch and
Speaker 4: everyone's like, wow, that's so exciting. But then you go
Speaker 4: home and you sit in front of your computer and
Speaker 4: you're like, how am I actually going to ride that?
Speaker 4: And I started asking myself why does a queer version
Speaker 4: of the Exorcis not work for me? And I thought, Oh,
Speaker 4: it's because I'm perpetuating the myth that they're creating, which
Speaker 4: is that there's something, there's a gay demon that needs
Speaker 4: to be removed. And I landed on that thing I
Speaker 4: talked about before. It's like, oh no, it's not like
Speaker 4: something's being exercised out of them, it's being put in them.
Speaker 4: Then I started thinking, well, what's the opposite of what
Speaker 4: they're really claiming to do, and it's actually it's that
Speaker 4: they're scaring them out of their desires, and so that
Speaker 4: I thought of this, Okay, well they're going to curse
Speaker 4: them with this entity that takes the form of the
Speaker 4: person you're most attracted to. And once I had that,
Speaker 4: then I went okay, great, now we can focus on
Speaker 4: the love story, like who are these two characters that
Speaker 4: are attracted to each other, and what do I want
Speaker 4: to write about them, and what do I want to
Speaker 4: explore with those characters.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to be too personal and delve into
Speaker 1: your own space, but I just think it comes across
Speaker 1: so deeply personal this film. I believe that there must
Speaker 1: be some of your own life, real world time, that
Speaker 1: you've had experiences with some of this.
Speaker 2: Growing up.
Speaker 1: What was your take on as a gay man. Was
Speaker 1: there moments where religion, community opinion, and people's expectations made
Speaker 1: you feel like that you needed to hide parts about yourself.
Speaker 4: My parents, they're both very proud atheists, but they both
Speaker 4: come families that had a lot of religion, a lot
Speaker 4: of Christianity in them and from different parts of the world.
Speaker 4: But weirdly, even though they were such staunch atheists, they
Speaker 4: still sent me to a religious school, and so that
Speaker 4: was I think it just happened to be the school
Speaker 4: that they thought would be the best one for me.
Speaker 4: And I remember one year I won the Divinity Prize
Speaker 4: and my mom was like, you're okay, like what is
Speaker 4: going on here? And I remember telling her like, I
Speaker 4: just really loved the stories. And I think, I mean,
Speaker 4: I was what thirteen or fourteen At the time, I
Speaker 4: think it was a sign of like a filmmaker in
Speaker 4: me that just sort of loved mythology and loved you know.
Speaker 4: I guess nowadays, you know, this is back in the
Speaker 4: sort of nineties, Like I guess now we have so
Speaker 4: much access to every comic book, hero story, all that
Speaker 4: sort of stuff. But at the time, it's like when
Speaker 4: you're thirteen fourteen and people are putting these kind of
Speaker 4: mythological stories is in front of you, with these big
Speaker 4: sort of parables and archetypes, I think you kind of
Speaker 4: if there's a storyteller in you, you really get drawn
Speaker 4: to that. But I saw a lot of people around me,
Speaker 4: friends and family, having to struggle with their sexuality and
Speaker 4: religion and institutionized from religion and that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: So it all kind of went hand in hand with that.
Speaker 4: But I guess so yeah, So the personal side is
Speaker 4: that is a lot of friends and family directly going through.
Speaker 3: These these issues.
Speaker 4: But then I guess also the knowledge of biblical mythology
Speaker 4: and imagery that's in the film comes from that. That
Speaker 4: thirteen year old kid that won the Divinity Prize for.
Speaker 1: Like it was a therapeutic at all, like with some
Speaker 1: somehow exploring this subject matter was that interesting. That didn't
Speaker 1: feel like I'd opened up any old wounds from when
Speaker 1: you were growing up and did it helped heal them,
Speaker 1: so to speak.
Speaker 3: There were certain things that I remember being therapy. I
Speaker 3: still remember.
Speaker 4: I mean, I can't remember it vividly to really exactly
Speaker 4: explain what it is. But there was something about up
Speaker 4: with the scene. I mean, this is a touch spoilery.
Speaker 4: It's near the end of the scene where Brian says
Speaker 4: I wanted to look like you. There was something about
Speaker 4: that that I remember just being.
Speaker 3: It came quite late in the process of writing.
Speaker 4: I think it was one of the very very last
Speaker 4: drafts that I figured out he needed to say that,
Speaker 4: and it just came from a place of really asking myself,
Speaker 4: Like I think, I think there's that thing of when
Speaker 4: you write a script people always talk about or if
Speaker 4: you're an actor, or if you're a creative or you
Speaker 4: have to ask yourself, what if what if this was true?
Speaker 3: What if that? You know?
Speaker 4: And I guess the what if on this film was
Speaker 4: what if they claimed to have a cure to same
Speaker 4: sex attraction? And I guess you have to be willing
Speaker 4: to really really go there, like as so as a
Speaker 4: gay man, I had to really really ask myself what
Speaker 4: if it actually did work, or what if this character
Speaker 4: really did believe it worked. So that was where I
Speaker 4: sort of came to this idea of Okay, well then
Speaker 4: the attraction is so strong that he's willing to say, well,
Speaker 4: I want it to look like you even if this
Speaker 4: thing is real.
Speaker 3: It can be quite confronting writing a script in a
Speaker 3: lot of ways.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, as you said at the
Speaker 5: start of our conversation, the extension of you writing this
Speaker 5: film then presenting this film is that people will approach
Speaker 5: you with their experiences, their trauma. As it feel receiving
Speaker 5: that from people, and did you expect that going in
Speaker 5: that you might actually then have to handle those kinds
Speaker 5: of emotions and be kind of the gatekeeper, not the gatekeeper,
Speaker 5: but be the representative of that.
Speaker 4: It's funny the start of the journey of taking this
Speaker 4: film out to the world, where we went to festivals
Speaker 4: like sun Dance and South By Southwest, and those festivals
Speaker 4: they sound very glamorous and very Hollywood, but I think
Speaker 4: people forget those are festivals held in regional parts of
Speaker 4: Red States in America, and so when we showed the
Speaker 4: film there, you don't just get industry people. You also
Speaker 4: the other half of the audience are just local people
Speaker 4: from those areas who've grown up or grown up in
Speaker 4: those states and kind of moved to the slightly larger
Speaker 4: cities where those festivals are held. And so immediately after
Speaker 4: the first few screenings that we had over there in
Speaker 4: the US, there were people coming up wanting to have
Speaker 4: conversations with me about it, which was that, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's how super corny. But that was actually so much
Speaker 4: more meaningful than all of the industry meetings that we
Speaker 4: were getting out of it, which was really really great
Speaker 4: because I thought, oh, this is actually working on people.
