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Oct. 27, 2023 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:10:38
Joe Rogan Experience #2053 - Danny & Michael Philippou
Participants
Main voices
d
danny or michael philippou
01:40:08
j
joe rogan
24:15
Appearances
Clips
j
jamie vernon
00:38
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Speaker Time Text
unidentified
the Joe Rogan experience train by day Joe Rogan podcast by night what's up pleasure to meet you guys nice to meet you too oh my god we're live introduce yourselves to everybody I'm Danny Filippo it's my clone Michael you guys are not clones Oh, well...
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, there's a big difference, isn't there?
Danny acts like we looked...
Well, we're identical twins.
Mirror image twins.
Michael's the dumb twin.
The unreliable twin.
Danny's the arrogant twin.
I wouldn't say that.
unidentified
But, ladies and gentlemen, we're here on the Joe Rogan Experience!
danny or michael philippou
I'm so, like, yeah, like a...
It's very surreal.
I'm fanboying, yeah.
We've got young Jamie over there.
We might pull some things up.
And we're going to talk about DMT and elk meat.
joe rogan
Did you guys prepare for this?
danny or michael philippou
No!
No!
Yeah, we were writing last night.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't know, yeah.
Mike was like, we're going to be in the Joe Rogan podcast.
And all of your guests are really smart.
I feel like people will be dumber by listening to us.
joe rogan
There's a lot of dumb ones too.
Don't worry about it.
danny or michael philippou
Okay.
That'll be the playlist we're in.
joe rogan
So, tell me about you guys, the background.
First of all, how did it come that you made that movie?
danny or michael philippou
Well, we've always wanted to make films, ever since we were little kids.
joe rogan
Is that your first real film?
danny or michael philippou
That was our first proper production.
joe rogan
That fucking movie was awesome.
danny or michael philippou
It was so weird that you posted about it.
How did you hear about it?
joe rogan
I was just flipping through...
I think I was just flipping through the current movies on Apple.
On Apple TV. My daughter loves horror movies.
And so we like to watch horror movies together.
And I was like, let's try this one.
And we watched a preview and she was like, oh, he's good.
And then I watched it and I was like, that is a really good original movie.
danny or michael philippou
Fuck yeah.
joe rogan
It's fucking scary as shit.
danny or michael philippou
Oh man, it's crazy.
joe rogan
And it wasn't like any other movie.
It wasn't like, oh, this is like 28 days later or this is like The Exorcist.
No, it's like very original.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, it's something we've been building towards making a movie forever.
And we've been writing scripts forever as well.
We had a YouTube channel.
So we started off making stuff as little kids.
We've been obsessed since we were seven years old with making stuff.
Even before filming, we'd just draw movie covers and shit like that and pretend we're...
We'd act through a movie and look at the time and act for 90 minutes and then draw the cover.
We were loser kids, yeah.
joe rogan
That's creative.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, I remember even in primary school, they had to bring my mum in.
They're like, we're really concerned about Danny because I would draw the most violent, fucked up, you know, movie covers.
Or just, like, someone getting split in half trying to figure out different ways that I could kill these stick figures or, you know.
Yeah, like, it was like...
And then, like, we had a group of friends around the same age, like, 12, 15 kids...
Same age in the neighbourhood, and we'd do two things together.
We'd beat the shit out of each other, like backyard wrestling, and then we'd make movies.
If our friends wanted to hang out with us, they had to do it.
I feel bad for them.
And then they'd come together and we'd just fuck each other up, and then we'd film movies and stuff.
joe rogan
So you've always been interested in some kind of filming and something, and...
And so you started off with a YouTube channel?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, well, initially we were just making stuff with friends.
We made a TV show.
It was called Tamuffy.
96 episodes.
joe rogan
And where was that?
danny or michael philippou
That was just...
It always says it's a TV show.
It was never on TV. It was on our TV. It was on our TV. We would play it for our friend's older sister, Nelly.
And we would just premiere it for her.
And as we got older, all of our friends were growing out of it, and we're like, why are you still doing this?
It's really immature.
Everyone was growing up, getting jobs, getting girlfriends, and we were still trying to make movies.
Yeah, we'd organise a big weekend with everyone.
But everyone was 18. In Australia, you can go out when you're 18. And we're like, look, guys, we've organised this weekend filming, trying to organise all these people.
And they're like, no, I'm fucking going out.
I'm fucking doing this shit.
And then we had to...
We were doing a media course, like, after high school.
Didn't know what...
Like, oh, let's just pursue this thing.
Even though film industry...
Film isn't a thing in Australia.
So we're just filming stuff.
It's a thing, but it's not...
No one looks at it again.
There's no entertainment scene.
It's not like LA. The first time we went to LA and everyone was talking about scripts, you're like, holy fuck, it's like a real...
It feels like a different world, almost.
Or an impossible job.
Yeah.
Because at school, if you're like, I want to be a filmmaker, teachers are like, what?
You need to be an electrician.
I remember that was one of our teachers.
You should be an electrician or you've got to pick a trade.
Because it just seems impossible.
As a kid, it seems impossible to...
But it was, like, pre-YouTube sort of stuff.
And then, like, we were doing, like...
I was doing, like, just, like, work experience jobs on movies just to get experience.
Like, because no one will turn...
No one will ever turn away, like, a free pair of hands.
And I'd always be like, I'll come on set for free.
Just let me...
I just want to, like...
I want to see everything, how things work.
So I worked with all different departments.
And a lot of people that we worked with, we used on our movie.
Because I remember the ones that were there for a reason.
They're excited to be there.
Versus the ones that were depressed and don't really want to be there.
It's just a paycheck thing.
So I remember certain people, caterers, grips, all from different departments.
And I was like, I'm going to use these people when we do a movie.
joe rogan
Cultivate the good ones.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
On a film set, when it's...
Like, the crew morale is so big.
Like, if you have, like, everyone clashing and working against each other...
Oh, but that being said, I think we did piss off crew a whole bunch of times an hour.
Maybe.
Because it was supposed to be an eight-week shoot.
It turned into a five.
But anyway, you're skipping ahead, man.
Oi, I'm just saying.
But yeah, so we went to...
Wait, before that, so...
We had to finish this series that we did and no one wanted to do it anymore.
Everyone had grown out of it.
So we started just finding different ways to express ourselves.
We could never get a normal job.
So my only paid job I ever did was, yeah, medical trials, checking into hospitals and testing out drugs that weren't on the market yet.
unidentified
Whoa.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
joe rogan
You did that?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, I did that for two years.
joe rogan
What did they test out on you?
danny or michael philippou
I stopped listening.
You know, I was like, whatever.
joe rogan
Just let him try it?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
That would tell me that, like, oh, this could happen, this could happen.
And I was like, just give me whatever.
I don't give a fuck.
Just give me some money.
Danny would have crazy, like, side effects.
Like, he was, like, yellow once.
Yeah, it's like yellow now.
Yeah, yeah.
But he was, like, once he was, like, well, we have ADHD. We have oil shaking.
But Danny was, like, once he was, like, this.
Like...
I went to visit him.
He was doing, like, shaking.
And I was like, you're right.
I was like, yeah, she's a side effect of the drug.
Anyway, it was like muscle tremors all up through my arms, so I just couldn't physically...
Yeah, I just couldn't...
joe rogan
What was that drug?
danny or michael philippou
I literally...
Dude, I did not listen to a...
They would tell me.
They would send all these big pamphlets, and we'd have to sign a bunch of shit, but I would never listen.
I would never know what I was there for.
I would never do this, by the way.
joe rogan
Did you have any concern about doing that?
danny or michael philippou
No, I was more excited to get some cash.
joe rogan
How old were you at the time?
18. Yeah, that's the problem.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
You shouldn't let 18-year-olds make that decision.
unidentified
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, 18 to 20 is when I did it.
Well, it was a way for you to write and meet people, because there's a lot of interesting people that would go through there.
But I just hate injections, so I don't know.
I also did try and get over my fear for injection, because once they administer the drug, they have to get your blood every 15 minutes.
So they'd put the cannulas in your arm, and they'd just keep taking out blood, taking out blood, and just testing whether or not things would go wrong.
joe rogan
What was the worst side effect you got?
danny or michael philippou
He grew a third eye.
I remember they were administering it with a cannula.
It was a drip.
They were dripping the drug in.
And it was really fucking hurting.
And usually it doesn't hurt.
Usually I just take it or they were administering it and I didn't really feel anything.
But it was painful.
And it was hurting.
I was like, oh god.
She's like, are you alright?
I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's okay.
You can keep...
And I was like, oh, fuck, that really drills.
It felt like someone was punching my arm.
joe rogan
Did they miss the vein?
danny or michael philippou
No, no.
It was like, whatever happened was my whole arm went paralyzed.
And I was like, dude, I can't feel my hand.
I can't move my hand.
She's like, all right, well, just squeeze my finger.
She put her finger there.
Tell her to try and squeeze it.
And I'm like, oh, I literally can't do it.
So she said that.
They're like, all right, quickly take the drug out.
And they took the drug out.
And I was just sort of sitting there with a paralyzed arm.
And it probably sat there for like an hour.
And once the drug had worn off, I got my...
joe rogan
And you don't remember what that drug was?
danny or michael philippou
Fuck, I'm so sorry.
I could dig it up my emails probably, but yeah.
joe rogan
How many different drugs are they trying you?
danny or michael philippou
Well, I did it for two, three years, so over ten drugs, I'd say, different things I tried.
It was like, you'd go in there for, like, batches of, like, four.
See, I was doing the work experience on set, but mine was free, so Danny would do the stuff that got the money.
Yeah.
Or that.
Whatever that was.
The longest time I was in hospital for, it could range from three days in hospital to two months.
So, yeah, one time I was in there for two months.
joe rogan
For what?
danny or michael philippou
For the drugs.
joe rogan
So you just stayed in the hospital for two months while they administered drugs?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
And then they pretty much just wait to see what the side effects are going to be.
joe rogan
And you have to sleep in the hospital and stay there?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, you just stay there overnight.
joe rogan
How much do they pay you for something like that?
danny or michael philippou
$150 a day, $120 a day.
Australian, so what is that?
$100 US or something like that.
Less than that, yeah, $90 USD a day.
joe rogan
For months?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, one to two months.
Wait, wait, wait.
No, it is crazy.
Like, there was that famous case, I don't know if it was in where it was, but the patients, because they do it, like, you know, they'll test one person, then half an hour later, test another, then another, right?
And then people started dying off, and, like, then it was, like, going down the line.
Because, like, someone died, half an hour later, they died.
That was, like, a freaking...
Imagine being the last guy, and they go in, they go, look.
Yeah, you're about to fucking die.
Yeah, look.
No, there's this side effect...
joe rogan
How many people died?
danny or michael philippou
Well, I don't know what story specifically this guy's talking about, but the trials that I was checking into, no one died.
The worst one I heard of was they tested on mice before they tested on the humans, and they had to bring everyone back into the trial and say, hey guys, and I heard this from a friend that recommended the trials to me.
He's like, guys, we don't want anyone to worry, but some of the mice have gone blind.
And yeah, so everyone was sort of waiting to see if someone was going to fuck up their sight.
joe rogan
And this was after you'd already gotten the drug?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, well, this is a friend's experience.
Yeah, they'd had the drug and they brought everyone back in like a week later and they said some of the mice have gone blind.
unidentified
Jesus.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
But, you know, what was the best part?
The best part was when...
The blindness was the best part.
No, no, the best part is when the drug goes wrong and then you get to leave early.
Because you don't have to stay for the two months.
Like, this drug's too dangerous.
We're not going to test it.
And then you get paid for the full amount.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
That makes no sense.
The drug goes wrong.
Yeah.
So, like, that one, when they administered it and my whole arm went paralyzed, they realized they couldn't administer that drug to everyone else.
So the trial got called off.
But you got paid for the full month.
joe rogan
No long-term side effects?
danny or michael philippou
No.
Look at him.
I don't know.
I've never really questioned it until you're looking at me like I'm crazy.
Come on, man.
It's just the drug trial.
joe rogan
Well, if you pay attention to drug trials and how many drugs get approved and then pulled because they...
That's just after approval.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
joe rogan
And you're way before approval.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
You're a guinea pig.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, I was a guinea pig.
She was a guinea pig after the guinea pigs.
Yeah.
It's a little bit of a safety net to be like, oh, it's tried on hamsters before.
Yeah.
But yeah, it was pretty dodgy, but it was the only way that I could make money.
No, you could get a normal job.
joe rogan
Yeah, you could have got a normal job.
danny or michael philippou
No, I'm telling you, Joe, I could not get a normal job.
