Curry Barker On Obsession: An Interview Special

0:14Hello Pod, I'm Chris Hewitt and welcome to an Empire Podcast spoiler special interview special. Obsession, the debut film by Curry Barker, is everyone's new obsession. A low, low, low budget indie horror about a man who makes a magical wish for the girl of his dreams to love him more than anybody else in the world with disastrous consequences. It has become a huge success around the world since it opened about six weeks ago. Packing them in with incredible regularity at the cinema, the film has crossed both the$200 million and$300 million marks at the US and global box office respectively. And it's only just beginning to slow down a bit, making it one of the most, if not the most, profitable movies of all time.

1:05But more than that, it's truly captured the public imagination. Chances are, if you've seen Obsession, you have become obsessed with Obsession. And we are no exception. We were unable to talk to Barker when Obsession came out because he was hard at work on his second feature, Anything But Ghosts. But we cracked open a bunch of one-wish willows and eventually, after a string of frankly terrifying and horrific incidents I don't want to talk about, our wish came true without disastrous consequences as a window opened in Barker's schedule last week. So our Ben Travis sat down with Barker on Zoom before the news broke, of course, that he signed a mega deal with Universal to direct his third movie and talked with him about the phenomenal success of the film and some of the key moments in the movie as well.

1:55Yes, we're heading into spoiler territory here, folks. So please do not listen to this unless you've already seen Obsession. So here it is, Curry Barker talking to Ben Travis. Enjoy. A huge welcome to the director of Obsession, Curry Barker. How are you doing, man? Good. How are you? I'm great. I saw this film a couple of weeks ago now and it is burned in my brain. I can't even imagine what the last month or so has been for you. Start to bring me into where you've been at for the last couple of weeks. yeah um right now i'm i'm uh i'm trying to yeah it's it's overwhelming and so sometimes i have to just turn my phone off or but it's it's so it's so um crazy and and uh it's it's it's doing things that nobody it's almost like hey i didn't ask for this like i just wanted it to be uh you know a decently successful movie i didn't know it was going to be breaking every record and whatever and just um yeah it's a lot to uh live up to and so that that can kind of start to get scary but i'm just focusing on my next film and trying to keep my head down and uh and and um yeah we're working like you know i i i'm in my room and just trying to pretend like nothing else matters you know at the same time as much as you're trying to kind of shield yourself a bit stuff must be making its way to you who has got in contact to say i love the film have there been any people who are like heroes of yours who have dropped you a line and said holy shit man yeah yeah 100 percent um all my favorite people have pretty much reached out at this point um bill hater uh um zach crager ari aster um steven spielberg paul thomas anderson quentin tarantino nathan fielder um tim robinson who i love uh yeah i mean just the list just goes on and on i mean i there there's uh even even um taron egerton who plays uh egzy and kingsman and and elton john like big fan i'm a big fan of that guy and he he sent me this long voice message about how much he loved the film and it's like it's insane man he went beast mode this year in apex he went uh a bit curry barker there yeah uh also you mentioned uh nathan fielder and um uh tim robinson a lot of your films uh even your work obviously before obsession it feels like there's a lot to do with social tensions and social boundaries.

4:45I can imagine what a combination between your horror instincts and their propensity for poking at the edges of social interactions could result in. Yeah, yeah. I love their work. I would love to collaborate with them. I don't know in what capacity or what that looks like, but I would love to. Yeah. so what was the moment when you realized that obsession was really getting this kind of insane level of traction because it it started high anyway but it was that gravity defying thing that basically very very very few films get which is the numbers are climbing each week what was the moment where you started to think oh wait something is happening here that's not normal uh i mean yeah they you know the the focus features team and and all the people around me were very good at managing my expectations you know doing the thing that you're supposed to do with directors which is tell them that that it's okay and that um no matter what the numbers are don't worry it doesn't matter and so i was i was kind of given the lowest version of what this movie could do and kind of been told like, this is what's going to happen.