Speaker 4: And I still yeah, to this day, I'm still getting
Speaker 4: I get messages every day from people saying that they've
Speaker 4: been really really touched by the film and that it's
Speaker 4: sort of changed their lives and stuff. That's just I
Speaker 4: don't know, it's yeah, it's such a surreal thing. As
Speaker 4: a filmmaker, you don't ever think that that's what's going
Speaker 4: to happen when you sit down and you know, you
Speaker 4: stare at the blank final draft page. But the other
Speaker 4: thing is the fan art and the fan edits. That's
Speaker 4: all you don't expect. You kind of go, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: people are really falling in love with these characters.
Speaker 1: I mean, but you know, there's a real tenderness between
Speaker 1: Name and Ryan, and I think that that is something
Speaker 1: to be commended because I mean, they're obviously actors and
Speaker 1: they're great in these roles. But as a filmmaker, how
Speaker 1: did you go about creating that authenticity between the two
Speaker 1: of them, Because.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it was the first I guess it
Speaker 4: was two things. Was the casting, and it was the
Speaker 4: process of a rehearsal. With the casting, it was just
Speaker 4: very apparent when Joe and Stacey were they did their
Speaker 4: first scenes together in these chemistry tests. I sort of
Speaker 4: did these like I did more sort of casting workshops
Speaker 4: rather than chemistry tests, where I brought in a few
Speaker 4: different actors and they spent a few hours all together
Speaker 4: just sort.
Speaker 3: Of trying scenes out.
Speaker 4: And as soon as Joe and Stacey had their scenes together,
Speaker 4: it was just it was clear to me and clear
Speaker 4: to our casting director, Nicky Barrett, there's an energy here
Speaker 4: between these two that's very authentic, and you know, we
Speaker 4: can if the core of this movie, both as a
Speaker 4: love story and a horror movie, is about that energy
Speaker 4: between the two characters, then that's something we can build
Speaker 4: a whole film out of. And then once they were cast,
Speaker 4: because because the focus of the film was the teenagers
Speaker 4: and then there was sort of this world of the
Speaker 4: teenager's parents and all that sort of stuff, we knew
Speaker 4: we had to cast them first and then pasted rudos.
Speaker 4: So they were cast maybe by five or six months
Speaker 4: before we started shooting. And because I'd done that thing
Speaker 4: of having a workshop where everyone got together, they sort
Speaker 4: of met properly at the audition, and then when they
Speaker 4: both found out they got the parts, they sort of
Speaker 4: kept in touch and they became good friends, even though
Speaker 4: they live in different states, and they were constantly messaging.
Speaker 3: Each other and calling each other.
Speaker 4: And then they told me they were playing Fortnite together
Speaker 4: at one point, which is sort of like, you know, now,
Speaker 4: I'm kind of telling everybody that this is the Adrian
Speaker 4: Kirella technique of working with Fortnight FORTNIGHTE is the acting
Speaker 4: technique I.
Speaker 2: Host Bilberg uses the same thing.
Speaker 3: That's right, Yeah, our interactors to play Fortnite.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 4: But then then when we actually got together on the
Speaker 4: ground a few weeks before we shot. We were one
Speaker 4: of those very lucky Australian productions where the producers and
Speaker 4: I we all really believed in investing in rehearsal time.
Speaker 4: So we got the actors together a few weeks before
Speaker 4: we shot. I took Joe and Stacy ut to a
Speaker 4: lot of the locations where we shot, and I got
Speaker 4: them to just sort of walk around and then sort
Speaker 4: of drop them off in different areas and got them
Speaker 4: to find each other just using their phones and stuff.
Speaker 4: I remember one time I sent them. I sent them
Speaker 4: into a crowded shopping mall to buy gifts for each other,
Speaker 4: and I told them to stay in character the whole time.
Speaker 4: And I still remember I gave them this like big
Speaker 4: pep talk before they went in. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 4: the people in that mall, they are your audience, who
Speaker 4: have to respect them. You can't drop character. The safest
Speaker 4: thing for you to do is just to stay in
Speaker 4: character because no one knows you're an actor. And then
Speaker 4: of course, like as soon as they walk in, their
Speaker 4: little Joe Bird who.
Speaker 3: Was in talk to me. He gets by these essays
Speaker 3: who were like.
Speaker 4: You're that kid in the movie with the hand, Yeah
Speaker 4: you are, you are? But he still stayed he was
Speaker 4: like really focused. And then so after a couple of
Speaker 4: weeks of doing that kind of stuff, of just getting
Speaker 4: them used to being in character in public, but also
Speaker 4: being around each other in public and feeling what that's
Speaker 4: actually like, which is sort of the heart of the
Speaker 4: whole movie, I think, then they were just really ready
Speaker 4: to do it.
Speaker 3: So it was.
Speaker 4: Really about getting them to spend time together and then
Speaker 4: feel what it was like to be these characters when
Speaker 4: you've got a community looking at you and judging you.
Speaker 3: Did you what?
Speaker 1: I know? You love doing this? Sorry to just jump
Speaker 1: in next. Did you play along with where the locations work? And?
Speaker 2: I bros? Often will you know?
Speaker 1: You've traveled the world and been to places where very
Speaker 1: famous films are shot. Were you playing along with that
Speaker 1: as well?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I'd looked up the locations as soon as I
Speaker 5: started watching, and I'm like, he all this together?
Speaker 6: Isn't there though?
Speaker 4: Isn't it?
Speaker 3: How toner is? He was one? Yeah? So we did well. Actually,
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously I.
Speaker 4: Think a lot of Melbournians will recognize that the Melbourne
Speaker 4: City Bards is the opening of the movie. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 4: The DP, Tyson Perkins and our production designer Bethany Ryan
Speaker 4: and I we decided pretty early on that they just
Speaker 4: wasn't really a town, a real town that represented what
Speaker 4: we were going for in terms of the very specific
Speaker 4: aesthetic with this sort of industrial landscape, and we kind
Speaker 4: of wanted this sort of clash of nature and industrial
Speaker 4: human made elements, but we also wanted it to feel
Speaker 4: like a little bit of a boneyard, a bit of
Speaker 4: a place that had seen better times. Partly because we
Speaker 4: wanted this idea of like, Okay, it's maybe a town
Speaker 4: that's fallen on hard times and a lot of the
Speaker 4: population maybe moved away and some people stayed behind and
Speaker 4: these old ideas stayed with them. And also we wanted
Speaker 4: a sense of like not really being able to place
Speaker 4: the period so that.