Our minds would never let us do that.
Like, I could never...
I don't know, like...
Focus.
Yeah, focus.
Like, you're always just seeing life through, like, as a movie scene or something like that.
The one job I had, I had two jobs.
One was recycling, like, bottles.
And then the other one was, I was, it was in between the years, the media course.
And I was like, I got, like, a job illegally Like, rolling dirt.
You know, like, before they build a house, they, like, roll dirt.
Yeah, like, flatten the earth.
And I was in that machine on this hill, flattening earth.
And then I was, like, in my...
I was, like, to make time go past, I was, like, in my own, like, imagination world, like, in a movie scene, like, you know.
And I was just, like, playing a movie in my head.
And I was going closer and closer to the edge.
And they started ringing.
Like, they were talking to me on the radio.
Dude, stop.
You're going too far past the...
You know, you've got to go off the edge.
And I rolled the fucking machine.
Oh, Jesus.
But to me it was like exciting.
I was like, oh, something happened.
I feel like that's more dangerous than my drug trials.
No, because if you pay attention, like if you pay attention in your drug trial, you still got to go blind maybe.
Yeah, well, no, no.
You know what I mean?
My thing was like in attention.
It's like that's way safer.
Yeah, but I actually want to check back into a trial now just to try and get some writing done.
Because you can't...
joe rogan
You want to do it again?
danny or michael philippou
I do want to do it again, yeah, yeah.
You just meet interesting people in there.
Like, who are these people that are in that?
joe rogan
They're dumb people that are getting injected with experimental drugs.
Don't do that.
Don't do that again.
danny or michael philippou
I think it's like, you can't go anywhere.
There's no distractions.
You're just in a hospital bed with your laptop, so you have to get some writing down.
joe rogan
Can't you just check yourself into a hotel?
danny or michael philippou
It doesn't work, because you could just walk out.
You can't leave this trial.
Yes, you can.
You'll get fucking shot.
No, you won't really, but yeah.
Look, man, if Joe Rogan tells you not to do it, don't do it.
Write it down.
Don't do it.
joe rogan
Don't do it.
danny or michael philippou
It's advice from Joe.
joe rogan
Are you guys both left in?
danny or michael philippou
No, I'm right-handed.
We're mirror-image twins.
We're mirror-image.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, wait.
I'm left-handed.
Yeah, well, I'm right-handed.
Yeah.
But, yeah, the left-handed is your...
We're split like a...
Because we're mirror-image, but, like, the...
I guess I'm more physical and...
Yeah, I'm like the nerd twin.
Danny's more like the brains.
Like I'll get hit by cars for videos and Danny will record it.
And tell him to go faster.
And every time we did a car hit, we'd have to like, we'd step it up a little bit.
There was one nasty one we did and I was like, because I was like, oh...
I know that if it does, like, half-assed, Daniel would go do it again, so I'm like, oh, let's just do a good...
And usually I have stunt performers for car hits, because usually, before you hit someone in a car, you, like, brake a little bit to, like, dip the bonnet down, and this guy wasn't a stunt driver, and I was like, just do it, and then he hit me, and I was like, whoo!
It's an interesting thing for car hits, where it's like, because you lose where you are for, like, a flash second, you know?
joe rogan
It's called getting a concussion.
unidentified
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
Wait, do you have the video of it?
Yeah, he's a pretty brutal car hit.
joe rogan
How many times have you been hit by cars?
danny or michael philippou
Two dozen, something like that.
joe rogan
What the fuck, dude?
danny or michael philippou
But it's like a stuntman.
In Australia, you have to get certification to get a stunt license.
In America, you can just say, I'm a stunt guy.
I guess if you're bad, they just won't call you back or something.
So was getting hit 24 times a part of that Some of the stuff was like martial arts for six months, body control, stunt reel, being on set for 10 days, a letter of recommendation from an assistant stunt coordinator and a stunt coordinator.
You have to get set on fire.
You have to do high falls.
You have to get your bronze medallion, swimming.
So there's like a big...
There's like five categories you have to do.
I mean, it takes a few years, but I was driving, like, I was production running for a TV show, and I met a stunt guy, Judd Wilde.
And we just, like, got along.
So I was, like, I was interested in stunts.
Like, we've been doing stunts since we were little kids.
And I showed him some of our old videos, like, pre-YouTube.
And then he's like, dude, you should get accredited.
And then he helped me get my accreditation.
I was, like, doing some editing for him, like, some stuff.
And then for our videos, we would get him and we'd create...
Like, we were introduced to the stunt world through Judd.
And, like, we would work with over 100 performers now and, like, special effects guys.
And, like, we would create different...
Like, our videos on YouTube, we'd always go, like, with a new...
Like, oh, how do we do, like, a sinking set where we can fight and the set's sinking and filling with water?
Or how do we do this rig, this stunt rig?
And we, like, innovate and, like, create different things.
So we're looking forward to doing an action movie because we have a cool team.
We're attached right now to the Street Fighter movie.
unidentified
Really?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, for the Capcom video game.
And we're looking...
joe rogan
Hold on.
Do you have video of you getting hit by a car?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
joe rogan
Let me see this.
danny or michael philippou
Wait, because the thing at the...
Here we go.
unidentified
No, no, no.
danny or michael philippou
This is a bad one.
unidentified
Wait, go ahead.
joe rogan
No, no, no.
Let me see this one.
jamie vernon
This one's fine.
I mean, you can tell me a better one after this, but this one's fine.
joe rogan
Let's see this one.
jamie vernon
This is not him.
The next one will be him.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, so this is with a stunt performance, seeing who could get hit faster.
It's not faster.
Oh, shit!
This whole window is fucking coming through.
unidentified
Oh, Jesus.
Yeah, wait.
danny or michael philippou
If you go to...
I might have sent you a link.
What the fuck?
It's called Extreme Des.
Can I send you a link?
jamie vernon
Extreme what?
danny or michael philippou
I've got one that's unlisted.
I can send you a link.
jamie vernon
If you have it on your phone, you can send it to me.
danny or michael philippou
Send the link.
This is the most brutal one.
It's a really good one.
You will love this one.
He goes flying.
If you like car hits, man...
The way that I do car hits is different to stunt guys because stunt guys...
Like, you kind of...
Get the damn link.
You lean back and you kind of let the...
jamie vernon
You should be able to airdrop it to my computer, I think.
danny or michael philippou
Shut the fuck up and get the link.
Get the fucking link, man.
Alright, I'm going to get the link.
joe rogan
I don't know what's dumber, the car accidents or the injections.
danny or michael philippou
Okay, but stunt performers, you know, in films...
joe rogan
You guys are fucking out of control.
danny or michael philippou
But you know, stunt performers in films get run over by cars all the time.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's not good either.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, no.
You don't like the practical elements of filmmaking?
joe rogan
The practical elements.
Is that what you're going to call it?
danny or michael philippou
You know, there's a CG fight scene or a practical fight scene where they're actually going hard.
That's a profession.
You don't want it to be...
You can always tell, okay, I've got a link.
What do I do?
jamie vernon
You can airdrop it to my MacBook Pro, I think.
Possibly.
danny or michael philippou
Get it up, Michael.
I copy the link.
jamie vernon
And then when you go to share, you should be able to airdrop share.
danny or michael philippou
Okay, gotcha.
unidentified
Sure.
danny or michael philippou
I keep talking about how dumb we are while I show you.
No, I just think that we always respect when you see things done practically in terms of stunts.
Whenever it turns too CG, there's a disconnect.
joe rogan
Right.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, and so stunt performers that really, really innovate their craft or really put their bodies on the line or build up to a really big stunt, I just...
For our film for Street Fighter, we know we want to do a whole bunch of practical stunts.
Yeah, yeah.
And we've started designing the fight scenes already and figuring them out in our heads.
So we're so excited to do what we do in the backyard, but with a proper budget and a proper team.
joe rogan
So you guys are doing all this fucking around and having a good time and creating all these things.
How does it get to talk to me?
danny or michael philippou
So, we always wanted to...
There was something like...
Oh, shit.
We always wanted to get into filmmaking and make films.
The YouTube stuff was a really good way for us to...
Yeah, build up as filmmakers.
It was an accident, though.
It was all like YouTube.
We just posted...
Because we were doing these fake fail videos...
Like, pretending things went wrong when they didn't.
Like, sticking a knife into a toaster.
Things like that.
And just putting them on Facebook.
And they were going really viral.
But no one knew where they were coming from.
So we created...
Our friend said, you should do a YouTube channel just to show who's making the stuff.
And we didn't expect anything from it.
Like, we were working on short films and things like that.
And then...
Inside a year, the channel got...
How many?
Yeah, a million subscribers.
A million subscribers.
And then we're like, we're not even putting that much effort into these videos.
What if we actually focus on it?
And then we went down the rabbit hole of YouTube forever.
But the end goal was always film and television.
We never set out to be YouTubers.
But the world's so fun, you know, and it's instant gratification.
You see growth, comments.
Likes, you know, and cool opportunities to, like, go to cool countries and do, like, awesome things.
But you end up just, like, you're chasing trends and you're just following the algorithm and you're not really expressing yourself towards the end.
I don't know if we were doing that.
Oh, we were towards the end.
unidentified
Don't even lie.
danny or michael philippou
It was more like, yeah, like, it was like our videos are, like, crazy, like, action comedy podcasts.
But stunt stuff that we don't...
Like, the movies we like watching is very different to the stuff we were making.
So we couldn't do, like, a deep, serious thing on our channel.
Because people just click off straight away, you know?
You have to be like...
Someone has to jump through a window, like, within three seconds.
Could never express myself personally.
Like, I wanted to have scenes where two characters can sit down and have a conversation.
But with our YouTube channel, we weren't able to do that.
joe rogan
But hold on, as you say, weren't able to.
You just didn't want to because you didn't think I'd get as much engagement.
danny or michael philippou
Well, I think that the audience that we built would be like, what the fuck is this?
joe rogan
Well, how do you know?
danny or michael philippou
We posted some, like, longer stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
But you know what?
It's actually true.
We never went for it in that way and tried to do it.
But we just saw, once we had, like, a minute intro, like a slow intro, and then you see the attention rate, and it's just...
People that stayed past the first minute watched the whole thing.
joe rogan
But you were captured by that.
Like, so that...
The attention span was what motivated you to either do or not do something.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, because it affects your reach.
Even though you're chasing the algorithm.
YouTube would always tell us things.
We'd never listen to them.
If you do this, you'll get more and get...
joe rogan
What do you mean me or YouTube?
Someone contacted you and tried to coach you on how to do it?
danny or michael philippou
We didn't put ads on our videos at first.
YouTube was at first like, dude...
Put ads on your stuff.
We're like, no, we're not doing this for money.
We don't want to just make stuff.
joe rogan
We're artists.
danny or michael philippou
We're just artists, dude.
Crazy artists.
We're artists.
As soon as we turn on monetization.
joe rogan
We're artists who get hit by cars and we practice medicine.
unidentified
Can I see you get hit by a car, the good one?
jamie vernon
I didn't see it in here unless I missed it.
danny or michael philippou
It's the very beginning of it.
What link did you send, Michael?
I sent the wrong one.
I sent that scene.
He's the unreliable twin.
He's so stupid.
Hey, man.
joe rogan
What kind of ADD drugs do you give you over in Australia?
Because you guys are on some shit.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, well, we haven't on any medication for that, but we need to be.
joe rogan
I don't think you need to be.
No, no, no, you don't.
No, what you have is a superpower.
danny or michael philippou
But it's too sporadic.
Yeah, but that's okay.
That's okay.
joe rogan
That's okay.
Because that creates creativity.
danny or michael philippou
Right.
And also does this on podcasts.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's okay.
danny or michael philippou
That's alright.
When was the last fist fight you were in, Joe?
joe rogan
Fist fight?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, when was the last brawl you were in?
joe rogan
I'm not really a brawl person.
danny or michael philippou
But you have void fights.
Wait, I want to know.
I want to hear about his last fight.
joe rogan
I have void fights.
I haven't been in a fight fight since I was in high school, other than like an organized fight.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, right, so was it high school was your last fist fight?
joe rogan
Yeah, like a fist fight with another kid, yeah.
danny or michael philippou
What happened?
Why'd you do it?
joe rogan
Oh, I don't remember.
Just some bullshit.
danny or michael philippou
Did you win?
joe rogan
Um, the last one I did.
danny or michael philippou
But the one before that you got beaten?
joe rogan
I've definitely lost a bunch of them.
That's how I got into martial arts, getting my ass kicked.
danny or michael philippou
And why would you get your ass kicked?