5:59The second weekend it's going to drop and that's just normal. And it's, um, so we were looking at like eight or 9 million the first weekend as a projection. And, and so even just the first weekend when it hit 17 million, everyone was freaking out and was like, Curry, this is crazy. Um, and I was like, and me, like who wasn't really that educated. I'm, I'm, I'm not like, I never really, followed box office numbers or stuff so i wasn't like educated enough to know like what's good and what's not good now i now i've educated myself quite a bit but um i was like oh is 17 like great 17 bad and they're like dude it's insane and so um the next weekend i i was just ready i was ready for it to drop i was ready for it to be you know 10 or 15 or whatever and it just it went to like 26 um or something and and i just was i couldn't believe it i just couldn't believe it and and i had to i had to like i started asking chat gbd like what does this mean and like you know trying to figure out um it's it's just it's unbelievable and and and and really the the the cultural impact has been what's really shocking to me.

7:22Me and Cooper used to make videos that would parody things in pop culture. We made a talk to me video that blew up. So to see other creators doing that for my movie is really surreal. It really struck me that the One Wish Willow element of the film, obviously it's a plot device, but also it does feel like an incredibly strong piece of iconography that already has a bit of a life outside of the film when you were coming up with even just the name of it it's really hooky right one wish willow and how simplistic it is that it's a twig and you snap it and you snap and then the wish happens um down to the packaging which i understand there's a family connection in creating that packaging did you know in putting that element of the film together that you were creating like a new little piece of horror iconography there the thing is my mind only thinks i think it's something to my benefit i'm kind of um i think like as a dreamer and as a uh as a visionary storyteller i always um dream big i've i've done it my whole life i've always seen the biggest version of a thing.

8:40So yeah, when I was making the One Witch Willow, I saw the version of it that became a huge cultural phenomenon. I was like, dude, what if the One Witch Willow becomes this thing that people in pop culture, it becomes a thing. Doesn't mean I actually thought that that was going to happen, right? But of course, I saw what I wanted it to be and and um same thing with anything but ghosts uh you know i'm i'm seeing it and i'm thinking what if what if this is the next ghostbusters what if this is the next cultural uh these two characters are people dress up as this for halloween and like that's what i want for for all the things that i do and and there's kind of an iconicness to the things i want to create um but no i mean you just you couldn't anticipate it to actually happen this way if there's such thing as manifestation I think I guess it works because I you know I mean I will confess I can't even remember the context but I have messaged on the Empire WhatsApp some like weird film news came up and I said right who used the one wish willow to wish for this yeah yeah feels like it's already taking on a life of its own right but in that sense I mean there's a gravitational pull to as I said the numbers going up and up what do you think is causing people to rush out what for you do you think is the success of the film the thing that is making people flock to see it honestly um i can only speak for myself and i can only speak for what makes me go see movies and maybe that's why it's successful is because i only ever made this movie for really me like i always think about the audience i'm constantly thinking about what is the audience going to think about this are they going to understand this is this going to make sense but I'm only thinking about if I was the audience member, like if I was.

10:33And so when I go rush to see a movie, it's because my friends have told me that there's some crazy thing that happens. You have to see this in the theater. And so if I think about why people are going to see it, it's the same reason that I designed, I kind of designed for people to want to maybe go see it because when I was making that like movies that made me excited are like Joker or, um, the invisible man or hereditary or like these movies where people come home and they say, this movie's crazy. And there's something crazy that happens in it that you have to see, go watch this film. And I go see it.