Speaker 6: You wanted Seymour is right.
Speaker 1: I was going to say central Queensland. It reminded me
Speaker 1: of Gladston. I mean, the weather wasn't as good, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you that much.
Speaker 4: It's of central Queensland where where I was sort of
Speaker 4: thinking about doing it at one point in the very
Speaker 4: early script stages.
Speaker 3: But for a whole bunch of reasons. We shot in Victoria,
Speaker 3: but we.
Speaker 4: Also didn't really want a specific period. We wanted people
Speaker 4: to sort of look at it and think it could
Speaker 4: be the nineties, it could be ten years ago, it
Speaker 4: could be five years ago, which is certain no matter
Speaker 4: how old you were, you got a sense of nostalgia.
Speaker 3: Anyway, we just knew that there was no.
Speaker 4: One town that kind of encapsulated all that, so we
Speaker 4: did this. We did this endless process of scouting where
Speaker 4: we just looked all over Velbourne, all over sort of
Speaker 4: regions around Victoria, and eventually we just sort of ended
Speaker 4: up with this schedule of but we were like this
Speaker 4: traveling circus, going from one place to another and traveling,
Speaker 4: you know, and shooting for two days and then traveling
Speaker 4: twenty k's and shooting somewhere else. And there was a
Speaker 4: lot of concern that that would be a big pressure
Speaker 4: on the young cast, that we should maybe just compromise
Speaker 4: the vision and shoot it in any old town.
Speaker 3: And do it all in order.
Speaker 4: But I think once we sort of had cast Joe
Speaker 4: and Stacey and we saw how strong they were, we felt, no,
Speaker 4: that's we can. We can drag them anywhere through whatever
Speaker 4: and make the mis exhausted.
Speaker 3: No, no, we're very kind to them. But it is interesting.
Speaker 4: I often wonder if the if the illusion works on
Speaker 4: Victorians or if they hang on a minute.
Speaker 3: That's not why we suddenly in Geelong and now we're
Speaker 3: back in We're like the Melbourne city bars. What's going on?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like watching the Jackie Chan film he shot
Speaker 5: in Melbourne. How do you get from Swanson Street into
Speaker 5: the Parliament train station?
Speaker 6: That quick doesn't work.
Speaker 3: I grew up in Sydney.
Speaker 4: I remember watching The Matrix and when he opens the door,
Speaker 4: and when Morpheus opens the door and he's like, you
Speaker 4: know where that road leads, and everyone's like Abercrombie Street.
Speaker 6: That's great horror films.
Speaker 5: Generally, we'll get back on track here. Should we talk
Speaker 5: about horror films? I usually have a cynical worldview, or
Speaker 5: you know, a satiric gallelemor But this one still has
Speaker 5: a lot of hope for what is essentially just a
Speaker 5: horror film. Did you always wanted to finish with a
Speaker 5: sense of hope rather than a sense of despair?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I thought a lot about the kinds of horror movies
Speaker 4: that merge I love story some form of a love
Speaker 4: story with horror. I felt a lot about movies like
Speaker 4: let the Right One in, or there was an amazing
Speaker 4: black and white movie called Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you saw that, that Iranian vampire movie.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, really spooky ending.
Speaker 2: Watched that straight after this Stone You're worried about it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I kind of knew every version of the
Speaker 4: ending that I had, and it took a lot of
Speaker 4: different versions, and I was writing to Land where we did.
Speaker 4: Every version was some version of you know, they're going
Speaker 4: to be together, but what are the scars that they're
Speaker 4: going to have to carry with them? Is there some
Speaker 4: sense of something internalized, whether you'd call it internalized homophobia
Speaker 4: or something that burrows into them because of what they've
Speaker 4: been through.
Speaker 3: I definitely wanted to speak to that with the.
Speaker 4: Ending, and I think we had a pretty clear like
Speaker 4: myself and the producers, we had a pretty clear sense
Speaker 4: from early on that we wanted some version. We didn't
Speaker 4: want to have a Kellyer Gaye ending. Basically we sort
Speaker 4: of put a knew that for pretty early on.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Was there any pressure though, because it's a genre film
Speaker 1: to make it more scarier or to make it more
Speaker 1: you terrifying, and it lean into the horror.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we did. There were certain things that we found
Speaker 4: in the edit. We didn't have sort of reshoots per se,
Speaker 4: but we did go and pick up a couple of
Speaker 4: little extra things just because we found certain moments in
Speaker 4: the edit and we went, oh, okay, we should just
Speaker 4: get another shut of that, or just did that a
Speaker 4: little bit differently. Yeah, and some of the horror moments
Speaker 4: just to go, okay, we can dial that up a
Speaker 4: little bit. But other than that, I mean, it was
Speaker 4: kind of there in what in the concepts we didn't
Speaker 4: I always wanted you to not forget your own a
Speaker 4: horror movie, but I also just wanted the focus to
Speaker 4: be on this love story between the two boys.
Speaker 1: So it feels like at the moment that there's a
Speaker 1: bit of a genre that's been created within Australia that
Speaker 1: we've got a bit of a flavor now for horror.
Speaker 1: It's sort of, you know, not really making it too
Speaker 1: colloquial to make it centered. It could be anywhere in
Speaker 1: the world sort of stories. And they're so big in scope,
Speaker 1: like it used to be these sort of lower budget
Speaker 1: films that felt lower budget, where everything we're making at
Speaker 1: the moment feels very grandiose for us here in Austraa.
Speaker 1: We're doing very well with it because it's certainly with
Speaker 1: talked to Me, Bring Her Back, and also those films
Speaker 1: being so critically rewarded as well. It seems like we've landed.
Speaker 1: Do you think we have our own style of horror?
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, And I didn't want to shy away from that.
Speaker 3: I kind of knew.