What was the...
joe rogan
I was just getting bullied.
You know, some kids would find you and beat you up or try to beat you up or things along those lines.
Nothing serious.
danny or michael philippou
It's like a thing in high school.
Hey, like, you're automatically tested.
joe rogan
That's junior high school, too.
Okay, so this is you right here?
danny or michael philippou
Oh, God.
This is supposed to be like, yeah, okay.
joe rogan
Shut the fuck up and play it.
unidentified
Let's go.
Cool.
danny or michael philippou
Bro, I dare you to jump in front of that car.
joe rogan
Bro, do it.
unidentified
It's a dare.
It's a dare.
joe rogan
Jesus fucking Christ.
Oh my God, dude.
No helmet, no padding.
danny or michael philippou
This is like a parody of...
unidentified
Kids at home, don't try this.
joe rogan
Do people get mad at you because people are trying to imitate what you guys are doing, getting hit by cars and saying that it's irresponsible?
danny or michael philippou
Uh, no, because our stuff was always, like, that one was paying out YouTube, like, trends like that, like the TirePod challenge and things like that.
That was, like, paying that out.
Our stuff was always, like, a filmmaker, like, it was, like, it was, like, it was, like, stunts and things, but it was done through, like, a scene, like, a movie scene and stuff.
It wasn't, like...
joe rogan
Got it.
danny or michael philippou
Jackass, where it's like, just go jump in front of her.
You've said like 64 times.
joe rogan
That's okay.
danny or michael philippou
In that one sentence.
Like, what's your problem?
Do I have to like, lay you out in front of Joe right now?
Like, you can give it a shot.
Would you start commentating if me and Marco started brawling right now?
joe rogan
No, I'd probably separate you.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, that's very nice.
It's responsible of you.
He'd probably jump in.
joe rogan
I don't want you to break any wires.
danny or michael philippou
Would you?
Would you?
You know how there's the influencer boxing scene?
You know, should they do something like that in UFC where different people that are more behind the scenes fight each other?
joe rogan
No.
danny or michael philippou
You versus Bruce Buffer?
joe rogan
No.
unidentified
Would you watch that?
joe rogan
No, you want to watch people fight that are actual fighters.
You don't want to watch people fight that suck.
danny or michael philippou
Dude, I feel like if you were going to fight Bruce Buffer, that would sell really well.
joe rogan
Bruce Buffer's my friend.
danny or michael philippou
I know, but...
joe rogan
I wouldn't hurt Bruce Buffer.
danny or michael philippou
That's an example.
But, you know what I mean?
People would want to watch that.
Yeah, but that's like a thing where it's like, the YouTube stuff is...
joe rogan
Yeah, you guys are thinking too much about likes and engagement.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, man.
No, switch it up, man.
joe rogan
Let's get back to Talk To Me.
danny or michael philippou
You know we're friends with Israel Adesanya.
joe rogan
You're friends with him?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
I love that dude.
danny or michael philippou
And he's the fucking coolest motherfucker in the world.
Him and his brother.
Have you met David, his brother?
joe rogan
I met him when he was with Israel, but not like...
danny or michael philippou
He is the funniest guy ever.
Their whole family's like, oh, they're so cool, man.
Like, Izzy saw, like, we met him through Talk To Me, and then we went to his premiere for his documentary and stuff, and then, like, I used to watch him fight Knees of Fury in Adelaide, in South Australia.
joe rogan
Oh, wow.
danny or michael philippou
So I was a fan of him way back when.
I remember him, like, just...
The first time I saw him fight, he was main event, and he was fighting the champ, and I was like, oh, man, this guy's going to get killed, to Izzy.
But then Izzy just flying near the dude in the face, like, first round, and the guy didn't get up for half an hour.
Everyone started leaving.
Fuck.
That's crazy.
It was so like savage and the way that he moves is like, and there's like a flow and a rhythm.
Like the last fight we went through, the last fight, it was unfortunate what happened, but when he came out like moonwalking, it was like, oh man, he's got such a fucking vibe about him.
He's the best.
He's the stage presence.
Coolest guy ever.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, he's so awesome.
We want to cast him in something.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's a good idea.
danny or michael philippou
Because I feel like he could act.
joe rogan
Fuck yeah.
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
And to his own stunts.
joe rogan
So, did you guys write, talk to me?
How'd the idea come about?
danny or michael philippou
There was these neighbours that we watched grow up and one of them was experimenting with drugs for the first time and was having a negative reaction to what he'd taken and he was on the floor convulsing and the kids that he was with weren't helping him, they were filming him and laughing at him.
So that was the first thing that really stuck into my head that I wanted to put on the page.
There was a guy named Daley Pearson who produces a show called Bluey in Australia.
It's like a cartoon kids show.
He had a short film that was about kids having fun with possession.
It was a comedy horror short.
There was no hand or anything like that.
There was that kind of concept of using it for fun, like possession for fun.
So I did a rewrite of the short film, and then once I did that, I just couldn't stop writing.
So within the first 10 days, 12 days, I had 80 pages for a script, and I've got a co-writer named Bill Hinsman that I send everything through, and we just collaborate and bounce drafts back and forth.
So that happened around 2008. In 2018?
2019?
And then we decided that we're going to move out of Australia, move to Hollywood, said goodbye to all our friends and family, did a big dramatic goodbye.
We're like, we're going to go to LA and we're going to sell this fucking script.
And it's going to take years to sell it.
We're going to move there to sell it.
We went out there and everybody said no.
Every single...
Every studio said no.
We couldn't get meetings anywhere.
There's like a low-budget place called Shudder to do low-budget horror films.
We couldn't even get a meeting in there.
Being a YouTuber, there's a stigma attached to it.
If you want to break outside of it, there's a stigma for being a YouTuber.
We can keep an audience's attention for five minutes, but our film is so different.
People will go, yeah, you're a YouTuber, not a filmmaker.
But then there was one studio that was eventually...
But after that, we reached out to Causeway Films.
Michael did some work experience on this horror film called The Bubble Duke.
joe rogan
Oh, I love that movie.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
So Michael was...
unidentified
I was not...
danny or michael philippou
You were work experience on the Babadook.
I was production runner.
Well, Michael was paid to drive around actors.
And Danny was...
You did lighting.
I did lighting.
Work experience was like an intern freak.
joe rogan
Right.
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
So we reached out to Causeway Films and said, we've got this project.
We sent it through to them.
They were surprisingly interested and surprisingly took a chance on us.
They helped us develop the script further.
So we did another draft and then probably after three months of them, we were ready to go.
And by then, our company in Hollywood reached out and we're going to make it.
But they started giving us creative notes that were pushing it into a bit more of a typical direction.
They weren't bad notes at all, but it was sort of wanting to explore where the hand came from, explore how to beat it, explore who the demons were.
And it felt too typical, whereas I really wanted the kids to be in out of their depth and over their heads and not understand what it is that they're messing with.
joe rogan
That was part of the intrigue of the film.
It's like, what is that?
Where'd they get that?
And you don't really explain it that well, which is kind of cool.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah, which is what we wanted to do as well.
joe rogan
It also seemed like typical, like what kids would do if they were partying and someone brought something fucking crazy out.
There would be a lot of confusion.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Instead of having a clearly defined origin story of it.
danny or michael philippou
Or like the scene where they go to the library and they dig up the old archive footage.
joe rogan
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
This was back in the day, the 18th century.
Yeah.
We know what it is, but even the kids, they have an idea of what they think the rules are.
But that's not necessarily the rules.
That's just what they think they are.
Right, right, right.
And everybody's body reacts differently to drugs.
So one person's experience with weed will be different from another person's experience of weed.
And so we wanted to sort of have that sort of vibe with the hand itself.
Yeah, like, they've got rules based on, like, when I do it, you know, like, that's it.
Like, 90 seconds, you're good, man.
But depending on your mental state or the way that your body reacts to it, it's going to be very different.
And it's also that thing of, like, how people...
If you see someone drunk, like, you're with a friend and they're drunk, like, you find it funny, like, someone's drunk or that.
But if they're, like, say their family's religious...
I remember a friend's family who was very religious.
They came and he was, like, drunk in his underwear, vomiting, and we thought it was funny.
And then I looked over and his mom was crying.
She was like, you know, that's not her perception of it as well.
It's like, that's what it sounds like a devil in her son or something.
Like he was like, so like fucked up.
And that was like sticking as well.
It's like just different interpretations of what's going on.
So the kids are having fun with it, but there's that kind of undertone of it.
The reality of it is very different to the way that they're perceiving it.
joe rogan
So when you're creating something like this, like when you're creating the script and the storyline, Do you guys disagree with direction?
How collaborative is it?
danny or michael philippou
Well, I can't ever write with Michael.
We'll just butt heads too much and we'll start fighting.
So my co-writer, Bill Hinsman, him and I will work on stuff together.
And then when we've got a draft, we'll present it to Michael.
And then he just starts fucking tearing into it, saying it's boring and it's shit.
Because when you're creating the story and stuff, if there's no set ending, I'll have ideas and Danny will as well.
So it'll kind of be...
In two different directions.
Like, it could get yanked in two different directions.
But if Danny does, like, because we write scripts separately, then there's, like, the outline.
It's like, oh, okay, I know what you're going for, and then add notes that way, as opposed to, like, trying to veer it into a different thing.
Yeah.
And then also, writing's so personal, and you're exploring really personal themes, and Michael and I just don't get that deep and personal with each other.
Even though we're brothers, we'd find that really awkward, but we just don't have that sort of relationship.
We have more of a working relationship as opposed to...
And we're just...
That's like...
It's our whole lives, it's filming and stuff, but we don't go, oh, let's go hang out or whatever.
We're always traveling together and stuff, but we don't like, oh, let's do this together.
It's always film-related.
joe rogan
And so, at the end of it, before you start filming, do you guys have to get approval on the final script?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Do they have to give you the green light?
What is the process between you come up with the concept, creating a script, them giving it?
Okay, we're back.
danny or michael philippou
So did we like continue the sentence like it just happened?
joe rogan
No.
Where were we?
Do you remember where we were?
danny or michael philippou
I tracked something down for you.
This is one of the drugs I took.
joe rogan
What is it?
danny or michael philippou
I can't.
Can you pronounce that?
joe rogan
No.
Yeah, this is...
unidentified
You can smell it.
jamie vernon
I'll try to look it up.
joe rogan
Well, it says, Phase 1 single, randomized, open-label study to assess the pharmaceutical...
Well, I don't even know what this word is.
Pharmokinetics safety and tolerability of ABP-787...
Duterated, oh boy, dextromethorphan, hydrobromide, quinide sulfate.
danny or michael philippou
Did you get that one, Jenny?
joe rogan
And healthy volunteers.
danny or michael philippou
Well, I thought I was never listening, but I was listening.
I just didn't know what the fuck they were saying.
That's the drug?
Yeah, don't tell us stuff like that.
I wonder.
joe rogan
It sounds like something they're definitely going to pull from the market.
That sounds like one they get sued for.
danny or michael philippou
How do you even come up with a name like that?
Like, oh, it's cool.
Unless it's like a...
It's on purpose to trick people.
No, I think it's like...
joe rogan
No, scientific.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
Oh, no.
It's like every...
How do we get every letter of the alphabet into something that sounds like...
That doesn't even sound like it's a word.
Yeah, a word.
But that's one of the drugs I took.
That was the one where my arm got paralyzed.
unidentified
True.
danny or michael philippou
So that's okay, though.
joe rogan
Okay.
danny or michael philippou
Okay.
joe rogan
Where were we?
We were talking about...
Talk to me.
danny or michael philippou
We were talking about the process from going from...
How to get the script picked up to actually shooting.
joe rogan
There was a blackout.
We got a blackout in the studio.
The script gets approval.
You manage to dodge all the obvious tropes.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, but I remember one of the studios, the people that financed it were still iffy on us directing.
They said to Sam, our producer, they're like, can you, what have they done exactly?
Can you send some stuff?
They were still a little bit unsure because it's a big gamble.
It's so much money.
So we sent him the car hit video.
unidentified
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
Well, we just sent them some examples of a more narrative driven video, which our YouTube videos never really were.
So it was hard.
I remember we did a short film called Deluge before we started the YouTube channel.
joe rogan
So was there talk of someone else taking it over?
danny or michael philippou
They didn't say that specifically.
The thing is, one of the reasons we didn't go with the Hollywood studios is because they would have Final Cut and be able to make changes and stuff.
Every single shot and sound effect and everything would have a strong sense of how we want it.
I couldn't imagine having that control taken away from us.
joe rogan
Right.
danny or michael philippou
So we went the independent route, lost half the budget, and then it was supposed to be an eight-week shoot.
