The twin brothers admit there was pressure to quickly make a follow-up to breakout hit 'Talk to Me,' but knew it'd always be an option in the future.
Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou arrive at A24's Bring Her Back Los Angeles Premiere at BeyondFest on May 15, 2025 at the Aero Theater in Los Angeles. Their feature directorial debut achieved critical and commercial success, grossing nearly $92 million against a $4.
Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou arrive at A24's Bring Her Back Los Angeles Premiere at BeyondFest on May 15, 2025 at the Aero Theater in Los Angeles.. Their feature directorial debut achieved critical and commercial success, grossing nearly $92 million against a $4.25 million budget. The former YouTubers behindnot only received compliments from industry heavyweights such as Peter Jackson, Jordan Peele and Ari Aster, but they also booked general meetings all over town, including one with Marvel Studios. Thus, the question of how to follow up their smash hit became even more consequential.would always be an option at their disposal, the Philippous decided to use their newfound cachet to make their other original horror movie. Their pivot garnered A24’s blessing, but financiers were less enthused.'Bring Her Back' Review: Sally Hawkins Is a Haunted Mother in Philippou Brothers' Disturbing and Melancholic Follow-Up to 'Talk to Me']. Is it okay if I make this one?’ So A24 was on board, and they allowed us to.”always felt like it would just be capitalizing on hype, as opposed to what’s the right story we want to tell next. We needed a break from’ foster mother character, Laura, provides sanctuary to a newly orphaned brother and sister, Andy and Piper , the latter of whom is partially sighted. Slowly but surely, Andy begins to recognize some sinister happenings within Laura’s home, and he’s hard-pressed to communicate his findings to Piper given her impairment and Laura’s interference.“He was a very close family friend, and he passed away at the beginning of pre-production. It was so out of nowhere, and it changed the way some of the scenes played as well,” Michael Philippou says. “When you’re dealing with , you almost try to close yourself off from it, but then it comes out in different ways while you’re shooting. So that went into the film in a strange way.”“We made a promise to each other that whatever we make in the future, even if it’s just a voice in the background, she’s going to be involved in some way,” Danny Philippou says. “Her head is actually cut out of the movie; you just see her arm. But she came on set, and she supported us, and we love her to death for it.”, the brothers Philippou have written two different versions of the sequel, one that is directly connected to its predecessor, and another that’s more of a “sidequel.” Both stories are centered on new characters. “One is continuing the story exactly on, and then another one is focusing on a new set of characters,” Danny Philippou shares. “We’ve written two sets of different characters in two different worlds that focus on two different themes.”There was this weird expectation where everyone was like, “The next one needs to be bigger and crazier. You need to expand.” But the story that I actually wanted to tell was smaller and more intimate. And because we’d written the script and the character felt so evolved, it seemed like would always be hanging over my shoulder. If I went onto something else, I would only be thinking about this thing. We were going through a bit of grief at the time, and I was like, “I’m still not finished with that subject. This feels right.” So it was really hard to turn down some of the other stuff, and we had some amazing opportunities , you almost try to close yourself off from it, but then it comes out in different ways while you’re shooting. Once the train is rolling on a movie, there’s no stopping it, so that went into the film in a strange way. in the States until a few creative sacrifices became a dealbreaker. Did you have full creative freedom from the start onWell, what’s so amazing about A24 as a company is that they are filmmaker-first. It’s not filmmaking by committee where everybody puts in these notes, saying, “Oh, you have to do this, you have to change this, you have to explain this.” They really let us drive it. They were there as a sounding board when we wanted them to be, and they were also as hands-off as we wanted them to be. So we got really lucky with them as a company.I would say they are. There’s a mixed media thing that we’re working on at the moment, and it helps show the tie-in a little bit. So it’s not overtly shown in the film, but I would say yes.’s Mia both take major risks to reconnect with their lost loved ones, and they both have chipped nail polish as well.I love tracking a character’s mental state by the state of their fingernails. I’m obsessed with that, and I love showing it so much. I also want to find different ways to convey it as well. We wanted Laura to feel like a dying leaf, and that’s shown with her wardrobe, from those oranges and ending with the browns. There’s green in the flashback. Downstairs, she’s presenting herself as fun and bubbly, and so the greens are out there. But when she’s in her bedroom, it’s more deteriorated, and death is surrounding her. So it’s always finding fun visual motifs to tie the characters together.But I do wonder what it is about characters like that we’re drawn to. This is a strange story, and it’s a complete sidestep. But I once went walking with my little dog, and I went around this bush so he didn’t know where I was. But he could still hear my voice, and instead of going around the bush, he went straight through it in the mud and everything because all he wanted to do was get to me. And that’s what these characters do. All Laura wants is her daughter back, and nothing else matters. She just needs to be reconnected with her daughter, and she’s doing these horrible things and spiraling out of control. She’s lost her sanity to this grief.Yeah, Laura has a different relationship to death than a lot of people. She views it in a different way. It’s not the end to her. She also views funerals as a celebration of life.Greek Orthodox funerals have open caskets, and they ask you to kiss the corpse on the head, which was always something that bothered me as a kid. doesn’t have to go up to the coffin or look at the corpse, but Laura, as smart as she is, understands the psychology of people, especially young people. She’s like, “I can help damage here. I can tap into something here.” So putting all of those uncomfortable real-life experiences in a film always feels like you’re exorcising those demons.star Sophie Wilde would become your good luck charm à la Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell or James Wan/Patrick Wilson. And you didNo, she promised us! We made a promise to each other that whatever we make in the future, even if it’s just a voice in the background, she’s going to be involved in some way. Her head is actually cut out of the movie; you just see her arm. But she came on set, and she supported us, and we love her to