Speaker 4: I couldn't put my finger on it, but I sort
Speaker 4: of knew we have this. I mean, you're right, it's
Speaker 4: sort of a tradition going back decades, right like through
Speaker 4: all those sort of seventies filmmakers who did movies like
Speaker 4: Wake and Fright and that kind of thing, and then
Speaker 4: it all kind of shifted into a new era with
Speaker 4: Wolf Creek and then the Barber Duke, and so I
Speaker 4: knew we were going to be sitting in that tradition,
Speaker 4: and I didn't want us to shy away from it
Speaker 4: too much because I thought, Okay, we're going to do that,
Speaker 4: but this one is going to have a queer love
Speaker 4: story at the center of it. So yeah, we were
Speaker 4: definitely very very conscious of that. But I always say
Speaker 4: to people like you get a jump scare and then
Speaker 4: you hear some Australian accents and you know, okay, this
Speaker 4: is an Australian horror movie.
Speaker 3: As an audience one, we did.
Speaker 1: Walk out of this movie, though, feeling very different than
Speaker 1: I did from Talk to Me and Bring Her Back.
Speaker 1: My Bring Her Back experience had me almost storm out
Speaker 1: of the cinema and go down like on street with
Speaker 1: my partner chasing after me. He loves horror, by the way,
Speaker 1: the scarier, the better the gloria, where with me I
Speaker 1: was sort of traumatized. Well, I really enjoyed coming out
Speaker 1: of this film that the take home for me was
Speaker 1: that the story was so rich and rewarding that it
Speaker 1: made the vice and the horror feel like.
Speaker 2: It was supposed to be there. Do you know what
Speaker 2: I mean? Am I making sense by saying that?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: And I always like horror movies where it comes from
Speaker 4: something real, right, Like it's like a part of a
Speaker 4: real fear. I think I always remember like reading horror
Speaker 4: novels like I remember when I was found, like I
Speaker 4: would read Stephen King novels and he'd sort of like,
Speaker 4: go on these they'd feel like tangents, but he'd just
Speaker 4: sort of go on these little moments where the characters
Speaker 4: you just, I don't know, you just sort of talk
Speaker 4: about that the scariest moment of character it ever had
Speaker 4: in their childhood or something, or you know, even though
Speaker 4: it was about a big monster or whatever. And so
Speaker 4: I always knew that, like good horror movies have that
Speaker 4: sort of real psychological fear in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a bit.
Speaker 5: Of a moment generally with horror at the moment as well,
Speaker 5: So you're also being seen a long time alongside obsession
Speaker 5: and back rooms, which are a little bit more emotional.
Speaker 5: But then the the other side of it, America is
Speaker 5: still pumping out movies like Passengers and Evil Dead Burn. Yeah,
Speaker 5: do you feel like, do you think abs want more
Speaker 5: more substance over Overflash.
Speaker 4: I think I think it just shows that horror is
Speaker 4: such a broad church like it's there's so many different
Speaker 4: types of horror, and I think, you know, for the
Speaker 4: most part, I think we've gotten a good response from
Speaker 4: this our film, but I think there are people that
Speaker 4: are a bit like, oh, that wasn't for me. I
Speaker 4: think it's because they've turned up expecting a different type
Speaker 4: of horror. The two big horror hits of this year
Speaker 4: were you know, a little different to the kind of
Speaker 4: horror movie we're doing the amazing movies, but there were
Speaker 4: slightly different. But what's been awesome about it is that,
Speaker 4: you know, Neon created this really great trailer for our
Speaker 4: film that didn't shy away from the love story. You know,
Speaker 4: you see Joe and Stacy kiss thirty seconds into the trailer,
Speaker 4: And that trailer, because of the genre we're in, played
Speaker 4: in front of Backrooms and Obsession and all these movies
Speaker 4: that millions and millions of people around the world went
Speaker 4: to see, and so whether they wanted to or not,
Speaker 4: they were getting a little taste of this story and what,
Speaker 4: you know, what it's about.
Speaker 2: So what did you think of Obsession and Backrops? I
Speaker 2: realized I was.
Speaker 4: Really into I really loved them, and I loved that
Speaker 4: we have this sort of like very like fresh perspective.
Speaker 4: I mean, those filmmakers much younger than me, and it's
Speaker 4: entirely like new bold perspective to the genre, which is really.
Speaker 1: Really can you speak to the fact though, that these
Speaker 1: movies have smaller budgets, Like it's interesting. Bros And I
Speaker 1: were unpacking Disclosure Day recently which is a Spielberg massive blockbuster.
Speaker 1: But the budget of Disclosure Day wasn't ridiculous. It wasn't
Speaker 1: what some of these movies have blown out to be.
Speaker 1: And we've been unpacking this whole idea behind the scenes
Speaker 1: that maybe people these days are yearning for more conceptual idea.
Speaker 5: But even the idea that directors have to say everything's
Speaker 5: in camera in my film, it's like, yeah, that's just film,
Speaker 5: isn't it.
Speaker 4: That maybe we're sort of I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 4: I don't want to coin a weird term, but maybe
Speaker 4: we're kind of in like the post superhero era now,
Speaker 4: like everyone's kind of we And I think the Superhero
Speaker 4: era it took away things like in camera so everything
Speaker 4: with RCG and they also I'm not an expert on
Speaker 4: explaining it, but there was a whole thing that the
Speaker 4: superhero movies took away, the idea of movie styles, like
Speaker 4: suddenly the book actors became the stars. And I think
Speaker 4: the thing about horror is it's not dependent on stars.
Speaker 4: Like there's something about the concept itself is enough to
Speaker 4: draw you in because it's so the idea is it's
Speaker 4: going to be so visceral and so universal that you'll
Speaker 4: you'll be drawing in I think that that maybe has
Speaker 4: something the opposite.
Speaker 5: It's also true with horror, isn't it that stars can
Speaker 5: dilute the effectiveness of right, Yeah, horror film, even a
Speaker 5: couple I've seen I'm trying to think as it Eila
Speaker 5: Fisher no or is it anyway there's Anustralian actress in
Speaker 5: a horror series and when I see her, I feel
Speaker 5: taken out of it immediately because I know she is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, because you need to feel like
Speaker 4: it's a real person, just like you're just going through exactly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like you can, so you can relate to them,
Speaker 5: not as someone that you've seen in the magazines or online,
Speaker 5: but as a real person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you're being pulled into the world, you know
Speaker 1: as well with this, like you know these characters you know, Yes,
Speaker 1: we've seen some of these actors that are in this
Speaker 1: and Australians will pick it up. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's kind of works with your film that these are
Speaker 1: relatively unknowns that are playing apart from me, who are
Speaker 1: obviously gives some gravitas and working as an executive producer
Speaker 1: as well. But a random question, because that's on brand
Speaker 1: For me, You're like, where are you going? The poster
Speaker 1: to me, without really knowing too much about the film,
Speaker 1: gave me Aliens vibes, like the color palette of it.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, if you look at some of the artwork.