We ended up, it dropped to a seven, then a six, and a five.
So we had five weeks.
We lost an extra million dollars out of the budget because we cast Sophie Wilde because she wasn't a name yet, like, as a lead.
joe rogan
So they took a million dollars worth?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Meanwhile, she was great.
danny or michael philippou
She was incredible.
She is the best.
And now she's doing, like, she's got a lot of stuff coming up, which is amazing.
Like, it was worth it to us because she was the best, like, performer.
And, like, I've never...
Man, it's such an amazing experience having someone that's, like...
So good at their craft and elevate it to a point higher than you could imagine in your mind.
We have a strong thing of how we want it to be.
You get amazing artists like that and they just fucking elevate it.
She was so committed.
There were days when we asked her not to sleep and come to set not having slept because her character's losing her mind or she's meant to have been up all night.
So she would do that.
There was a scene where she starts hitting herself.
And she was so committed.
She started beating the crap out of herself, for real.
She was just so caught up into the character in the moment.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, she was like...
Yeah, and because it was such a short shoot, like, we had to really...
And it was during...
COVID was...
Down, but coming back up.
So if you get COVID, then you can't come to set for a week.
So it was like survival on set.
There was one week we lost like seven people.
And that was on Friday.
Come Monday, there's going to be no one left.
Yeah, we're just like losing so many people.
Everyone was constantly getting tested.
I mean, if the production shut down, yeah, we weren't going to finish it.
We weren't going to make it on budget.
There was like budget set aside for certain emergency situations, but it was like really, really tight.
So we had to reinvest all of our fees back into the film.
Our producer reinvested all of our fees back into the film to make sure that we could get Sophie.
And it was just a race for the finish line.
It was so...
There was days that we had to shoot eight minutes of the film in one day.
Usually on a film, it's supposed to be like On average, what, 90 seconds, something like that, per day of filming.
joe rogan
So how did the film get so popular?
danny or michael philippou
Well, so we had a...
joe rogan
Was it just word of mouth?
danny or michael philippou
We got picked up from...
So we got into Sundance Film Festival, which is a really prestigious film festival, one of the biggest in the world, Sundance.
And we got into that somehow.
And then there was, I think, word started spreading there.
So we were getting contacted by...
Like, all the agencies, like, all these big, you know, talent agencies.
And we're getting, like...
And they were getting people to, like, reach out to us.
So we're getting, like, two, three hundred emails a day of, like, people like, oh, sign with us!
Like, this thing.
So word was spreading before the movie even.
No one even saw the movie.
I think they spoke to the people at Sundance.
Like, what's, like, a buzz title or something?
And that came up.
So when we got there, we...
It was, like, this chaotic, like...
Yeah, like, a strange...
Everything we're trying to achieve in our life, like being in film, and it was scratching the door forever, it just blew open, and then everything was the most fucking surreal.
It was the most overwhelming...
We spent all of Sundance, because we had the crew there and the cast, and everyone was just crying the entire time.
It was so...
Overwhelming.
And even all those emails, all these people reaching out, all these heroes of ours or all these companies that you've seen so many products from saying, oh, do you want to look at this script?
Do you want to look at this?
It was the first time I got so overwhelmed.
I couldn't even open emails.
I couldn't look or I was so...
joe rogan
Did you just feel surreal?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, like Jordan Peele sent a message, like, randomly.
And then Ari Aster, who did Hereditary, he came to the premiere.
And, like, man, there was all this hype around the movie before anyone saw it.
I was like, man, I would have rather it be, like, no one knows.
Like, you just go in not knowing, expecting anything.
But there was this really high expectation going into it.
We were sitting in the back of the theatre just cringing, man.
Like, oh, like, it was the most...
Painful experience because it was the first time we were going to be exposed to critics and like harsh critics, you know, Sundance and things like that.
We wanted audience members just in the theatre, but I think it was all just like industry professionals.
So it was like, it was terrifying.
I was troughing so bad throughout the screening thinking it was playing like shit.
Yeah, people would get up to go to the toilet and they opened the back door and then light would go over the crowd.
unidentified
We're like, oh...
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, it's just constantly people are moving around.
I'm like, why is the movie boring?
Why is people moving?
And it was like a midnight screening as well.
Like they play it at midnight in Egyptian theatre.
It was like a big famous theatre.
And like it was midnight, so it was late.
People like a little bit maybe drunk.
It was like a weird...
But yeah, that whole night, I just remember being really emotional and troughing a lot and cringing and...
Troughing?
In film...
Peaks and troughs.
Peaks and valleys, yeah.
It was like troughing and feeling really down.
We went up to Ari Aster to apologise to him after the movie.
I literally got up to say, I'm so sorry you got dragged here because of all this hype for no reason.
I went to apologise to him.
So I walked up to him.
I'm like, bro, I'm so sorry that...
And he's like, that was amazing.
And I was like, what the fuck?
joe rogan
So you thought it wasn't being received well just because people were distracted and moving around or just you guys were hypersensitive?
danny or michael philippou
Hypersensitive and focusing on small things.
Yeah, anything that was like a crackle in the speaker or someone going to the toilet was like a tsunami hitting.
It was such a very heightened emotional moment that every small thing I was like, this is playing like shit.
joe rogan
So when did you realize that it wasn't?
When did you realize that this is a hit?
danny or michael philippou
At that night, our producer said, A24, want to make an offer on the film.
I was like, what the fuck, A24? Which is...
We would joke about it on set.
Oh, this is very A24, this film.
This is a very A24 shot.
You know, with A24? No, what's that?
So they're a distribution company.
No, they're also...
Like a...
They're a film production company.
They're like the most prestigious kind of indie studio thing.
So they're really selective with their talent.
It's kind of like art films.
joe rogan
Can you give me an example of a film movie?
jamie vernon
Ex Machina.
joe rogan
Oh, Ex Machina.
One of my all-time favorites.
I've watched that movie like 10 times.
danny or michael philippou
It's incredible.
joe rogan
God, I fucking love that movie.
Witch, that's another great movie.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, they've got all good stuff.
jamie vernon
Uncut Gems.
joe rogan
Oh, shit!
I love that movie.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, we love all these films as well.
joe rogan
Oh, so they make dope movies.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, they make amazing movies.
joe rogan
Oh, everything, everywhere, all at once, too.
Oh, shit.
danny or michael philippou
The Daniels.
So that's the thing.
We were at a party once with all those directors and actors and stuff, and it was like, we never felt more out of place.
Because they're like, you know...
I know we're stupid...
Duh, than proper film directors.
We feel so unsophisticated or on a...
joe rogan
That's good.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
That's just authentic.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, yeah, but...
joe rogan
You don't have to be a stereotypical movie-making human being to make a great movie, obviously.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, thank you, thank you.
Yeah, it's like a thing, like, I remember Adam Sandler walked in the room, and I was like, dang, it's fucking Adam Sandler.
I'm like, I want to say something to him.
It was like meeting you.
He came up and I was like, hey, bro, big fan.
And he's like, we're having fun.
He walked past.
Yeah, it was exactly that.
Michael just starts speaking to two fanboys, cringing.
What are you doing?
I can't believe I'm here.
Michael, be professional.
unidentified
What are you doing?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, we have to wear a suit and sip martinis or something.
I don't know.
joe rogan
No, just be yourself.
danny or michael philippou
Be yourself.
Be annoying.
joe rogan
Yeah, just be yourself.
danny or michael philippou
Well, I do have a nightmare of being ourselves.
I have a nightmare of, like, you, like, chewing me out on something, and then, you know, then it'll be your comments on YouTube, like, hey, look at this fucking guy getting chewed out.
unidentified
Like, yeah, yeah, the fuck he showed you.
danny or michael philippou
I have a nightmare of being here as well, you know?
joe rogan
You guys have a nightmare of being here?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, Joe.
So whatever you say, I agree with, man.
unidentified
Please.
joe rogan
Don't worry.
It's working great.
No need for nightmares.
This is fun.
So the film, I don't think anybody told me about it.
I'm pretty sure I just found it.
danny or michael philippou
Clicked it.
That's something saying that was on there.
joe rogan
Yeah.
It was because we always look in top horror movies, and it was one of the top movies.
danny or michael philippou
It's grossed $90 million worldwide now.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
That's incredible.
danny or michael philippou
And there were critical reception as well.
It sounds like you're bragging.
You know Rotten Tomatoes?
In the 90s, 94%.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I saw when I clicked on it.
Rotten Tomatoes gave it a really high rating.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, which is like...
joe rogan
So I was like, I'll give it a try.
And then we watched the preview and I said, fuck yeah, let's watch this thing.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, hell yeah.
joe rogan
Seems so interesting.
And it was so good, dude.
You guys nailed it.
It was so original.
Like, that was the most impressive thing about it is because you're taking this sort of genre with, you know, possession and demonic possession and you turned it into this very unique thing.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
It wasn't like anything else I'd ever seen.
It was really fucking good, man.
And I love the fact that You guys were so young and it was completely out of your mind.
It wasn't like you were trying to make some derivative thing.
It was really good, man.
danny or michael philippou
Thank you.
That was the risk.
When we walked away from the studio, that was guaranteed theatrical release.
And we're like, oh, let's do the indie thing.
Even shooting in Australia was a thing because Australian movies don't make money.
When we reinvested our fees, our lawyers were like, don't do that.
He's like, don't do that.
Australian movies don't make fucking money.
He said 8% of Australian films make their budget back.
But again, the money thing was like, whatever, like...
We wanted to make the best movie.
That was the most authentic thing, was doing it in Australia.
But the accents, for some reason, don't translate.
Even Australians don't like watching Australian movies.
Sometimes.
There's a cultural cringe or something.
Yeah, because we don't sound cinematic.
We don't sound epic.
joe rogan
Yeah, but that made it more authentic.
It really was kids just hanging out, partying, doing something insane.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, I think there's a take on that as well.
Like, what would kids do if this was real?
And that's exactly what they'd be doing.
Yes, exactly.
Especially now where it's like, you know, we all have that kind of thirst for attention and engagement and clicks.
So your people are doing things to get, horrible things to get attention.
Even if it's negative, when your moral compass isn't developed yet, you're seeing, oh, this is popularity.
Even if it's negative, I'm still getting attention.
And it even happened to adults as well.
Do you remember Joe Rogan was going to fight Bruce Buffer?
joe rogan
So how long did it take?
Was it a slow build?
How long did it take before it hit like 90 million?
danny or michael philippou
It's been in cinemas for a while now.
It's still in cinemas right now.
Really?
I think every week they drop it by half the amount of theaters that it plays in.
unidentified
Wow.
danny or michael philippou
And the way they promoted it was like, I think A24 does more like, again, this whole world, like making stuff where that's our like whole lives, but the stuff after, all this stuff, I have no idea what, like this is such a new process for us, like marketing and releasing all that stuff.
So I think the way that they- If you say, Bola, we've got a publicist.
Oh man, it was the first time we had like, you know- Like, our schedules now...
It's good that we have, like, management now that gives us a schedule because we have no idea what's happening every second.
But, yeah, in a publicity, you go to a new thing, and there's, like, a list of, like, 30 interviews that you're doing that day.
And then, like, you see, like, there's some control.
It was a lot of word-of-mouth screenings.
And, yeah, they didn't do, like, billboards and things like that.
That wasn't the way that they promote.
They did, like...
Showing the movie to people that they think would talk about it and then kind of spread that way, I guess.
It was a word-of-mouth campaign.
Yeah, a word-of-mouth campaign.
joe rogan
So it just sort of slowly kept going.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
Because we've been promoting it since Sundance.
Because we got into Sundance, which we did that whole thing there.
Then in February we were in Berlin Film Festival, which is a bit more promo there.
And then March we were in South by Southwest here in Texas.
And so all those screenings just came word-of-mouth and then they were just...
Yeah.
It did really good in South America.
Mexico, Peru, all those places.
And they went hard on the marketing.
There's a company called Diamond Films.
They made a giant hand.
They were parading through the streets.
It was so fucking awesome.
I was like, man, I want to go over there.
I want to get a picture.
They had a whole bus stop where it was four bus stops with hands in between them, all on the road for the film.
So cool, man.
Mexico went hard.
I was like, man, next time.
Because we're going to do a sequel.
Mexico.
joe rogan
You're going to do a sequel now?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, even when you're writing something like that, you get so caught up in the world and with the characters, you can't help but start writing scenes for a sequel.
And so I had ideas for it, and I told A24, I said, if it's successful, I would be so down to do a sequel.