11:14And then I, I weapons, like, I was like, you have to, I told my friends, I was like, dude, weapons is good. You have to go see it. And you end up going and seeing it a couple, couple times because you want to bring a different friend to see it, or you want to see the reaction and so i think that's what's happening um people want to bring their friends people want to see it with their different friends and um it's it and there's something catchy about uh the cultural it's kind of becoming a meme and like you almost feel left out if you haven't seen it like but these are all things that you can't possibly anticipate these are just things that are happening um that are really helping the film that it's you know so i mean there are so many incredible sequences in the film i think there are many scenes that are causing people to flock out but if there's one that stands out to me in the screening that i was in which was like a paid public screening it's the sarah death scene yeah there was a guy on the row behind me who was literally yelling oh my god oh my god oh my god he was like the vibe in the cinema was absolutely electric have you seen that sequence with an audience have you sat oh yeah yeah i mean i i saw it at the festivals i saw it at the special screenings but i also i've i've come i've gone in the wild and i put put a hat on some sunglasses i walk um and i'll try to see a couple of them um in the wild so yeah i mean it's it's always fun too and i'm kind of enjoying this because it's going to go like it's never it's not going to be in theaters forever so i might i might have to just do it one more time you know before it's gone forever so i mean i think some of the genius of that moment is and what's so incredible in the way you craft it is you know it's coming you know the internal logic of the film the emotional logic of the film this lovely happy moment can't last yeah i feel like you know we know it's coming and so there is an incredible build-up and when it does kickoff it has to go hard and you went so hard in that moment was that your thought process behind it that if if we've got to do this we have to do like the most 100 version of that head being smashed into the brick on the wheel yeah like i think i watch horror movies and i'm like like when i'm when i'm watching horror movies i'm like oh my god like i want something crazy to happen right now like i'm watching a horror movie and i'm enjoying it for whatever it's worth But I'm like, what if the directors had something crazy happen right now?

13:44Like, what if this like mid sentence, this thing just, you know, and so that's kind of what I wanted to do. I was like, we're having a chill moment here. And yeah, we all know Nikki's coming. But what if it's not just like she knocks on the window and it's like, hello, like what if something just crazy happens? And so I wanted it to be fast. I wanted it to be in your face. That's kind of what. Yeah, that's kind of what I was going for. can i tell you though in the moment that was like the major highlight of the film for me but the thing that stuck with me that honestly i feel queasy just thinking about is the cat salad it's the visual of the like chunks of yeah what what were those chunks what what did you make the chunks of cat out of the art department did it but i um vivian put it together but i think um what was it she said it was uh i think it was either it wasn't it was it was like raw it wasn't chicken or it was some sort of weird meat i know for a fact that it was some something weird um and it did look very very we just got like the way it laid and the way that it um it almost it looked cat i don't know how but it looked cat i think we got lucky because we were like oh my god like i remember there was a time when we were setting up that shot and um with a close-up of the meat and like i remember like vivian was like kind of messing with it i was like don't touch it i was like stop touching it it looks so disturbing right now i do not touch the meat roll the cameras and it was like just the perfect way that it laid because i actually feel like that meat would look pretty normal at a different angle it just was yeah there was a weird like coloration to it that you wouldn't see on anything that you would actually want to eat so yeah yeah yeah i mean the other thing in terms of this just being like a really exciting and satisfying audience experience the domino effect of that ending is like perfect but the whole situation of you know bear goes to kill himself and then crucially tries to stop it which i think is a really interesting part in his character journey then nikki making her wish then bear dying because of the pills that breaking nikki's spell what was the moment that you realized in the writing and the planning stages like oh these plot points like dovetail perfectly if you line these dominoes up and you hit this one boom boom boom boom boom there we go we have such a clean ending yeah um it kind of came to me like um a gene you know you never know how to end a movie ending a movie is the hardest part and um it just kind of occurred to me that um bear's already gone on this journey to get his friend ian to make a wish on his behalf what's the most logical thing he would do next he would probably well logically he'd probably go to like a homeless person on the side of the road and maybe be like i need you to say these random words and i need you to break this stick you know like probably but um the movie was it didn't need that but so so so what's the next logical thing he goes back to nikki and he's going to make her maybe possibly like make a wish and say look we can love each other but we can do it for real maybe you can wish that um and and thinking that maybe she would do it for him since she loves him so much um but then you have to think about what's the what's the thing that nikki would actually wish for you know she would probably wish that bear loved her back like that's just the logical thing that that nikki would wish for and so um it just happened to make logical sense and it was it just dude i don't know i have to put myself back where i was when i wrote it but i remember being very excited about the ending because it all came full circle and you're you're like oh my god and then she makes a wish that he loves him and then and then um oh and and by the way that whole like dying because the wish thing that is something i discovered later like way later what in terms of what the only way to stop the wish is to die or something yeah yeah yeah like i had written probably three or four drafts of the script and then i was like oh my gosh like maybe he when he dies she like pops out of her body or and so originally that never was going to happen she was just gonna be very upset that he died um and then kill herself because it was gonna be like a romeo and juliet kind of ending so a lot of things had to happen from for that to all fall into place and be the cool ending that it is yeah it feels like um knowing some of your previous work as well what's so exciting to see is that there are things that feels that you sort of tested out in previous works and then were able to apply on a bigger canvas here i'm thinking of the the creepy walk in the chair uh that there is sort of a an echo of that in some of the ways that nikki moves in this film um what was uh what was something that was totally new for you this time what was something that you'd never had the chance to do and what were things that you'd felt you'd learned on previous things that you were like oh there's a great way to like supersize that in a feature um oh yeah um i've never well i never i've never had a chance to like work with an entire crew like crew of people or or even like the party scene was pretty big deal for me because um it's it's pretty intimidating for your first film i mean people have done crazier things for their first films.