Speaker 1: For Aliens, the James Cameron in the second part of
Speaker 1: the Alien series franchise, whatever you'd like to call it.
Speaker 1: Was there any inspiration or have I just read into that?
Speaker 4: Not directly, I mean maybe internally amongst the Neon team.
Speaker 4: Neon are amazing and they really involved their directors in
Speaker 4: the whole rollout of their marketing, and I remember I
Speaker 4: remember having an early conversation with one of their amazing
Speaker 4: marketing team members there and one of the films that
Speaker 4: was and there were lots of different horror movies that
Speaker 4: inspired this, but one of them was the theme Great,
Speaker 4: you know, the John Carpenter the theme because of the
Speaker 4: idea of just that the terror of not knowing it
Speaker 4: this person in front of you is the real one
Speaker 4: and all that kind of thing. And I remember talking
Speaker 4: about that with the marketing person and we sort of
Speaker 4: talked about on maybe maybe the poster could be a
Speaker 4: little bit like you know, the famous poster from the
Speaker 4: thing that has all the lights sort of shining out.
Speaker 3: It didn't work, and they try, you know, they're amazing.
Speaker 4: They sort of workshop all these things and tried it
Speaker 4: stuff that didn't quite work. But now that you bring
Speaker 4: it up, maybe that sort of took them to that
Speaker 4: era of horror, that kind of sort of late seventies
Speaker 4: early eighties era of horror posters. So yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 4: but it was it was an image that they sort
Speaker 4: of we sort of went through a lot of different ideas,
Speaker 4: and that was always sort of the strongest image to us,
Speaker 4: the idea of the connection, the physical connections between the
Speaker 4: two of them, but with this slight sense of threat.
Speaker 5: So Bluemhouse has kind of created his own little, his
Speaker 5: own little fiftom in Hollywood making horror films low budget,
Speaker 5: kind of keep the movies rolling out. Some make money,
Speaker 5: some don't make money, but you just keep making films. Yeah,
Speaker 5: is that something you began to do in the future.
Speaker 3: I mean, I love horror movies.
Speaker 4: I think I've got a few more ideas in that
Speaker 4: genre in me, but not exclusively.
Speaker 3: I do really love.
Speaker 4: Playing with genre, Like I think you get a lot
Speaker 4: for free when people know that they turn up and
Speaker 4: that you know, Okay, I'm in a horror movie, I'm
Speaker 4: going to get certain things in certain scars, or you know,
Speaker 4: if I'm in a sci fi movie, I know, I know,
Speaker 4: you know, Like it's you don't have to spend a
Speaker 4: lot of time setting things up, which is really great.
Speaker 4: You can just focus on the characters as stat as
Speaker 4: things start. So for me, I guess I'm really interested
Speaker 4: in filmmaking that takes a different genre and sort of
Speaker 4: subverts it in different ways.
Speaker 5: Is there a way in Australia to streamline the types
Speaker 5: of independent films you're making and want to make like
Speaker 5: Blomhouse is done, or is it something that we don't
Speaker 5: have the financial backing for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know. When it comes to
Speaker 3: genre filmmaking.
Speaker 4: It's sort of a conversation I often have with our
Speaker 4: producers Sam Jennings and Christina Seaton at Causeway.
Speaker 3: I know they're very, very interested in.
Speaker 4: That, but I think going deeper than that, it's really
Speaker 4: about doing the thing that Blumhouse does really well beyond
Speaker 4: that process, which is just getting young people to go
Speaker 4: toms and watch their stuff, and that's often by you know,
Speaker 4: mending lots and lots of money, but by actually coming
Speaker 4: up with these concepts that really grab young audiences.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think as well with these young audience
Speaker 1: as well, they seem to be a little bit more
Speaker 1: with horror, particularly more adventurous, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They're more willing to take risk on what they go
Speaker 1: and see at the cinema because for a very long time,
Speaker 1: you know, there's these big budget box office smashes which
Speaker 1: are in the Marvel universe and in DC universe and
Speaker 1: things like that, and they seem to not step outside
Speaker 1: of that. Do you think that Do you think that
Speaker 1: we're a little bit more adventurous.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 4: I mean the idea is to kind of, you know,
Speaker 4: confront people, right, you can't be boring if you're making
Speaker 4: a horror movie. That's probably the number one rule is
Speaker 4: you've got to actually do something that actually. I remember
Speaker 4: there was the opening of the opening scene.
Speaker 3: With the shower.
Speaker 4: The versions of that shot where she's sort of peering
Speaker 4: over the wall and she's all bloody. The first few
Speaker 4: versions were just her hands and I remember thinking everyone
Speaker 4: was talking to Sam Jennings I produced about it. It's
Speaker 4: like it's just not audacious enough or something, you know,
Speaker 4: and I think there's something about that you've got to
Speaker 4: really actually be bold and actually shock people a little bit.
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, I guess that's what it comes down to.
Speaker 4: This is the genre you can't afford to be safe.
Speaker 5: So getting back to your story too, though, do you
Speaker 5: think this story could have been made outside of this genre?
Speaker 6: Like is a genre film?
Speaker 5: Is it a nice way to sneak this kind of
Speaker 5: content into films or is it just the only way
Speaker 5: we can get it intot the moment?
Speaker 6: Or is both fine?
Speaker 3: Regardless, I think both of its final guys.
Speaker 4: I mean, I have often said, you know, there is
Speaker 4: definitely a version of this movie that is just about
Speaker 4: two young guys who fall in love and they're facing
Speaker 4: you know, this adversity from their community. But I think
Speaker 4: the thing that suited my own voice and my own
Speaker 4: star was to ramp it up a little bit and
Speaker 4: lean into yeah, particular genre that I've always had a
Speaker 4: real passion for. So I guess it comes down to
Speaker 4: who's making the film.
Speaker 5: I suppose, sure for sure, And you get to go
Speaker 5: harder on the commentary elements of this film, right, horror film,
Speaker 5: I mean, bad Boy Bubby is the Pastor is just
Speaker 5: brilliant casting.
Speaker 3: It's a very special film to me and my child.