So I just sort of planted the seed, and every Q&A that we did in these word-of-mouth screenings, I was like...
You know, 824 should give us a...
I was always just sort of hinting, saying that I would do it if they wanted to do it.
joe rogan
That's a big thing now with horror movies, where they have all these spin-offs.
Like, look at The Conjuring.
How many movies do they have off of that?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
There's a whole cinematic franchise.
joe rogan
Yeah, there's a whole Conjuring universe.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
It does help solidify things in pop culture.
If you look at Friday the 13th, you know, with Jason or Freddy.
If it was just one film...
It depends.
Like, at what point does it become, like, a money grab, I guess, is, like, a thing where it's...
joe rogan
Well, when you don't want to do it anymore.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
And you're just doing it for the money.
danny or michael philippou
Or a cool thing, I think, would be if people want to...
Because they're talking about...
Imagine a movie where we get a cool, talented director, like Africa, writer-director, and then they do a version of that world in their surroundings.
That would be amazing.
I'd love that.
Because it can be wherever...
Even when we were with the Japanese distributors, they released the film really late.
They haven't released it yet.
It hasn't come out yet.
It comes out in Japanese cinemas December 22nd.
But when I was with the Japanese distributors, I said, I was like, if you can think of a director that would want to do a spin, I would love to see a Japanese talk to me film.
Because they make the best horror.
It's so fucking awesome.
Japanese horror is the fucking best in the world.
They have such a...
There's something about it.
There's like a soul in Japanese horror that you don't get anywhere else.
And culturally as big, if you look at...
So if we've got Chucky and Freddy...
You're not on that level.
No, I was saying Japanese films.
Let's not pretend.
So The Grudge and The Ring, you know, those are just as big and prevalent as those things.
And they all just originate...
joe rogan
I don't know what The Grudge is.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, The Grudge.
Grudge.
joe rogan
The Grudge.
danny or michael philippou
The Grudge.
The Grudge is the spin-off.
Yeah.
We talk too fast.
Did you ever see The Ring vs.
The Grudge?
joe rogan
No.
danny or michael philippou
That was a real film.
Was it really?
Yeah.
It was like Freddy vs.
unidentified
Jason.
danny or michael philippou
Did you make that movie?
No.
I would have.
There was a good thing about shooting the movie.
All that experience from YouTube, we were able to bring that to the set.
We had pulled things off before that we knew ways to pull things off that isn't the normal way.
If we were running under the gun or had to change things up, we were able to do it more on the fly.
We've been in that environment for so long.
Once we did these commercials in Norway, it was one of the random things, we did these Norwegian commercials with Magnus Carlsen.
Do you know the chess player Magnus Carlsen?
So he was in one of them, and it was promoting an internet brand, and we went there.
Ultibox.
Ultibox.
So we went there, and we wanted to have this...
Exploding bookshelf.
And they were showing us special effects and little sparks.
I'm like, no, dude, it has to be huge.
unidentified
The bookshelf has to explode massive, big.
danny or michael philippou
It's like 50 of those put together.
And it's like, big.
And every day we'd see them in pre-production.
We're like, big.
Has to be big.
Has to be big.
And then we rocked up.
Yeah.
We rocked up on set.
We rocked up on set, right?
And then the guy, this thing here, there.
unidentified
That.
danny or michael philippou
So what happened was, we rocked up on set, and he's like, everyone needs to leave the studio.
We're like, we have to leave the set?
He's like, no, everyone needs to leave the studio.
We're like, wow, what's about to happen?
And he's like...
I don't know.
And he lined this bookshelf with fucking something dynamite.
Because yeah, we said big.
So he like did fucking dynamite or something on the wall.
We went outside because he's like, leave the studio.
Like, oh, fuck.
We all went outside and we all huddled around like a monitor that could see inside.
And then he goes, three, two, one.
Press the button and the screen goes blank.
And we're like...
And it was like...
And we're like...
We opened the studio door and that just steam started fucking filling out.
If you look at that explosion, it blows a hole in the set.
And there's...
Watch the background.
This explosion is fucking huge.
joe rogan
Is that really a person in there?
danny or michael philippou
So we got a plate shot.
So we did him reacting without...
But did you see that hole in the set?
joe rogan
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
There was big chunks of wood just fucking rickish through everything.
And I was like, we don't have to leave the set for this.
But then when that happened, he really delivered.
Because there was nothing left of that bookshelf.
It's not selling how big this explosion was, but it was fucking huge.
That was a bookshelf and it was gone.
It just vanished.
unidentified
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
Poor guy.
But, like, it was good.
All that stuff was just experience to be, like, you know.
Like, one day, there's a montage sequence in Talk To Me where they're all, like, having fun, like, using it.
And, like, we only had two hours to shoot that whole montage sequence.
And we had 50 setups to get 50 shots we wanted.
And we wanted to riff and, like, you know, just, like, do improvisation.
And the first AD was telling us, you can't...
It's mathematically impossible to get all these shots in this amount of time.
And we're like, let us control the set for these two hours.
And we just had a boombox, and we had two cameras, and we're just like, get in there, get in there, get in there, get in there, make up change, go, blah, blah, blah.
We had jibs, and the group's like, and we just had this momentum, and we were able to just shoot this.
And I think that energy translates through the screen, instead of just like, you know, set up.
Actually, you're having fun now.
joe rogan
No, the montage was one of my favorite parts.
It was just very creative.
danny or michael philippou
Oh yeah, it was so fun.
And having all the actors riff it and be in that, there was a certain energy in the room and capturing it was incredible.
But then Sam, our producer, pulled us aside after that scene.
She's like, this is not how you run a professional film set.
No, but she wasn't being a bitch about it.
It was true.
No, no, it was the truth.
It was true, because the first lady's like, what the hell is happening?
Everyone's like, what are checks?
I was like, don't worry about checks, don't worry about this.
Just trying to know that.
Once we get into the edit, who cares if something's not perfect?
It was like, we need to get every single shot that we want for this movie.
unidentified
Okay.
joe rogan
Oh, boys, this is a cursed interview.
unidentified
Does it feel like something's trying to stop this from happening?
joe rogan
Not really, because it keeps starting up again.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, we just need a break.
You need to have a little bit of a break every now and then.
Joe does that with his guests to shit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Where were we?
danny or michael philippou
We're talking about the montage sequence, I believe.
Can I just say something?
Have you ever recorded one and then you lost all the footage of a podcast?
joe rogan
No.
danny or michael philippou
Once we filmed a video for Deadpool, promoting Deadpool, and we went to a junket, a press junket, and we didn't really do interviews and things like that, and they said...
Just do whatever you want.
So Danny went as like a crazy obsessed fan and he had like this long black wig on.
And we didn't tell anyone that he was that character.
And then we went and interviewed like the writers and then...
Ryan Reynolds and Danny spoke to as well.
But we didn't tell them that Danny was this character.
So it was really an awkward filming thing.
And we knew that they wouldn't let us use a lot of it.
But we ended up losing the footage.
And our friend dropped the hard drive.
And then we fucking lost everything.
Or we thought we did.
And we had to tell them.
Because they had us in Beverly Hills.
And we're like, oh man, sorry, we don't have the video anymore.
And then they're like, what the fuck?
But eventually, a year later, we found the footage, like a backup of it.
I don't even know how we had a backup of it.
Yeah, yeah, and it saved all the footage.
But it was good because we could upload.
We uploaded it without approvals.
Well, it still was not approved.
So it was really awkward.
Anyway, that was my random story.
Let's talk about the montage sequence.
Yeah, the montage sequence was good.
You got told off, Sam told us off, but in a nice way because she has to keep things on track.
Oh, Sam's the best producer.
joe rogan
But that was your flexibility from doing YouTube videos.
You guys shoot things on the fly.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
And they had to pull certain things off.
Even like our makeup, our special effects department was so fucking good.
Yeah, makeup effects group, they're incredible.
joe rogan
How did you decide how to have them look when they're being possessed?
danny or michael philippou
I knew that we didn't want it to feel too elevated and for them to feel and look like corpses.
Well, the eyes as well.
joe rogan
Did you guys use contact lenses?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, everything was practical.
Scalera's big...
Fats, scleras.
You know like when you're on like, uh, people when they're on like, pingers and your irish changes?
unidentified
Pingers?
danny or michael philippou
Pingers, mate.
Bloody, uh, it's Australian term.
It's Australian term for like, uh...
Ecstasy or...
joe rogan
Oh, pingers.
danny or michael philippou
Pingers, mate.
joe rogan
Never heard that one.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, no.
Come down to Red Square in Adelaide, mate.
Kiss some pingers.
We totally sat the actors down.
VFX always looks really odd around the eyes, and you can always tell.
So we had to sit them down and say, it's going to be really uncomfortable, but we need everyone to be able to put these proper contact lenses in.
We need to be able to do it.
So I said, I will do it as well.
I will wear these contact lenses in.
If you do, I wore them for like 30 minutes.
I'm fucking taking them out.
They're the most uncomfortable things in the world.
Yeah, but all the actors around of it, and the makeup bible, there were so many references of real corpses and real dead bodies, and just to try and capture it and make it feel really real and authentic, and not too heightened, was the makeup effects.
And then also, doing everything practically, even with the kid that's pulling his eyeball out of his face, we built his face on top of his face, so he could, you know, interact properly, and practically...
Like a prosthetic face on each face.
joe rogan
How did you have him slamming his head against things?
danny or michael philippou
So we did it a few different ways.
We had the way that we initially thought of, which it worked, but we had some backups just in case.
We had like a foam cover of the table.
So he was just hitting his head on foam.
And then we did one where we had like a head mould made of him and then we're just slamming that into a real table.
And we had, like, blood tubes going through his head and that for blood effects.
That fucking kid, man.
Up to six hours of makeup.
Joe Bird.
Yeah, Joe Bird, the kid.
He just didn't complain once.
There were scenes where, like, you have to be out of focus, sitting on the bed, and he has to go through all those hours of makeup.
And he just did it without complaining.
Yeah.
Like, long prosthetics.
But there's something about it.
Like, when you do things practically, it has, like, a genuine feel.
It feels a lot more real.
Yeah.
Even if audiences don't understand it, like, base level, like, what they're looking at, something will just not feel right.
joe rogan
Right.
danny or michael philippou
Even if you can't verbalize what it is.
joe rogan
The Uncanny Valley.
danny or michael philippou
The Uncanny Valley, yeah.
The Uncanny Valley.
What's that?
Oh, come on.
Sorry, mate.
What's the Uncanny Valley?
There's just something off about it.
joe rogan
It's when you see CGI footage that's not quite there.
It's not quite...
A real person and you kind of know something's off.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, you know what?
It's the same with things like sound and things like that.
And people will not be able to say what it is if you're not like a filmmaker, but you just feel the uncanny valley.
joe rogan
Well, you know, have you ever seen a photograph of a model car and you know it's a model car?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Why is that?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, it's true.
joe rogan
Let's get an example of that.
Get a photo of a model car.
Just say, model 1974 Trans Am.
There's something about the model where you're looking at it, and it looks perfect, but you go, something's wrong.
danny or michael philippou
Is it the way the lighting of a lights are inside?
joe rogan
I don't know, but it's almost impossible to describe.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
But I can tell.
If someone sends me a photo, or if I look at it on Google, I can look at a tiny photograph on my phone and go, oh, that's a model car.
That's not a real car.
danny or michael philippou
You know those miniatures in films where they build a small version of something big?
unidentified
Like a house that gets destroyed by Godzilla.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
But they do a thing called bigotures where they make it a little bit bigger.
joe rogan
What are these, Jamie?
These are model cars and they just have it superimposed.
danny or michael philippou
I cannot tell.
joe rogan
Yeah, I can't tell there.
danny or michael philippou
There, that one.
joe rogan
But that's trick photography.
Or there I can tell.
See what I'm saying?
danny or michael philippou
It's the lighting.
No, it's the size of the ground.
joe rogan
Yeah, but that's just because of the ground.
But if that was on just concrete, it would be the same effect.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, it's the lighting.
You can see the paint.
joe rogan
Right, that one.
That's a good example.
Why can I... Well, that's a shitty one.
That's a shitty model car.
See if there's some other examples, Jamie.
I mean, other examples on Google.
unidentified
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, there's one there to the right, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
Oh, that's a perfect example.
Why does that look fake?
danny or michael philippou
Dude, I do think it's because it's clearly on the floor, on the ground.
I think it's got to do with what's surrounding it and the way that the light is...
Well, and also because it doesn't have, like, the amount of, I guess, like, little creases and light, like, shining off it than a normal car would.
There'd be a lot more light bouncing off it, I guess, than a normal-sized thing.
joe rogan
It would represent more surface area.