19:28I mean, as far as first films go, I mean, Hereditary was Ari Aster's first feature film. That movie is really insane. But I mean, doing a party scene is really nerve-wracking. There's so many angles you can get. There's so much coverage you could try to get if you want. So many different perspectives you can shoot at. And I think I just had to kind of be reminded that the only perspectives that matter are the characters that we're following, you know? And so that was it was a really good experience to learn that. You mentioned before that one of the people who got in touch with you was Steven Spielberg.

20:09I'm kind of in a Spielberg zone at the moment because Disclosure Day just came out. I've been doing watching a lot of Spielberg stuff. I don't know if anyone's mentioned this to you, Curry, but you're you're 26 years old. I don't know if that's come up at all in the last couple of weeks for you. I just watched for the first time the Sugarland Express, which was Spielberg's first official film post-Duel. He was 26 when he made that. And he'd obviously come up through directing episodes of Columbo and then making Duel for TV. And you can feel in Sugarland Express that he knows exactly what he's doing.

20:43He knows exactly what he wants. And I just, this is more just a noodley thought than anything else. But it strikes me that the pipeline that you've come through of what you've done with That's a Bad Idea, with The Chair, with Milk and Cereal, that then by the time you get to Obsession, I think it's so clear in Obsession that you know exactly what you want. You have such a vision for what you want to do. Is that something? I don't know. How does any of that land with you? Sorry, this is not a question. It's a noodley thought. what's no no I love it um yeah I think like it's kind of funny because people keep saying that me and Kane Parsons are like they'll say Curry Barker was 26 when he directed Obsession that's not true at all I was 20 I was like 24 turning 25 right like you know what I'm saying like I'm 26 right now I'm 26 right now I wasn't people age you know I was 25 when I did Obsession And I was 23 when I wrote it.

21:38So, but I mean, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's so cool to, to, I remember being very nervous about my age. Cause I'm like everyone, when you're 20, you feel like you're old. And then when you're 20, 30, you feel like you're old, you know, whatever. But like, and then when you're 40, you look back at being 30 and think I was so young. Right. so yeah I remember kind of being like looking up to Steven Spielberg and being like oh man I he directed blah blah blah when he was 27 like oh my gosh I won't like I hope I can do that like um that's so impressive and uh it's it's cool to to to feel like I'm starting my career at a at a time that the greats kind of all did too you know that um so that i it makes me feel like i might have a long career ahead of me you know um in a cool way so but i still yeah i mean i don't know if that answers your question it was a great answer to something that wasn't even really a question i guess on that from the who are your like director heroes who do you look at and think, look, if my career panned out in a similar way, or they started with this and then they did big films, or they did small films, or they stayed independent.

