Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, ‘Heretic’

0:13Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. For today's show, I speak with Scott Back and Brian Woods, directors of psychological thriller Heretic, featuring Hugh Grant. The film is a great discussion about religion itself. It's a must-see. Let's have a listen to my conversation with them.

0:34Wow! No, you read more than we do. No, seriously, Mr. Reed. Mr. Reed. Well, ladies, I think it is time. Time for what? Time for enlightenment. Scott Beck and Brian Woods, first of all, a pleasure talking to you guys, a big fan here. And a question, you know, to both of you, whoever wants to start. I mean, what I really loved about Heretic is it's very cerebral. I think it brought something different to horror, especially in the last two, three years. I mean, there's been great films, But I think I love how talky it is. I don't know if I can use that word in a way. So tell us a bit more, because of course you guys wrote the script for it as well.

1:17Thanks for saying that. First of all, that's really sweet. We kind of missed this era of movie going. It's weird. When we were young in school, young kids trying to make movies, it's like the movies that came out every week. One week it would be Memento, and then it would be Donnie Darko, and Fight Club, and Mulholland Drive. these very cerebral movies. And those were like the cool big movies of the year. And it seems like that whole brain teaser subgenre has disappeared. So how you're describing Heretic, I'm not saying we're quite in that category because we're a bit of a horror thriller, but we definitely have a nostalgia and a deep love for those kind of brain teaser puzzle box movies.

2:01And really the film we hope is a conversation about religion. It's a conversation about a very divisive, difficult, dangerous topic. And, you know, there's really no better genre than the horror genre to talk about taboo things. And we wanted to kind of express our anxieties, our fears about death. What happens when you die? Is there an afterlife? Is there not an afterlife? Either way to Scott and I, who are easy scares, either way it's scary. and try to attempt to put that in an entertaining cinematic narrative. Welcome. We need to return to the church. If you are ready to leave, you'll have to exit through the back of my house.

2:44So which door? It's a simple choice, but it should not be made simply. And there are no easy answers, I mean, when it comes to religion. And I think the film portrays that very well. And I was reading the film notes. I actually didn't know that the main actress, you know, Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, they actually had some sort of experience with the Mormon church. I mean, was that a coincidence or was that part of the casting as well? Yeah, it was a coincidence in terms of the process of discovering that information. You know, our wide net was really cast to just find the best actors possible to embody these roles.

3:23and throughout the casting process as you see people reading this uh putting themselves on tape and and and then doing callbacks and such chloe and sophie we kept coming back to because there was such a rich authenticity to the way that they were embodying sister pax and sister barns um from what they were wearing to like the cadence of their speech there was um this like nice politeness that they had and we we couldn't shake like is this actually who they are or is it their portrayal of the role? And it felt like it was a merge of the two as soon as we found out their history with the Mormon church and the fact that they grew up in it, they still had friends or family members that were participating.

4:06And throughout, I think the audition process, but certainly during the filming of this, of Heretic, they were using those avenues as resources to make sure that it was as genuine and authentic as possible. And that degree of representation was very important to us. to make sure that we weren't trying to exploit Mormonism. We weren't trying to make a mockery of it. Really, we were trying to get to the heart of who these people would really be in real life. And you really didn't. You mentioned the word mockery. I mean, I think that's quite interesting. I was pleasantly surprised. But let's talk about Mr.

4:41Reed as a character, you know, played amazingly by Hugh Grant. I think for this role, the person needs to be funny as well. And I think that Hugh Grant kind of brings a little bit of that. But I was wondering, were you guys thinking of him when you had the script? Or again, it was kind of a long process to find out the name of the actor for that. It was a process because when we wrote Mr. Reid, we felt like this is, in terms of difficulty of acting for our money and as directors, it felt like it was a 10 out of 10. It felt like it was an extremely tough ask to get somebody who could not only be charming and likable enough to convince the missionaries as well as the audience to come into his house and sit and have a conversation, but also somebody who's funny and can be scary and then can monologue for 10 pages and hold our interest.

5:31It was a very, very narrow list. Script started kind of spreading around town and Hollywood. There were a lot of movie stars who started raising their hands asking to play the role. And that put even more pressure on us to make sure that whoever we asked to come make this movie with us, that they were at the top of their game. we just kept talking about Hugh Grant. We just kept talking about him. In the last 10 years, Hugh has really become, for our money, one of the great character actors in cinema history. He's taking bold swings every single role, whether it's Cloud Atlas, where he plays multiple roles, and you can't even tell he's in the movie.

6:09He disappears so convincingly, all the way to his recent work as an Oompa Loompa and Wonka. It's just like, this is an actor who is constantly trying to do the, you know, the impossible and succeeding. So we were just thrilled. We felt like we could weaponize 30 years of his relationship with an audience, goodwill that he has with the audience and the respect and love they have. But we also felt like we were getting, you know, a great actor at the top of their game. Another thing about Erratic, I mean, the set design that house i mean it's amazing was it really filmed in just one house how did it work because there was so many kind of elements to it you really get into this kind of and it's very scary from the doors you know the basement is a really really good set design oh thank you for saying so i mean we were we're thrilled with um you know our production designers work phil messina we've admired his his collaborations with aronofsky with soderberg um he designed the hunger games uh movies, which also feels like there's an interesting kinship with the gamesmanship that Mr.