The variation in the light would represent more surface area.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, when we were kids we used to put toy cars in and blow them up and we thought it would look cool.
joe rogan
That's a shitty version.
danny or michael philippou
It really didn't.
joe rogan
How about that one, that red one?
jamie vernon
This one?
joe rogan
Yeah, click on that.
Well, that's on hardwood, you can tell.
danny or michael philippou
I feel like that was...
When it's composed in like that other thing is, it's harder to tell.
unidentified
Well, it's better than CG. Oh, damn.
danny or michael philippou
That's a tough one.
joe rogan
That looks fake.
It looks little.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, it looks a little small.
joe rogan
But why?
danny or michael philippou
Fuck, it's a good question.
I'm stumped.
joe rogan
But it does.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, it does.
It has a plastic look.
That's why they do the bigotures, because it needs to be a little bit bigger than this.
This is too small.
joe rogan
But is it the light, the way the light reflects off of it?
In your head, does it generate this idea of a smaller thing?
danny or michael philippou
That's my theory, is that the level of detail and the light.
Yeah, it's the light.
joe rogan
But this is kind of blurry, but still, I'm looking at it and I'm like, that looks fake.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
joe rogan
Click on the ones right there.
Those right there.
Okay.
Those all look fake.
Why?
danny or michael philippou
It's because of the background as well.
Like, we're clearly looking at something that is a model.
joe rogan
But that could easily be, you know, just some sort of a matte black floor and a black background.
danny or michael philippou
You know what?
It's kind of like you can see the weight.
You don't feel the weight or something about it.
They look light.
I don't know, man.
I feel like if we put that into a proper background, like that other picture, it'd be harder to tell.
joe rogan
I think so, too.
I think definitely this white car in the left would be the hardest to tell.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
For some reason, that one seems the most real to me.
Whereas there's something about the rough car, the yellow car, that just seems fake.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It just seems small.
danny or michael philippou
I think it's the detail.
The color is just like pure, full yellow.
There's nothing else.
Is that a model car?
No, because it's bigger.
That's a 1.4.
See, if you zoom out, it's a 1.4 model.
It's bigger, so there's more light reflecting in things.
joe rogan
Okay, so that's it.
danny or michael philippou
Instead of, like, one piece of, like, that yellow one.
You're saying it so short, you could be completely wrong.
joe rogan
I wonder if it's...
No, but I think he's right.
I think if it was a matte car, like, if it was matte paint, it would be more difficult to...
danny or michael philippou
That's why those Lord of the Rings miniatures and bigatures, the bigatures...
They still look good.
Yeah, the bigger ones.
joe rogan
That's 1 24th.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, shit.
unidentified
That looks...
danny or michael philippou
Dude, that looks real to me.
unidentified
Nah.
danny or michael philippou
Really?
The seats look fake.
The seats look fake, but everything else looks real.
joe rogan
That looks pretty real.
danny or michael philippou
I know what you're saying, though.
Oh, definitely.
And that's the thing with movies.
unidentified
What the fuck is that?
danny or michael philippou
You can never...
What is that?
joe rogan
What is that?
jamie vernon
Some YouTube.
danny or michael philippou
Click it.
No, that's...
unidentified
We're just getting caught down a clicking rabbit hole.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, we're going to get caught down a rabbit hole.
joe rogan
How did we get on the subject?
danny or michael philippou
We're talking about VFX and Uncanny Valley.
That's the thing.
When we're recording that make-up, You have to roll for, like, five to ten minutes to try and grab something that looks realistic for, you know, one second.
You just keep rolling.
Oh, move that.
Change your eye here.
Look over here.
Move your hand up here.
You're just trying to find those magic frames.
And lingering on it will take away from the effect when you're just trying to stay on it for too long.
But having those flashes of violence...
And that's the thing.
You don't have that...
Yeah, like, yeah.
unidentified
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
And not, I think it's also not lingering on things to be like, oh, look what we've done.
Like, and then like lingering on like an impressive effect or anything like that.
I appreciate movies more when they show something that's really impressive, but they don't just like keep cutting back to it or show it forever.
There's like only just flashes of it.
And you're like, that would have fucking taken forever, but they only showed it for like a second, you know?
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
danny or michael philippou
I love that stuff in movies.
It probably does suck for the prosthetic department to put all this time in.
unidentified
It does.
danny or michael philippou
I feel bad for our Megafix team, yeah.
Because they're like the Drowned Woman.
They put all this effort into it.
It took a long time to do bloated face, everything.
And she's on screen for like 15 frames.
Yeah, but it's an effective 15 frames.
joe rogan
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
It stays with you.
It stays with you longer.
It lingers.
Yeah, yeah.
And what was cool about doing all the YouTube stuff as well, our makeup artist, Bec Barato, who would help us do all the YouTube stuff for free, were able to get her as a head of department on the film and know that she can pull stuff off.
Even though she hasn't got the experience of being a head of department on all these other films, we could vouch to our producers and say, no, we've been doing this for years with her.
And she's super committed and she's super talented.
There's a video that we did where we recreated Mortal Kombat fatalities and it's the most graphic violent thing ever.
And she would help pull these effects off.
That was like the crazy...
Corey Emery as well is one of the guys that helped us design all these effects.
Are you allowed to show super violent on here or not really?
joe rogan
What?
danny or michael philippou
Are you allowed to show super violent stuff?
joe rogan
Sure.
danny or michael philippou
Can you look up...
Raka Raka Mortal Kombat fatalities.
He's already on it, mate.
Go a little feather in.
A little feather in.
Yeah, here we are.
Oh yeah, there we are.
joe rogan
Oh Jesus.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
Have you seen it?
joe rogan
Oh Jesus Christ.
danny or michael philippou
But like all these small effects here, like the thing in his head.
unidentified
What the fuck?
What the fuck?
Can you take me to school?
danny or michael philippou
What are those really exaggerated effects?
When you're shooting all that stuff, you can try and...
When you're trying to make something look super realistic, practicing with the exaggerated stuff helps.
Yeah, because then you can do, like, the...
This is, like, showing ridiculous Mortal Kombat fatalities, but...
in real life.
Very sticky.
Two-day shoot.
unidentified
Jesus Christ.
joe rogan
Okay.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, you get the idea.
joe rogan
I get the idea.
danny or michael philippou
Ultra violence.
But practicing with those super elevated things helps with the smaller stuff.
Yeah, and you know the way to kind of shoot practically and stuff.
It's a lot more grounded in...
And people say that it was too far sometimes in Talk to Me.
But we could have made that scene go for three times longer.
Him smashing the space.
Who said it was too far?
In a screening, people fainted in the cinema for one of the screenings.
unidentified
LAUGHTER It was the coolest thing ever.
joe rogan
It was perfect.
danny or michael philippou
And people working out.
joe rogan
Did you guys love horror movies before you made this?
Were you fans of the genre?
danny or michael philippou
It's always that thing when you're growing up and you're not allowed to watch something.
It makes you want to watch it.
Our mum was so specific over certain classifications that we can't watch.
Yeah, you could only watch PG. PG. Medium level violence, no low level violence.
It's different in Australia, the ratings, but it was like medium level violence, low level violence.
We weren't allowed to watch it.
But there was a certain...
And low-level violence.
Yeah, yeah.
It was a thrill to defying mum and being like, I'm going to watch this fucking thing.
But it's different because dad wouldn't give a fuck.
Yeah, yeah.
Because they split up people very young.
He'd like, watch whatever you want.
And mum was like, you can't watch anything.
And we had a grandfather...
Who spoke no English.
And we'd take him to the video store and we'd get him to get us the R-rated stuff, like the adult stuff.
And then he got told off.
Even Dad was like, you can't get him R. You can't get him that stuff.
And then he got told off.
And then we got him to get cartoons instead, like anime, violent anime.
Like the blood spraying and stuff.
And then he got told off.
Dad's like, no, that's too much.
And he's like, it's a cartoon!
It's so real!
It's a cartoon!
I used to love it.
Yeah, I loved it.
I got him to get me the Exorcist book.
All those R-rated films, he would always buy it for us.
He would never understand.
And then you just say, yeah, that sounds okay.
It's fine.
Always that imagination when you look at things like the Goosebump covers from R.L. Stine or if you go into the VHS, when you're looking at all those covers of horror films and you're making up on your head...
When you go to the horror film section, like in the video stores back in the day, kids, you go in there and the horror section, you're like, what the fuck is happening in that movie?
Your imagination runs wild.
It was just trying to capture that magic.
I just remember there was always...
This fun to being thrilled or watching something you weren't supposed to see.
Did you have one when you were a kid that scarred you?
Yeah, what was your traumatic childhood film?
joe rogan
Oh, I don't know.
I loved horror movies when I was a kid.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
I didn't have like a traumatic, terrifying one.
danny or michael philippou
Well, you didn't watch one that fucked you off as a kid?
unidentified
No.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, really?
joe rogan
No, they don't really fuck me up.
danny or michael philippou
We had a lady that used to take us to when we were like 11 to go see the adult movies, like the horror movies.
And she took us to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003. The remake.
And the theatre guy's like...
The lady's like, are you sure?
Because they're too young to go watch.
She's like, yeah, they're fine.
And then we went in there and then I had to leave.
I felt sick.
And I felt sick because I was like, we're trying to be mature and show that we can't handle these movies.
Michael runs out.
And the theater owner's like, told ya!
And I was like, fucking...
So scared.
I heard chainsaws for fucking a while.
I literally heard a fucking chainsaw at home and it wasn't even there.
joe rogan
Do you guys think back now on all these influences and all these things that happened and how it sort of let up?
To making films like this?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Because it's all the resistance, all the don't watch this, all the telling you what to do.
danny or michael philippou
So many different things.
Because I remember, since mom was so specific on what we could watch with the classifications, I started collecting movie classifications.
I was like, oh, like I would break down and have a booklet of different film classifications.
See, he's weird.
He's one or two bad turns away from being like a serial killer.
I used to collect things that scared me.
So if there was news articles of stuff of killers and murderers, I would cut that out and collect it in a scrapbook.
And all the teachers are so concerned, like, what the fuck is this?
But I was sort of obsessing on and trying to figure out what's scared about it and collecting it made it less scary or something.
But yeah, I was weird.
Yeah, and then also, like, that's the same thing.
These things that influence you from, like, early childhood that you don't even realise.
But I think a lot of it has to do with, like...
Like, your parents or something.
Like, we're affected in ways we don't even understand, you know, from such an early age.
It only comes out down the line.
That's where everyone goes, like, and everyone has, like, the childhood traumas, right?
But it feels like you are, and everyone has a childhood trauma, whether their parents weren't there, or they were there, or they were too nurturing, and then you can't go into the real world.
It's, like, little things that change you, like, and you don't even realize that.
What was the term?
The garage door shuts.
Anything that happens to you before you turn 13, 12 and under, that's with you now.
It's part of you.
So yeah, I don't know.
There's all those little things and those influences and references.
Yeah, and it's just things that you are scared of as well that you write into the film.
Like mental health.
It runs in the family, like deep depression.
Our mother's Mom took her own life when she was like six.
And mom has real dark, deep falls into that as well.
And then you start thinking, is that hereditary?
joe rogan
It's probably why she didn't want you watching those movies.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, maybe.
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe.
Yeah, there's so many different things.
But you look at that and you see a reoccurring pattern and you're like, is that my fate?
And yeah, it is in your head.
It is part of you.
It's part of your genes.
It's genetic.
But then also things like, I guess like everything we see is like a film scene or something.
So it's like always just ideas stemming from all different things.
When I start writing, I have to get into a certain headspace to write.
I could never just sit down and be like, okay, I've got two hours free, I'm going to write now.
I have to get into a certain headspace.
If I'm writing a scene where characters are depressed, I feel like I need to get a little bit depressed.
So when I was writing this new thing that I'm working on, it was sort of staying up for two days straight, not sleeping, watching things that freaked me out, and then doing things in real life that would try and scare me.
Like murder people.
No, not like murder people.
I would stay up all night.
I remember I would walk around in the neighbourhoods at night.
I would go for drives all night, late at night.
And I have conversations with people that aren't there.
I'm so caught up in it.
If I've got a character that I'm writing, I can sit down and talk to them in the car.
So I'll be driving and talking to this person that's not there.
And then I'm like, I remember there was someone that lost their life at this cliff.
It was probably like 2am.
This was like a month or so ago.
I drove out to that cliff at like 3 in the morning and I went up there and I'm talking to someone that's not there but on this cliff edge and getting myself into this weird state where I'm a bit freaked out.
