Talk to Me is one of the best horror films of the year. It is quietly scary… and yet the directors are the biggest pair of goofballs I have ever met. Identical twins Danny and Michael Phillipou got their start with RackaRacka, their YouTube channel with almost seven million subscribers. Many of their videos are surprisingly silly, but some have a darkness that hints at where their first feature film would take them.
Talk to Me follows a group of high schoolers who have found that the newest high involves letting dead spirits talk through them. They light a candle, grab a ceramic hand, utter the phrase, “Talk to me. I let you in,” then have 90 seconds to disengage their hand and blow out the candle or risk having the spirit stay. Unsurprisingly, things go wrong.
We spoke with Danny and Michael about their highly anticipated film, Talk to Me. Apparently they didn’t even know what the seance object was going to be–it was just “haunted object” in the first draft of the script. We also discussed what it was like to get picked up by A24, especially for these two A24 fanboys. Warning: the pair gets silly.
GameSpot: Where did the idea for Talk To Me come from?
Danny Phillipou: There were so many different things that inspired it. There were these neighbors that we watched grow up down the road with three boys. One of them was experimenting with drugs for the first time and was having a really, really negative reaction to what he was taking. He was on the floor and he was convulsing. All his friends were just filming him and laughing at him.
I remember seeing that footage from Snapchat and it really bothered me. That was always in my head. I knew I wanted to explore something there. Daley Pearson, who’s a producer on Bluey of all things, sent me a short film, which is about kids having fun with these possessions. I just rewrote this thing and I took his bones and I just couldn’t stop writing after that.
Are you the writer in this pairing?
Danny Phillipou: Yes, I am the smarter twin, yes. Thank you, yes.
Why a hand of all the things? How did you come up with the idea for the hand?
Danny Phillipou: It came in the second draft. It was already so evident and it was such a big part of the script already. There was so much about human connection and hands and closeups on hands. It was such a recurring motif. We realized that it was just a physical representation of the themes that we were tapping into and talking about. It just felt like it’d been there all along. Once we found it and we knew it, it was like, “Oh, my God.” Before that, it was just haunted objects.
Michael Phillipou: That’s Danny’s great writing. It was haunted objects, right?
In the first draft, you didn’t even know what it was?
Danny Phillipou: It literally just said haunted object. I wanted the spirits to be really hideous and disturbing. I would always just write a Michael type because he’s just so hideous.
Michael Phillipou: You do know you’re my identical twin by the way.
Danny Phillipou: Somehow you’re just so much more hideous.
It’s interesting because you don’t really present the backstory of the hand. You have the rumor-y backstory, but did you have one in your minds?
Danny Phillipou: My gosh, yes, we’ve got the thickest mythology bible. The mythology bible is bigger than a novel. But we wanted the kids to be in over their heads and not really know what they’re dealing with. That part in a film is always where we switch off–when they go to the library or they get the specialist that knows everything.
We were going to do this film with a big studio. It was a guaranteed theatrical release, but we were getting creative notes that wanted to take it in a more generic direction. You always see those horror stories of directors getting screwed over by Hollywood. We just care too much about what we’re making to allow that to happen. We decided to go independent and make it with creative control. It was a big risk, but it also just felt right because we just care about everything.
Do you guys work well together?
Danny Phillipou: No, it’s constant arguments and fist fights.
Michael Phillipou: No, it’s not.
Danny Phillipou: It is.
Michael Phillipou: Come on now. Tell the truth. Now you’re in an interview.
Danny Phillipou: We’d argue over text [message] and notes. We wouldn’t want to argue in front of the crew. I’d just aggressively be pointing my phone to Michael’s face.
Michael Phillipou: I never read what he wrote down, but it was like we had the same unified vision with the film. We knew we had to be on the same team with it because there was already a stigma around YouTubers making a film. There was a lot against us. We just had to work together for once. The stuff that we did argue about was just small things like how loud a sound effect was or an edit in the film. It was more in the post-production phase than production. I think we’re pretty in sync.
Danny Phillipou: I think that overall you’d say I’m probably more right about those.
Michael Phillipou: No, no, no, because when we were editing the behind the scenes every single moment that I was right about, I’ve got it saved.
Danny Phillipou: You edited that and made that. You tailored the vision. You did. That’s on you.