Speaker 6: I had not really same same.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I actually filmed a panel TV series with him
Speaker 1: and they introduced me in the green room and said
Speaker 1: that he was going to be on the panel. It
Speaker 1: was like a talking head show called Founders. If people
Speaker 1: can find it, if they want to look on YouTube.
Speaker 1: I think that's the only place that still exists.
Speaker 2: I remember growing.
Speaker 1: I think I was thirteen when that bad Boy Bubby
Speaker 1: came out, So I had like a fairly visceral.
Speaker 2: Experience to that movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sitting across from him, he's a lovely man, by
Speaker 1: the way, sitting across from him, I was terrified.
Speaker 4: I was, yeah, yeah, I realize Australian movies could do
Speaker 4: what that film did until it really opened my eyes
Speaker 4: in terms of Yeah, I just I thought Australian films
Speaker 4: were something entirely different until I saw that boy Bubby.
Speaker 1: Joe Bird is so extraordinary in this movie. Like I
Speaker 1: just wanted to know, because Talk to Me was so big.
Speaker 1: Were you already thinking about him for name, like were
Speaker 1: you writing this for him? Or like when did he
Speaker 1: come onto the project? No?
Speaker 4: I didn't really I told this story a few times,
Speaker 4: but I remember when I was the film I was
Speaker 4: was that twenty twenty three, and I was sort of there.
Speaker 3: I couldn't figure out the ending. I couldn't figure out
Speaker 3: that there was a lot. I couldn't figure out it.
Speaker 6: It's the writing process. It's okay.
Speaker 3: And then I went and so I talked to me.
Speaker 4: It had just opened, and I just thought, Wow, that
Speaker 4: kid is extraordinary. He's really going to go places. But
Speaker 4: he was also don't forget, he was I think fourteen
Speaker 4: when he did that movie, so he was nowhere near
Speaker 4: the age of this character.
Speaker 3: So I just kind of thought, wow, what an amazing actor. Anyway,
Speaker 3: back to my script.
Speaker 4: Concept of connecting the two things, and even when he
Speaker 4: sent so when actor's audition you get self tapes is
Speaker 4: sort of the first round of auditions that come through,
Speaker 4: and the casting director will send you a link and
Speaker 4: you click on a little you click on a little headshot,
Speaker 4: and then when you click on the headshot, that person's
Speaker 4: tape comes up with their audition.
Speaker 3: And Joe's headshot was still like six years old. It
Speaker 3: was still like twelve or something too young.
Speaker 2: You were like two.
Speaker 3: Why is he coming in here, this humid.
Speaker 4: Idea, and then it comes up and he's like, he
Speaker 4: just looked completely different, and he's of course now just
Speaker 4: you know, he's a young adult, and he was just
Speaker 4: very captivating and really captured something very very true and
Speaker 4: very real. I knew that what he did in talk
Speaker 4: to Me was that, you know what was so impressive
Speaker 4: was that he was this possessed kid and he had
Speaker 4: that sort of you know, the kind of Linda Blair
Speaker 4: kind of you know, exorcist thing happening. But I didn't realize, oh,
Speaker 4: he can also just do these very grounded scenes as
Speaker 4: a tortured teenager as well. I think when you're auditioning
Speaker 4: a certain age group of teenagers, you either get people
Speaker 4: who are overtrained and over prepared and it feels a
Speaker 4: bit like they're doing a two post commercial, or you
Speaker 4: get young people who just had no training, no and
Speaker 4: you don't know if they're actually going to have the
Speaker 4: chops to carry a movie. I mean, I needed an
Speaker 4: actor who he's in every scene, he has to on every.
Speaker 3: Day for a thirty day shoot.
Speaker 4: And you know I got that from Joe as soon
Speaker 4: as I watched his first tape. And then when we met,
Speaker 4: I just sort of thought, Okay, this is this is
Speaker 4: definitely the guy. But because we shared producers, so our
Speaker 4: producers of course they also produced talk to me.
Speaker 3: They were very I remember Sam Jennings.
Speaker 4: Was just very professional about not diving in and advocating
Speaker 4: for Joe too early, like she wanted me to see
Speaker 4: his tape.
Speaker 6: To discover him. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: And then as soon as I opened the floodgates, as
Speaker 4: soon as I said, you know, I think it's going
Speaker 4: to be then she was sort of like very enthusiastic.
Speaker 6: That's some really good producing really yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and then she sort of started talking through
Speaker 4: you know, this is what you'd really get from him,
Speaker 4: and he'll be you know, all of these things and
Speaker 4: he'll work in this way and that Latin.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was it was really cool.
Speaker 5: Well yeah, we mentioned me earlier, but me it was
Speaker 5: Awski Kowsky gives an incredibly restrained performance and not the
Speaker 5: kind of stereotypical horror movie mum either. You know, she's
Speaker 5: it's a whole different version and it kind of makes
Speaker 5: her more frightening in some ways.
Speaker 6: How did you develop that character with me?
Speaker 5: Conversations did you have and was it in the script
Speaker 5: or was it something once she was on set or
Speaker 5: once in rehearsal you could build it with.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean my mind understanding that character changed so
Speaker 4: much through through the writing, through the research of these
Speaker 4: real experiences. I remember starting out, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 4: she's going to be like Piper, Laurie and Carrie, she's
Speaker 4: religious mum. And then that didn't work. This is all
Speaker 4: on the page, right, I'm like, no, that doesn't feel right.
Speaker 4: And then I remember, like when I was doing the script,
Speaker 4: I kept trying to give her these like redemptive moments
Speaker 4: at the end. I was like, Oh, she's going to
Speaker 4: have some amazing speech at the end where they connect,
Speaker 4: Like it'll.
Speaker 3: Be like, you know, some sort of you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know, some sort.
Speaker 4: Of moment where she realizes that there's really a ghost
Speaker 4: and the connect there's really a monster and they connect
Speaker 4: over that. And that didn't work either, and so it
Speaker 4: kind of ended. And I think, what a lot of
Speaker 4: what a lot of people I know who've been through
Speaker 4: these experiences felt is more true, which is, you know,
Speaker 4: this relationship is not going to heal overnight. Once I
Speaker 4: sort of committed to that, and that was what went
Speaker 4: out as offered to me, and I was a little
Speaker 4: bit scared of like, oh my god, is she going
Speaker 4: to want to play this woman who doesn't have any
Speaker 4: sense of redemption at the end. If anything, you kind
Speaker 4: of underestimate her in real life. She's worse than you think.