And I was like, okay, I'm talking to this character that's here.
Let's say someone that we know died here and we're trying to connect with this person.
It's like, alright, let's do it again with that friend that I'm with, the imaginary one.
What if he died and I'm trying to connect with him?
And run through scenarios in real life and just do things that try to freak me out.
I think we've found the side effects of those drugs.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Are you guys now kind of committed to this sort of genre or do you want to make all kinds of films?
danny or michael philippou
All kinds of stuff.
We're developing Street Fighter at the moment, the video game, into a film.
For me, I like going to environments like that.
I travelled to Thailand and I was trying to find Sagat, who's in the game, he's based on a real person.
And he still does private sessions, Muay Thai.
So I was, like, training.
And I had, like, little, like, clues of where he was.
So I was, like, traveling around and, like, training Muay Thai and then speaking with people and trying to find the real-life Sagat.
And then, like, being in that environment just helps with, like, writing and ideas like that.
Like, immersing yourself in the world, like, really helps.
And talking to people that are like the characters that you're writing.
Yeah, they are.
Like, I found a family of, like, 12 kids that grew up All fighters.
And two of them are like world champions now.
And they're like, they're just like at the backyard of their house and they just fucking fight every day.
And like they had to, they had to fight to, you know, to eat.
And like, I remember talking to one, Mimi, her name is, she's champion now.
And she's like, if I wanted to, because there were so many kids in her family with such low incomes, like if I wanted something special, I need to fight because I need, that's the only way we could afford it.
So that world is like, it's just so much inspiration that you get from stories and people.
Yeah, yeah.
Spend time with people.
That's why I think action would be funner.
When it's a horror thing and you're too often going into a weird mental headspace, it's so unhealthy and you can feel it being unhealthy, you know, on your mental health.
Where I'm like, I can feel my sanity slip away if I want to let go of it when you get into those zones.
joe rogan
When you guys wrote Talk To Me, did you try to talk to someone who's had experiences with the supernatural?
danny or michael philippou
So many people like that.
Yeah, of course.
joe rogan
Who'd you talk to?
danny or michael philippou
I remember I had one friend that went through a really extreme trauma and he told me about this kinesiologist that made him levitate off this table.
He's like, and this is someone that doesn't bullshit.
It's not someone that just says things to say things.
I really trust what this friend says.
And he's like, Danny, I'm telling you, I was levitating off the table and I just couldn't stop crying afterwards.
And he said that there was a demon attached to him and this woman, this kinesiologist, pulled it out of him.
So I was like, I really want to speak to this woman.
I need to go talk to her.
So I set aside three hours.
I bought three hours of her and I sat down, had a big conversation.
She's like, yes, I'm seeing these things that are attached to you.
I'm pulling them off.
Oh, it's an octopus monster.
It's a this, it's a that.
And it felt too crazy.
And she was doing stuff.
I'm like, I do not believe this at all.
But then I look back on this friend who had this really extreme trauma and I feel like he, Attached it to that.
Yeah.
He's like, okay, the source of this, the reason why this happened is this being that is attached to me and this person I want to believe is pulling this thing off of me now.
And it's something that's really cathartic about it and it's an emotional thing as opposed to an actual spiritual thing.
joe rogan
But what do you think about the levitating part?
danny or michael philippou
I think that he was in a really heightened emotional state, and so he believed that was happening when actually maybe it wasn't.
That's my theory.
That's the thing with Supernatural.
If you open your mind up to it, I feel like even if it's not happening, you will kind of think that it is in your mind.
If you go into a room...
I love staying at haunted places.
If there's a haunted place nearby...
I love, like, just saying, oh, this room's haunted.
I'm like, oh, can I sleep in there?
I want to experience whatever.
If you go into that room and not know, and you're just like, you know, you'll just have a normal night.
But if you go in there like, oh, someone was murdered in this room.
There's a noise that happens at this time.
You open yourself up to be, like, hypersensitive to any kind of reaction for anything.
I remember I went to this place called Kapunda in South Australia, which is a town of...
I think, like, houses that they bring over from, like, different places.
And it was, like, haunted for some reason.
And the church was haunted.
And the back room of the church was the most haunted.
So we were in this room.
It was, like, 2 a.m.
in the morning.
And they're like, who wants to go in the back room and talk to the spirit?
Fred, his name is.
And I was like, oh, I will.
And then I sat in this dark room.
And we had, like, these infrared cameras.
And I was sitting there.
And I was, like, talking to Fred.
I'm like...
Hey Fred, do you want to make a noise for me?
Do you want to throw me across the room?
You know, everyone says you're real, I don't believe that.
And then I heard like a...
And my heart just fucking sank in it.
And I sat there and I was like, I'll get the fuck out of this room.
And I went and just left.
But if I had that same experience not knowing that, I would have heard a noise and been like, oh, it's whatever.
joe rogan
Right, the power of suggestion.
Your mind starts playing tricks on you.
danny or michael philippou
I spoke to a psychic once and I said, how much is it mental perception as opposed to reality?
And she said...
When I go into it, because she does, like, readings of houses and stuff where someone's lost their life or stuff like that.
She goes, like, rids ghosts out of houses.
And she said, I know what's real when I go to a room, I don't know the history of the house, and I'll have a feeling that there's something here, some presence...
Something about a little boy and I just felt that in my room and he's sad and all this.
And then later I do research and then find out that little boy died in that room.
Yeah, I still do not believe it.
Yeah, that's the thing.
If it is real, the amount of bullshit is around, that's 99% of them.
But who was the one?
Who was the psychic that died and then they got their wife to give them a code word and they travelled around to all the most famous mediums in the world and had a code word that him and his wife shared.
So just say it was energy can.
They're like, go and talk to these psychics, these mediums, and they're like, okay, is there a...
Oh, your wife is here.
I'm talking to her.
He's like, oh, okay.
Is she saying a code word?
They're like, um...
Oh.
No.
I can't really connect.
Oh, we're disconnecting from the spirit now.
He went to all the most famous mediums in the world, and no one should say the fucking code word.
Well, he started doing, like, a prize pool of, like, if anyone can guess this code word.
No, that's a different thing.
That's a different thing, yeah.
That was the one where he was like, I put a code word up.
jamie vernon
I believe it was Houdini.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, it was Houdini, yes, yeah.
joe rogan
Oh, it was Houdini?
Okay, she moved to Inwood, Manhattan.
She tried to connect with Harry during seances with a code that only the two of them knew about to be sure that the spirit medium was not a fraud.
The code was, Rosabelle, answer, tell, pray, answer, look, tell, answer, answer, tell.
Oh, so they have like a whole thing.
danny or michael philippou
And no one could guess it.
unidentified
Because it's...
danny or michael philippou
Well, we said at the...
So do you believe in psychics?
Do you think people can...
joe rogan
I think it is very possible that occasionally people can tune in and perceive information that's not readily available.
I think that it's very possible that places have memory and that there's something about traumatic events and spectacular events that leave almost a stain in a place.
They just feel strange.
And I think that sometimes people think about someone and that person calls.
And I don't know what that is.
It might be coincidence, but it might not be.
It might be an emerging property of the human mind.
So if you think about many of the emergency...
Language.
How did it be developed over time?
Even eyesight had to eventually be developed.
If single-celled organisms didn't have it...
Why does my fucking watch keep going on?
What's going on here?
These annoying fucking things.
But I think that it's...
It's very unlikely that these people that call themselves psychics have any real ability.
It's never been proven.
No one's ever been able to do a psychic medium exercise where they've been able to tell someone something that was impossible for them.
I've never seen anything like that.
James Randi used to have that million dollar thing.
danny or michael philippou
That's the one, yeah.
joe rogan
No one ever claimed the money.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, no one claimed the money.
Because we've been to so many places and talked to so many people and I've never experienced it personally.
Well, there was one.
I knew it was more of a magic trick than reality, but there was this couple that we met, and they were in this room, and they said, when we hold hands, our power of connection will open the door to the spirit world, and you will hear spirits.
And then we were sitting in the room.
joe rogan
This is the first time ever we've had any blackouts.
This is the fourth one?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
joe rogan
Well, we'll give it one more chance.
danny or michael philippou
Do you have any of those smelling salts?
joe rogan
Yeah, for sure.
danny or michael philippou
Here?
joe rogan
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
Can I try it, quickly?
joe rogan
We got any smelling salts, Jamie?
danny or michael philippou
Let's try this thing.
unidentified
What is it?
danny or michael philippou
Oh, my God.
Smell it, Danny.
No, thanks.
joe rogan
I'll find out which one is good.
See which one's good.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
danny or michael philippou
How do you smell it?
Just a little bit?
joe rogan
Just get it right under your nose and breathe in.
unidentified
What the fuck?
joe rogan
What the fuck is that?
Give it to him.
danny or michael philippou
Dude, are you fucking serious?
joe rogan
Come on, you're a drug rat.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, for fuck's sake!
unidentified
I feel like I can't be PMR. You're a lab rat.
joe rogan
Do it.
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
Let's go.
danny or michael philippou
What's with that?
It's like someone fucking lit your nostril on fire.
That's what it feels like.
joe rogan
That one's been open for a few weeks.
You should really try them when they're brand new.
danny or michael philippou
It's worse than that?
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, quite a bit.
danny or michael philippou
Dude.
joe rogan
Yeah, quite a bit.
I mean, I gave it a jolt, but it didn't really, like, go down on my toes.
danny or michael philippou
Goddamn.
joe rogan
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
That's intense.
Dude, that's fucking crazy.
joe rogan
Those guys do that stuff before they power lift.
I guess somehow or another it excites your system.
danny or michael philippou
I just want to go for a run.
joe rogan
Yeah, there it is.
danny or michael philippou
Oh my god.
I feel like that opens up your airways a bit as well.
joe rogan
Does something.
Probably not good.
They say you're only supposed to do it twice in a day, right?
We've done it.
Dozens.
danny or michael philippou
I feel like you're saying you play Uno and the loser has to do it.
joe rogan
At the comedy club, at the mothership, we have them laying around the green room.
People are always like taking turns, taking hits of it.
It's become a thing.
danny or michael philippou
Dude, that's like the hand.
You should sneak it into...
It's like the hand.
joe rogan
Where did you guys come up with the concept for the hand?
danny or michael philippou
So my big inspiration point was this car accident that I was in when I was 16. And I sort of split my eye open here.
And it was like a really...
I went to sleep in the back of my friend's car.
Everyone had just got their pee plates.
And then he crashed it.
And then I went to hospital afterwards with this busted open face.
And I just couldn't stop shaking in hospital.
So I was like trembling, trembling.
They were turning on all the heaters, giving me extra blankets, doing anything they could to get me warm.
I just would not stop shaking.
And then my sister came in to visit me.
She sat next to me and she held my hand and then the shaking just stopped.
And it was just that moment, like the power of her touch pulled me out of this state of shock that I was in.
And it just, yeah, hands and connection and all that was in the first draft of the script.
It was so prevalent.
It was the main theme of the film.
So it just felt right to be our object of horror.
joe rogan
And did you try to, did you have different ideas about where the hand came from?
danny or michael philippou
Oh, dude, we've got an entire mythology barbell that breaks down everything.
Where it came from, who it went to, everyone that's ever had it.
We've broken down everything.
Every spirit that connected with each kid, why they were drawn to each of those kids, what emotions were they connecting to?
So we've like, yeah, blocked all that out.
Once they were supposed to be a draft delivered, and then I kept...
The script's exactly the same.
It's like, yeah, but the Pitch Bible, the mythology Bible's different, guys.
They're like, I meant to have a draft of the script, and I was like, yes, but it's mythology Bible.
It was just so much fun to be on screen.
Because it's fun to explore and have just little hints at the history of it.
Yeah, yeah.
So I think for the sequel, we can explore that a little bit more.
But even with the sequel, we're writing two versions of the sequel right now.
One that's continuing on with the characters from the first film, and then another sequel idea, which is a whole bunch of different characters in a different country.
joe rogan
I don't want to spoil it, but I love the end of it.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, fuck yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Full circle.
It's that thing that when you're drafting and redrafting and you're always figuring things out and you can strengthen things and you really follow an idea or a theme and you just find things like that ending.
Yeah, and you punch them all through the script.
That's a cool thing.
Movies that are layered like that and work on different levels, that's the stuff that we liked watching.
So when you get to that point in a script where you can really thread theme and stuff and subtext throughout the script, it just makes it feel so much more complete.
Normally when we write, our poor co-writer, we'll just write like 50, 60 pages of scenes, moments, you know, characters, things like that, interactions.
And there's no, we're not thinking of, oh, this is, you know, the midpoint.