7:18Reed has. Yeah, we built basically the entirety of the interior of the set, built the library on risers so the staircase could actually go down into subterranean rooms. So that all felt like one, and there was a reality as soon as you stepped into that set. And the intricacies in which our production designer, Phil, approached it was always through character. Like, How did Mr. Reed create this house? How does it represent, for lack of a better term, the game that he's kind of subjecting these two sister missionaries to? How does it showcase his intelligence, but also have a evolution to it, where you walk into the house and you feel the safety of the lights and the wallpaper and the trinkets that are placed around to basically disarm whoever walks in there.

8:03But as you go deeper into the house, you feel the danger of his intellect and his research. And it goes to very raw places with the continuation of the journey as you go deeper into the house. All of these things were considered through the lens of character, which to us is, you know, one of the brilliant things about Phil and one of the really important things that we wanted to make sure we echoed because it would create a, hopefully a richness to Mr. Reed. From now on, we challenge you. For the rest of your lives, there will be before you chose and there will be after. Ladies, verbally acknowledge, please.

8:44All I can say, I'm never going to have a blueberry candle anymore. But guys, one question about you. You've been working together, you know, for years. What does each of you kind of bring for a production? Does it change depending on the film? Or, I don't know, perhaps Scott has a specific role all the time and Brian won. Or how is the process of collaboration between you two? I think, you know, we've always considered ourselves both mediocre at everything. So it takes two of us to do something interesting. So we do everything together. We write together. We direct together. We talk to the actors together.

9:19We communicate with our crew. We storyboard together. But our process is one of competition. We are competing with each other. You know, when I write something, if I write five pages, Scott's my first audience. I want to really impress Scott. I want him to like what I've written. More often than not, he'll like it, but it could be better. What if you tried this? What if you tried that? And then Scott will rewrite my material. And Scott's my favorite writer in Hollywood. So I'm excited to read his five pages. And then I'm going to go, oh yeah, that was good. But what if we tried this? And that's our process.

9:55That's our process with editing and storyboarding. We're always trying to push each other to do a little bit better and pressure test the material. And also, you know, we've just known each other since we were little kids. You know, we love all the same movies and have all the same, very similar life experience. It's nice to have that well, somebody that you can talk to and think about big ideas, especially in a movie like Heretic, which is entirely a conversation. This movie might as well be the conversation that Scott and I have about religion with each other on a regular basis. Yeah, there's really not a task that gets delegated.

10:31And that's the fun of it. Like Brian and I are able to challenge each other on every single level of filmmaking start to finish. And it does create like a sense of solidarity, especially once you're finally working with other collaborators. We feel like we pressure tested things with each other as the first audience and become thoughtful, both intellectually and creatively about the decisions we're making. And then you get to add another voice into it. But we've already created that unified bond of what we believe be one of the considerations and then expand upon that with each of our collaborators.

11:01My final question to both of you, I wonder if you could give me a few words about the state of horror in 2024. Because I don't know, maybe from my perception, I do think that it's going through such a great phase when it comes to the box office. Even, you know, come award season, you know, they're talked there. How do you see? Do you generally feel that finally is respected? I mean, we all loved horror forever, but now it's, I think, such an important genre for Hollywood. Yeah, I mean, there was kind of, it felt like there was a renaissance. I look back at, like, maybe like a movie like Get Out or something with the emergence of Jordan Peele.

11:39There felt like there was like, and even maybe earlier than that with A24 and their work with Ari Aster and Hereditary and The Witch with Robert Eggers. There's like, there was this kind of idea of, even though this term is problematic for other reasons, but this feeling of like elevated horror, this feeling of like the emergence of the art house with the kind of big box popcorn blockbuster and those two things coming together. This year to me feels like an extension of that. And it feels like it's been a really strong year. Long Legs, The Substance, The Omen remake. There's been a lot of, and even like smaller indie films, like Late Night with the Devil.

12:25Oddity is another one. Oddity and Violent Nature. There's just been a lot of really interesting work. And I think it's coming from two places. It's coming from a place of the audience being excited and being there for those movies and showing up for the genre. And that creates opportunities. And then I also think it's just the state of the world is you could say, we're kind of in scary times, certainly in the States. We've got, you know, a big election coming up that people on both sides of the political aisle have a lot of anxiety about the future of the world. And I know Scott and I have a lot of anxiety about how religion intersects with our culture and how religion, you know, creates ways that we live our lives with laws and how we interact in the world.

13:16It has a lot of control over us. And so I think attempting, I think the genre is certainly heretic, is responding to these anxieties that are in the world right now. So you have to go dune in order to go hoot. I beg your pardon. The only way out is through. Is this the game? High five.

13:45Thank you very much, Scott Beck and Brian Woods. Heretic is out in the cinemas, and the show was edited by Elliot Greenfield, and I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco.

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