Speaker 2: Well, she's a part of the horror, do you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, like the real world horror. Yeah, Like
Speaker 2: I mean, I.
Speaker 1: Feel bad for saying that, maya, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: but essentially she played that role really well because you know,
Speaker 1: sort of an us against them to you know, young
Speaker 1: people coming out, you know what I mean, and the
Speaker 1: internalized fear and the yearning to have approval from your parents.
Speaker 1: You know, all of that sort of leans very heavily
Speaker 1: and scarily heavily being a queer person.
Speaker 4: So yeah, and so she wasn't she wasn't afraid to
Speaker 4: go there, like she just was. You know, she is
Speaker 4: one of those incredible actors who's got no vanity. She
Speaker 4: just wants to be part of a good story.
Speaker 2: Well maybe she's just a cold heart a bitch in
Speaker 2: real life. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I assure you, I know i've met her.
Speaker 2: That's the case.
Speaker 1: I feel like I can say that because yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: she's out in wonderland.
Speaker 2: What can I say?
Speaker 3: People come up to me and be like, how dare
Speaker 3: you do that to Alice in Wonderland? But no, she
Speaker 3: just approached it. She is an incredibly grounded actor.
Speaker 4: She won't ever make a choice that doesn't feel true,
Speaker 4: but not in an obnoxious way, like she'll just kind
Speaker 4: of I remember there was one day where we were
Speaker 4: shooting I think it's her last scene where she's so polite.
Speaker 3: It was her last scene where.
Speaker 4: She's got out to name in the petrostration, and if
Speaker 4: you remember that, the camera does this tricky thing where
Speaker 4: it kind of takes off and goes up in the air,
Speaker 4: and we were just trying to find the camera position,
Speaker 4: and I just asked her to stand in a particular
Speaker 4: spot and so that they could figure out where the
Speaker 4: camera was going to rin. And she very politely asked
Speaker 4: me after we'd step through it, She's like, would it
Speaker 4: be okay if I did actually move around as well
Speaker 4: a little bit. I'm like, yeah, you can do whatever
Speaker 4: you wanted. So she's so so polite, but she really
Speaker 4: wanted to ground this in the kinds of characters, you know.
Speaker 4: We talked about people we knew who were part of
Speaker 4: these religious communities and what they were really like.
Speaker 3: And we immediately knew, Okay, it's not going to be
Speaker 3: a big pipe Laurie and carry kind of mum.
Speaker 4: It's going to be actually something a little more reserved
Speaker 4: and not super bombastic about what her beliefs are.
Speaker 3: She just is holding them very much inside her.
Speaker 4: And luckily Mayor is someone who just carries a huge
Speaker 4: amount of depth and wait, and when she's just on screen,
Speaker 4: she doesn't have to do anything.
Speaker 3: She's just there, and she was always inspiring me to
Speaker 3: do things with the camera.
Speaker 4: It was so weird, Like I remember when she drops
Speaker 4: him off at the house and they dragged they dragged
Speaker 4: Joe out of the car. She was just doing something
Speaker 4: when she was sitting there and just I just I
Speaker 4: don't know where it came from, but I was like,
Speaker 4: I think we just need to like when she's sitting there,
Speaker 4: we just told in her and we just panned the
Speaker 4: camera so that the balance of the shop changes and
Speaker 4: I don't know, there were just things that were going
Speaker 4: on in her face, so which is very very inspiring
Speaker 4: to I think.
Speaker 1: The subtlety is very real world though, do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like it's in so often like there's
Speaker 1: sort of a big reaction, like the subtlety that.
Speaker 2: Works well with her.
Speaker 1: And also as a mother, you know, from being a
Speaker 1: queer boy and having a mom my mom was full
Speaker 1: of fear for me, right, right, And so I think
Speaker 1: there isn't an there would be an enormous amount of
Speaker 1: mothers out there that would be terrified, not because you know,
Speaker 1: they're bad people, but they're worried about all of the
Speaker 1: possibility of what could happen to their son or daughter.
Speaker 1: And then she portrays that and that kind of still
Speaker 1: works as well with her bringing in, you know, being
Speaker 1: a part of the horror, do.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 4: So I have a very kind of classical, kind of
Speaker 4: old fashioned approach to screenwriting, which is that you, if
Speaker 4: you can, your movie is about one theme, and all
Speaker 4: of your characters should be your ensemble of characters should
Speaker 4: be a different perspective on that theme. So if the
Speaker 4: theme is homophobia, I felt that MEA's character was sort
Speaker 4: of representing that strand of homophobia. That's like I'm doing
Speaker 4: this to protect you. It's not it's that other people
Speaker 4: are going to hurt you. And and so I felt
Speaker 4: that that was I thought, how far can we push that?
Speaker 4: What's the extreme version of that that we can explore.
Speaker 2: There's just so much we could talk about.
Speaker 1: I just before we go, I have so many questions,
Speaker 1: but we're literally at the end of this, and you've
Speaker 1: been so generous with your time. I'd love to know
Speaker 1: your biggest take home. You know, this is a this
Speaker 1: is a real win for you. I think audiences have
Speaker 1: found this and are continuing to find this. It must
Speaker 1: feel very rewarding because I know how much you've put
Speaker 1: into this and the time, energy and everything. What's the
Speaker 1: biggest take home for you moving as filmmaker? Moving forward
Speaker 1: as a.
Speaker 4: Filmmaker, you know, I think just I really learned to
Speaker 4: value the giving myself the space to just explore as
Speaker 4: a filmmaker and to be open. You know, those moments
Speaker 4: they talked about working with Mia, I still remember, like
Speaker 4: the very last day of shoot, at last light on
Speaker 4: the as the sun was going down, I just got
Speaker 4: Joe and Stacy to do a little improvisation and it's
Speaker 4: my favorite scene in the film, just finding I think
Speaker 4: I really learned to value finding the space and really
Speaker 4: fighting for those sorts of moments. I think when you
Speaker 4: make a film, everyone wants to do this very structured,
Speaker 4: very certain approach to everything, where if you plan out
Speaker 4: every inch of every frame, which you kind of have
Speaker 4: to do. But I just really learned to value leaving
Speaker 4: the room to explore and be open.
Speaker 6: So yeah, that is the hardest challenge, but it's it's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, bros, do you want to ask our last question?