death for it. I know the timing didn’t work out this way, but I love the idea that Sally Hawkins traded Paddington for the brothers Philippou. She went from playing the world’s greatest foster mother in the most wholesome franchise to the most deranged foster mother imaginable. She plays all of her characters so differently. She feels like a different person every time. I was like, “What if she brought those qualities to this version of a mother?” That fascinated me and excited me. She does have that natural quality about her, and that’s what Laura was before this tragedy. As a child psychologist, she helped children. So for her to use these skills that she has tohelp someone but to break them, it’s dark, and the mask that she has as this helpful lady is fascinating. Sally just knocked it out of the park.After she read the script, they rang us up and were like, “Sally really loves the script. She wants to talk.” And I could not believe it. I was like, “But it’s a genre film,” and she didn’t even look at it in that way. She was like, “I didn’t read it as a genre film. I was just really connected to Laura as a character.” She’s amazing.No, none of her other films ever really came up when we were talking about this. We broke down each of the scenes together, and we either talked about different elements of people that we know or personal experiences that we’ve had. So Paddington never really came up at all. No, it didn’t. She does this whole process of getting into character so that there’s no strings attached to anything else. She wants to become just this character, and she puts herself in that world. If she was bringing any of that, it would throw this character off in some way. She focuses on this person and this world, and she fully embodies it. She went shopping as the character, and she brought stuff to dress Laura’s house. She was like, “Oh, this is what Laura would buy.” She really put herself into this amazing character. She would spend days in character, acting out scenes that aren’t in the movie as well. There’s also a sense of history between Laura and Wendy . They went out and hung out together, and we would give prompts, like, “Oh, Wendy has got a gambling addiction. Let’s talk about that.” They would then go along with that and play with it. And even though that specific scene is not on screen, they still have that sense of history and familiarity with each other.It was tricky to get him on that one. This one came from reading the script and connecting with Andy. He knew people like Andy, and so he could put himself into Andy’s shoes. , there’s this inherent darkness that’s either in him or in the way that he plays things. There’s just a darker aspect about him, and I knew that he’d be able to play this damaged character in an authentic, subtle way. So Billy just understood it and was able to portray it in a real way. He’s awesome.Piper being partially sighted means she has to rely on the descriptions of people around her, and so you create an interesting dynamic where she has to determine whose account she can trust. She was based on a friend’s kid sister?Yeah, our friend’s little sister is non-sighted. She wanted to go and catch the bus for the first time , but her parents were a bit worried about her doing it. I found that dilemma to be so interesting from every perspective, and while talking to her, I asked her what she thinks seeing would be like. And she said, “I’m glad that I can’t see because I don’t have to see the ugly things in the world.” It was such a poignant statement that it became the theme for the entire film. When you talk to people like that or you cast authentically, they’re able to bring a perspective that you’ve never seen before on camera. They can be as personal as possible, and they can make it feel as real and built-out as possible. That’s why I love working with young talent, or people that haven’t been on camera before, because they’re not pretending. There’s something raw about their performances.is the latest example by way of, “We can bring her back.” How many different ways did you try to incorporate it? That felt like the right time to say it. The whole film is about truth and lies, and what you see and what you don’t see. When there’s nothing else to hide behind, you tell the truth. All of that stuff really did stem from non-sighted sister not wanting to see the ugly parts of the world. It was a through-line through everything, such as Andy not allowing Piper to see the goodThey’re not the exact same shape, but did you choose the location for Laura’s house because the shape of the pool is similar to her tattoo?Yeah, it was all about finding a location where the pool was at the heart of the house. The pool shed could then be sort of like the soul. We wanted somewhere where the pool could be seen through every window or vantage point. We built the pool shed at the location of the house, and it was in this valley where the sun sets earlier. So there would be shade over the entire backyard, and we could do those rain sequences without having to try and block out the sun. It was the perfect location.We re-tiled the pool with the circle in the center, but that was the house. We’re so lucky we found it. Steven Soderbergh uses the pseudonyms Peter Andrews and Mary Ann Bernard when he serves as his own DP and editor. Are Peter Andrews and Mary Ann Bernard friends with your “co-writer” Bill Hinzman?I cannot collaborate with Michael on a writing level. I could never write a script with Michael. Bill Hinzman has been around for a long time. He was inI’ll be happy to embrace it, but I’m not that smart. Hinzman has such a deeper understanding of story. If you say a film, he’ll break down every aspect of it. We can write scenes and moments of a movie, but he can create a structure and say, “This is what it looks like in this format.” He just understands things that I wish I could.Who knows? I love that Bill Hinzman has become this question of, “Who is Bill Hinzman?” That’s awesome.We’ve got two versions of the script. We’ve written two sets of different characters in two different worlds that focus on two different themes. It’s about stepping away from it for enough time so that we can come back into it really reinvigorated and with a really fresh perspective. When we submitted, and that was going to be the next project, but I was like, “I really, really want to make this one. Is it okay if I make this one?” So A24 was on board, and they allowed us to.always felt like it would just be capitalizing on hype, as opposed to what’s the right story we want to tell next. We needed a break from, so we can revisit it with fresh eyes and make sure that it works as its own story, without just going straight into it.Yeah, one is continuing the story exactly on, and then another one is focusing on a new set of characters.‘Jane Austen Wrecked My Life’ Review: A Writer Confronts the Terrors of Romance and a Blank Page in Laura Piani’s Charming Debut‘Awards Chatter’ Pod: Sissy Spacek on Her J.Law Collab ‘Die My Love,’ the ‘New Hollywood’ of the ’70s and the Penises in ‘Dying for Sex’. 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