This is your first feature film, but I know you guys have worked on a lot of sets and you’ve made your own YouTube videos. How did your experiences compare to your expectations of what it was going to be like directing?
Michael Phillipou: We were lucky enough that we had crewed on films beforehand. If it was just YouTube and then we went to direct a film, I think it would’ve been a bit of a slap in the face. We started with on-set crewing with all different departments, sound departments, grips, production runners, with the stunt guys. We had worked with them. We knew what we were getting ourselves into. Then, with YouTube we were able to hone our craft as directors and put ourselves in corners. Sometimes we had one day to go to a location to film a flight scene, but we didn’t even know what it was. It was about going there and coming up with things on the spot.
Danny Phillipou: Problem solving and brainstorming and then that weight that gets taken off of you with a feature film is having all these amazing heads of departments that will bring something you could never achieve by yourself to the table. That was awesome as well.
Can you talk a little bit about casting Sophie Wilde? She drives the film.
Danny Phillipou: Man, as soon as we saw her audition, we knew for a fact that we wanted her. We were like, “Yeah.” We really fought hard to get her. She was so inspiring and she just was so committed. There’s days that we’d asked her to not sleep and she came to set not having slept. She just brought such an authenticity to the role and such a charisma. She’s such a physical performer. We’re in awe of her.
Michael Phillipou: I’m nervous about doing a second film because we don’t have Sophie as the lead. Those are big boots to fill. We never had to cut around Sophie. There were so many parts of Sophie that when you’re editing you’re like, “Oh, I want to use all of this.” She was just amazing in every single scene.
Danny Phillipou: There’s another horror film that I was working on and the character’s name is just Sophie. I’m just picturing her the whole time. We love her.
Are you working on your next film already?
Danny Phillipou: We’ve got a script finished already that we finished earlier in the year called Bring Her Back. We’d love to make that. We’d love to make another one ASAP. We’re ready to go.
Michael Phillipou: We’ve got 15 different films and TV shows that we’ve been developing over the years. With Talk to Me, it was the first one that gained momentum the way it did. This one, Bring Her Back, has gained that momentum. It would be great to do that next. We’ve got all the smaller things out of our system through YouTube, the smaller ideas, but we’ve got a whole lifetime of ideas and films and characters and stories that we want to tell on the feature narrative side.
Do you consider yourselves horror filmmakers?
Danny Phillipou: I just think we’re still wannabe filmmakers. We have no idea what we’re doing.
Michael Phillipou: Our YouTube description is “wannabe filmmakers on a rampage.” I don’t think we’ve lost the “wannabe” yet. We’ve met so many. It’s been so great meeting these amazing directors that we’ve looked up to our whole lives that have appreciated the film and liked it. Now we have their numbers in our phones, but I wouldn’t consider myself on the level of any of them. They’re filmmakers.
Danny Phillipou: We don’t know what we’re doing.
Michael Phillipou: We’re YouTubers that made a film. That’s it. We’re not filmmakers yet I don’t feel.
Getting A24 to distribute your movie is quite a coup. How did that happen?
Danny Phillipou: Taking it to Sundance. Literally as soon as we knew that A24 were coming to watch the film, we’re like, “There’s no way they’re going to freaking bite. It’s A24.”
Michael Phillipou: It was a joke that we always made on set and always made when we were editing the film like, “That’s not very A24 of you to be lingering on that shot. A24 would do it like this.” We would make jokes about it, but we never would’ve thought that they’d actually be interested in the film.
Danny Phillipou: Then, they came and introduced themselves to us.
Michael Phillipou: We were sitting in the room and they were opposite us saying, “We’re A24 and this is why we think we’re right for your film.” We’re like, “Oh, my gosh.”
Danny Phillipou: “We know who you are.”
Michael Phillipou: We love them so much. I’m wearing A24 pants right now.
Danny Phillipou: He’s a fanboy.
Michael Phillipou: I’m a fanboy.
Danny Phillipou: Then, there’s a video that we put on our YouTube channel called We Made A Horror Film. It shows us reacting to when we got picked up by A24.
Michael Phillipou: A literal dream, I couldn’t think of a better studio.
Danny Phillipou: Lots of tears, lots of tears, we feel so honored and scared, but honored.
Michael Phillipou: Unworthy.
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