Speaker 1: Out behind the scenes question? You could be out behind
Speaker 1: the scenes guys, something else, that's fine too.
Speaker 5: We like to find out something behind the scenes that
Speaker 5: happened that maybe you haven't told anyone else that you
Speaker 5: divulge with us after we spent all this time ingratiating
Speaker 5: ourselves so well. But is that something you haven't shared
Speaker 5: yet that you'd like to share that have mind the scenes?
Speaker 4: I have some inter's hang on, let me think, let
Speaker 4: me think, what's the one I've been dying to tell.
Speaker 4: I've been traveling around with Joe a bit, so I'm
Speaker 4: trying to think something we've been talking about I I
Speaker 4: haven't shared with anyone yet.
Speaker 6: That's it. That's good, that's good.
Speaker 4: You know, we almost we almost had an actor with
Speaker 4: a missing front tooth. Joe Joe's tooth kind of got
Speaker 4: to be a week out from the shoot, and I
Speaker 4: was really nervous, and they managed to find someone to
Speaker 4: kind of like fix it up, and then it happened again,
Speaker 4: like literally before the first day of shit, and I
Speaker 4: was like, cannot like do a film like that like
Speaker 4: this A part of Joe is like ninety percent of
Speaker 4: the movie.
Speaker 3: So yeah, anyway, you did almost not have a you know,
Speaker 3: a leader.
Speaker 6: You know that you had a missing too, that you
Speaker 6: could have been one with a gold tooth like in
Speaker 6: one the way.
Speaker 2: Well, I just was going to say, you also have
Speaker 2: beautiful teeth. Yeah, do you want to make movies yourself?
Speaker 2: Ad room with people? No offense to the toothless and
Speaker 2: the homeless anyway, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Can you give us any insight of what's next for you?
Speaker 5: Can we get excited about something or is it just
Speaker 5: top secret?
Speaker 3: Is there something in the top secret? But there's some
Speaker 3: things I'm trying to write, you know what's been really it'd.
Speaker 6: Still be horror genre. Are you going to go somewhere else?
Speaker 4: Or there's a couple of things that are horror and
Speaker 4: then a couple of things in other let's see what happens.
Speaker 3: Tricky because everything happened so fast.
Speaker 4: We sort of got into Sundance before we finished, and
Speaker 4: then we stole to now On before we left Sundown,
Speaker 4: So there hasn't been a moment to kind of go
Speaker 4: I mean, I've had little bits in between.
Speaker 6: I have you're a creative guy, You've got something in mind.
Speaker 6: Come on?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I have to write every day or I
Speaker 4: go crazy writing. But I haven't had the time to just.
Speaker 6: Be patient.
Speaker 1: My friend, Like, can I tell you you've got two
Speaker 1: die hard fans here and our land for life? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That bro's watched this movie as a straight man and
Speaker 1: I watched this movie as a gay man, and we
Speaker 1: had such appreciation for this movie and the ability to
Speaker 1: allow it to be accessible from both communities as well.
Speaker 1: I think is incredibly powerful. And I can't thank you
Speaker 1: enough for taking this time out and sharing it with us.
Speaker 1: People listening to this now who haven't seen it will
Speaker 1: go and see it, and I think we've hopefully given
Speaker 1: people as well, and people who have seen it go
Speaker 1: back and watch it, because now you'll watch with the
Speaker 1: different lens after you've given us this juicy intel.
Speaker 4: Thank you, yes, and thank you for seeing it multiple
Speaker 4: times that. Yeah, that's the ultimate compliment for any film.
Speaker 1: Like so, I just think it's so important to protec
Speaker 1: X cinema. Bros and I both believe the same thing,
Speaker 1: and we're podcast promoting people to go and see a
Speaker 1: variety of films, and above everything, we love the community
Speaker 1: of watching something together in a theater like that.
Speaker 2: It's so powerful. And Bros himself is.
Speaker 1: Like to need to you know, hard for you to
Speaker 1: explain it. Bros watches movies with his whole body.
Speaker 6: So yeah, and so if I'm enjoying it, I do.
Speaker 6: I didn't move once during Mandalorian.
Speaker 1: Okay, she just rocks back and forward a tran and
Speaker 1: you know that you've had a good time if you've
Speaker 1: got motion sickness.
Speaker 4: But it is why it's so fun to see movies
Speaker 4: and scenes. It's about sharing it with other people. And
Speaker 4: I know, like I can't I can't wait to go
Speaker 4: see the Inviat because it's completely different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for that reason, everyone says, that's why you've got
Speaker 3: to see that movie in a crowded theater, because.
Speaker 6: It's you know, it's reviews.
Speaker 1: I sold out, by the way, on Saturday night at
Speaker 1: the Como, Like I say, now I've booked now to
Speaker 1: see it tomorrow night, because tonight I'm going to the
Speaker 1: stand Australia's new series f Ward.
Speaker 2: Have you both heard about Effort?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've heard about that. Yeah I was.
Speaker 1: I thought you might be going to that screening then tonight,
Speaker 1: but then I was like, no, you've got your own
Speaker 1: Q and a somewhere else, Una, it's.
Speaker 2: Some time to watch other people's things.
Speaker 3: I do really want to see that show though. It
Speaker 3: sounds really great.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you've had a few Q and as already, are they?
Speaker 5: What are the audiences like so far? Like I've just
Speaker 5: been in terms of.
Speaker 4: Super enthusiastic, a lot of coming back having seen it before.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, cool, young Joe Bird.
Speaker 3: Has a lot of fans that get he's kind of bolt.
Speaker 6: Oh that's awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, but no, it's been a really really great, fun,
Speaker 4: fun audience at a young audience, which is really great too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: That's kick ass.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: When we see horror films off and if there are
Speaker 5: a larger pre early screening, you'll see a lot of
Speaker 5: younger people in there that are invited in.
Speaker 6: It's different energy and it feels good.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's I don't know, it's good to see
Speaker 5: creative films being made still, even though Spielberg can't do
Speaker 5: it anymore.
Speaker 2: To Spielberg's fault.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Adrian, I'm so so becaused. We're well and truly over,
Speaker 1: but I just can't thank you enough for being so general.
Speaker 6: That was fantastic really for you.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good luck. Hopefully we haven't exhausted you from.
Speaker 6: If you have a problem, then I will just send
Speaker 6: this tape in for you.
Speaker 2: If amazing. Thank you so much.
Speaker 6: Thanks are