23:03Whose career do you admire in that sense? I think Steven Spielberg's really cool because he never didn't do blockbusters. It's a really interesting career that he has because he never did indie films. He did blockbusters, but it never felt like a studio movie. it felt like a it always felt like a singular vision for a movie which is really really cool um i think i'm kind of i don't think i'll ever do a movie for the same budget that i did obsession unless i'm unless i'm producing it or or um i'm i'm getting involved in a way that's championing another filmmaker and i'm kind of stepping back uh then i i could see myself maybe being a finance or even for a film that had the budget of obsession.

23:58But I don't want to limit myself ever again with money being an obstacle. I want to be able to make the films I want to make. But I also don't want the money to ruin the vision because I know that sometimes just having unlimited – just because you can doesn't mean you should. And I think hiding your monster – and I want to use the same techniques of storytelling that I have. it so yeah that's one thing i'm scared of is like money changing my vision you know you were so preoccupied with whether you could that you didn't stop to think if you should steven spielberg jurassic park uh it all comes full circle i mean you've already made your next film anything but ghosts steven spielberg's next film after sugarland express was was jaws which way are you heading do you do you see a jaws in your future something of that like like scale and sort of big summer movie because obsessions kind of become the movie of the summer but i'm i can't imagine it was ever dreamt that way right right that's a great question i mean this next movie anything but ghosts is so different than obsession and i think people will see a different side of me in this one that's it feels it's got heart to it it's more of a um a coming of age uh buddy comedy film that turns horror and so um it's just it's just so different and like you know for example they they operate out of their garage and um there it's got this summer blockbuster-y feel to it that that obsession doesn't really have um and so i think i think people will will see something different there and i'm excited to to share that with the world uh but i'm also i'm also like excited to discover what I'm doing next and after that.

25:48Do you see yourself making something on the level of Jaws? Do you see yourself moving in a blockbuster-y summer movie direction? Obviously we've spoken a lot about Spielberg but he moves in and out of big dramas but big spectacles, like really intense thrill rides. I mean my films just are in nature very grounded and I almost... tend to write very um stories that take place in one location is kind of like my bread and butter anyway but no i i think eventually i would love to to break out and do something that that's on like like like raiders of the lost ark or or something pretty crazy um like indiana jones feels like such an ip now but that you think about it that was an original film at one point that was like an original idea that did steven spielberg write that uh george lucas wrote it so there was like a lucas uh and spielberg collaboration uh i think lawrence casden as well maybe wrote on that uh so it was like a whole generation of just guys who all had the same reference points and uh all loved those serials and yeah made something new out of the stuff that they loved growing up yeah i'd love to i know like it's almost a trope for like filmmakers to like change their genre and do a western but i'd love to do a western one day or something crazy you know something really cool that um so yeah i mean yeah you never know i'd love to see one day what a curry barker western ends up being yeah um but for now thank you so much for your time it's been great to speak to you and um huge congratulations on the success of the film very excited for anything but ghosts thanks ben i really appreciate it Alright, that was Kerry Barker talking to Ben Travis about Obsession, folks.

27:36Hope you enjoyed it. And if you're keen to hear Team Empire's take on the movie, that is also available here in our spoiler special feed featuring Helen O 'Hara, Harry Stainer, Mike Munster and Becky Dark waxing all kinds of lyrical about it. And there's plenty more where that came from, with spoilers on the likes of Disclosure Day, Toy Story 5 and Supergirl coming up soon. As ever, thanks for subscribing and supporting us. And please continue to spread the word about these spoiler specials. Just stay away from one-wish willows while doing so, yeah? Okay. Anyway, that's enough from me. Thanks for listening.

28:11See you next time. Bye-bye.