This is the characters, this point in the story, that, like a film structure.
It's just like a world and characters and things like that and then like a basic kind of outline.
And then our poor co-writer's like, okay, I've got to try and fit this into like film structure now and like this means this and like kind of navigate the mess.
And always try and attribute different things with...
So exploring things that really bother you, or like, I remember when our grandfather passed away, it was Christmas Day, and our dad was trying to give him CPR, and his vomit was stuck in his beard.
Like, my dad was giving my grandfather CPR, and my grandfather's vomit was stuck in his beard.
And I remember that was sticking in my mind, the vomit in his beard.
So even that's in the scene where...
The dad pulls out the mom who's overdosed and is trying to give her CPR. So she's tapping into small things like that.
Anything that bothers you, just try and express it in a way or put it in there.
So yeah, that's part of the writing process.
joe rogan
The whole process of filming it and then editing it and then seeing a final draft.
What was that like when you watched the thing for the first time all the way through?
danny or michael philippou
I remember, because we were editing while we were on set, we have to bump out of a location in three days.
So we'd shoot all day, we'd go home and edit all night.
We'd go back to set, shoot all day, then we'd go home and edit all night.
No sleep.
No sleep.
A couple of three days in there.
Yeah, yeah.
Three days sleep.
You should have had the fucking smelling salts for that.
Because it's sort of like, it's so engaging and stimulating.
You have to make sure that you've got every single shot that you could possibly want because we know we don't have the budget to come back here.
As soon as we wrap this location, we're done.
That's the only shots we're ever going to get for this film forever.
So that was like a thing.
And I remember when I edited together some of the sequences, that first possession, I just started crying because I was like, fuck!
So shit!
I started crying because I was like, I can't believe...
What came out of this, and it's everyone, our cinematographer Aaron McCluskey, our production designer Bethany Ryan, our producer Samantha Jennings, the performances of everyone, it's all those crafts and all those masters putting all their energies into this one thing that makes it more heightened or more incredible than you ever could have imagined.
Even, like, our sound designer, Emma Bording-Yong, as soon as she started doing passes, you see things getting stronger of every single part.
I don't know, man.
It's the most rewarding thing.
The first time, though, I feel bad for our editor, when it came time to edit the movie, I had an edit of the whole movie.
Danny had an edit, and the editor had an edit.
And then he's like, let's just watch mine, and give me broad strokes.
And then we started watching, like, in, like, two minutes.
We're like, oh, stop, stop.
We've got to do...
A scene at a time.
We've got to do it scene by scene, and then, like, kind of look at all three cuts and kind of do it like that.
So it was, like, a big...
I think it's an annoying process because people don't usually work like that.
It's a unique way to work.
But because we've been doing so hands-on with the YouTube stuff, luckily they were accommodating.
All those heads of departments were down.
Yeah, to do that.
But we were really involved in that.
joe rogan
Is it difficult when you're so close to something and then you watch it to see it the way an outside person would see it?
Because you're aware of every detail and how it was made.
Is it difficult to have an...
Objective perception of what the film is like.
danny or michael philippou
I'd say that when we finished it, and I was like, this is really good, we'd bring in someone to watch it.
So when we were at the editor, Jeff Lamb's house, his studio is underneath his house, so he brought his son in to just watch it with us.
And you could feel when things are sagging and not working.
And you need that outsider's perspective when you're not attached to it.
And you can kind of see it in the body language, that they're kind of like, this is getting fucking boring now, or something like that.
You can just feel the energy of the room.
Another thing you can do is...
Separating yourself from it, taking a bit of a break from it and coming back to it's a good thing as well.
That's good for writing too.
Also having like a...
Films do it a lot.
We only did it once, where we had a bunch of different people come in from all different age ranges and uncles, a teacher, younger teenagers, and they all come and watch the movie and then ask, did it all make sense?
Is there stuff that felt like it didn't make sense, didn't click with you?
Is there parts that sagged or got boring and you kind of get different input?
And if a lot of people are saying the same thing, then you kind of go, you know...
Maybe there's something here.
Maybe that isn't clicking right now.
But every time we put it together, I was more...
It just turned out so much better than you could have imagined.
I can't imagine the opposite experience when you're turning it together and it ends up being really bad.
It's a nightmare.
There was a difficult process where the music was really difficult.
That was the most stressful thing.
unidentified
Why is that?
danny or michael philippou
The movie.
This is more your fault than anyone's fault.
Yeah, uh, yeah.
Because Michael's very specific.
Mike was so specific with music that he edited to a really specific temp score.
I listened to hundreds of songs and then put a temp score together and gave it to the composer and said, amazing composer, but I was like, this is exactly the vibe of the film.
And this is music that we can use or we can license it if we need.
And he's like, I'll stick close to the temp.
And there was no communication after that until a week before or two weeks before the score was supposed to be delivered.
And I went and saw him and it was, He'd recorded the whole soundtrack, but it was very different from our, you know, version.
And it was just a different movie.
And then we had to like, oh, fuck, like we have to kind of start again.
I feel bad because he recorded all organically, like all these things.
He's really talented, but it was kind of in a direction that was not what our idea of what the film was.
unidentified
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
So then we were trying to fix it in time.
We couldn't in time before it was supposed to be delivered.
And then we went back to mix the movie.
And then I was with, you know, I was with the music editor after mixing days.
We'd stay up all night trying to do the music and like kind of figure out a way around the music to make the music work.
And then when we watched it...
Back, it just was a different movie.
And I remember Sam saying, it feels like a different movie.
It doesn't feel like I can get inside the movie now.
There's something wrong here.
And it's kind of that thing of like, you not understanding why it was.
But I knew what I wanted and it just wasn't coming across.
So then, and that's what I broke down crying because I was like, oh, it's over.
Like, it's over.
And we had the tickets for the premiere just gone on sale.
This is before Sundance.
We did a premiere in Adelaide.
The tickets are going on sale.
I'm like, we have no music.
I'm like, I'm not going to the fucking premiere for the music shit.
unidentified
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
You know?
But then luckily, Sam, our producer, fuck.
Oh, we love you, Sam.
She's like, let's get a new composer and let's do this properly.
We didn't get this far to fuck it up right at the end.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
danny or michael philippou
So we got a new composer that I worked with and we...
He made this thing come together very quickly.
Yeah, he's amazing.
Man, I feel bad for him.
I'd give fucking pages and notes and he just fucking everything.
He's so amazing.
He's like OCD with music and sound.
I don't even understand a note.
I'll hear a note.
I'm like, lower.
Is that called a D or an E key?
I'm like, I don't know.
It's just lower.
That one, that one, that one.
It's like a feeling of music as opposed to...
I don't understand.
Technically what it is.
Learning to communicate was a new thing.
Because even when Emma would send in stuff from Michael, his emails seemed rude when he was responding to her.
And it was like, Michael, don't send messages like that.
No, you would do it too.
Oh yeah, maybe.
But it's just like learning to communicate in a way where we have not worked with this person before.
We don't know how our tone is coming across.
And it's a collaborative effort.
Yeah, it is.
It's a collaborative effort.
And that's why movies can kind of I feel not come together completely if there's all these amazing creatives, but they're going in different directions.
So it's like kind of like having it all go to one direction.
That's like when everything's working in sync as opposed to against each other.
That's a big thing.
And I think that with music going forward, I want to get music started getting composed in pre-production.
And, like, start finding the sound early.
As opposed to just waiting at the end, why not have it part of pre-production like everything else is?
Makeup gets time and, like, the schedule does.
Why not the music as well?
Like, because that's such an integral part.
Sound in film is massive and people don't understand.
Like, even, it brings so much more than you would realise, you know?
joe rogan
Of course.
danny or michael philippou
And it's like finding those heads of departments, like Emma and Cornell, people that are achieving things that you could never possibly achieve.
And Jeff, our editor, we can't accomplish this by ourselves.
Someone that we can really look up to and rely on.
That does it better than us.
Yeah, it does it better than us.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
danny or michael philippou
So it's so fun finding those heads of departments and building a team.
joe rogan
Well, it seems like you guys are so specific with your visions.
It's so important that you maintain creative control.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
But also, yeah, have room though.
joe rogan
As budgets get bigger and studios get larger and then the consequences or at least the risk is higher for them, they're going to want to have more control.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, and that's the thing is sometimes these movies...
They want to have a creative director, but they have to protect their investment.
And the way to protect your investment is to do what's worked in the past.
So then it turns, instead of being like a new thing, it kind of turns into what has worked in the past.
unidentified
Right.
danny or michael philippou
And then like...
But, you know, I feel really grateful.
A24 is...
We don't have to worry about that because...
Because 824 moving forward, they're like a family.
They don't feel like Hollywood execs or something like that where they're just thinking about money and capitalising on money.
They're all about the director and director's vision.
So they will give creative final cut to us and say they trust us.
joe rogan
They certainly should now after that.
You guys know what you're doing.
It's really good.
danny or michael philippou
Until the next movie comes out and it's shit.
joe rogan
That does happen occasionally.
M. Night Shyamalan, he has an amazing movie in Sixth Sense, and then the movies after that are just like...
danny or michael philippou
Split was pretty decent.
unidentified
Which one?
danny or michael philippou
I liked Split.
I liked Unbreakable.
joe rogan
I didn't see Split.
Unbreakable was okay.
The Sixth Sense was so good.
danny or michael philippou
So incredible.
joe rogan
It's so hard sometimes when your best one is your first one.
danny or michael philippou
And you got nothing out after that?
joe rogan
And then there was the one with Marky Mark where the plants were killing people.
unidentified
You know what happens sometimes?
joe rogan
What the fuck am I watching?
The fuck is this?
danny or michael philippou
I haven't seen it.
That's The Happening.
Is that The Happening?
joe rogan
No, that was the other one.
Which one was The Happening?
danny or michael philippou
The one where they all kill themselves.
And they walk backwards.
Don't know, they start walking backwards.
joe rogan
Is that the happening?
danny or michael philippou
That's the happening.
When they all start killing themselves.
Right?
Was that him?
Are you sure about that?
Am I making shit up?
Am I drunk?
Whatever the fuck that thing was, I don't know.
I'm making movies off my head.
joe rogan
It's the happening.
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
You know what happens also?
It's weird.
After the movie comes out, you get the opportunity to do whatever you want next.
What do you want to do next?
Like, we'll do it.
Like, that's the kind of position we're in now.
I could see people rushing into things, like half-baked ideas or something too early because you're thinking about money and capitalising on this moment.
And then the second one being not as...
You know, because the first one's like, that's everything.
Everything's riding on this movie.
It has to be the best fucking thing ever.
Then when you do one, like the second one or the third one, where you haven't had that time to develop the script, you know, and you kind of rush into the...
Half-baked ideas.
Well, it's new about that.
We've been writing for three years, and I'm so excited to fucking start filming again.
That's what we want to do.
And then we've been doing the doco as well, which we showed you a little bit of.
joe rogan
Yeah, you were telling me about this death wrestling.
What is it called?
danny or michael philippou
Deathmatch wrestling.
joe rogan
Deathmatch wrestling.
danny or michael philippou
So we're doing that with A24 at the moment.
joe rogan
This is in Japan that they do this?
Where is this?
danny or michael philippou
And in America as well.
It's worldwide.
It's like a very niche.
It's pretty, I guess, controversial in a way.
A lot of people don't like it.
joe rogan
Well, they were throwing people in the barbed wire.
Show the video.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
joe rogan
The other video?
danny or michael philippou
I can't show you that one because it's the part of the documentary.
But if you write Sick Nick...
Write CCW Ultraviolence at its best.
That's a good compilation there.
joe rogan
These guys are covered with scars, like legitimate scars.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, it's the most extreme form of wrestling and it's the most dangerous.
And it's the least paid and the least viewed because it's so graphic.
It has a very niche audience and they brutalize themselves.
joe rogan
Legitimately.
unidentified
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
So when you look at wrestling, wrestling's already like a risky sport.
These guys are doing like week in, week out for like a hundred bucks.
Getting fucking annihilated.
It's a fascinating world.
So fascinating.
I'm so drawn to it and I love it so much.
Even as a kid, I was always drawn to that really extreme side of wrestling.
There was Cactus Jack McFoley who Undertaker threw off the top of the cell.
And he used to wrestle in Japan in Deathmatch in a company called IWA. And that was my first time seeing a Deathmatch tournament where he was wrestling...
Terry Funk with exploding barbed wire, exploding ropes.
They're bleeding everywhere.
And it's such commitment.
It's such extreme performance art.
I'm so drawn to it.
Imagine you're watching John Wick and, you know, Keanu Reeves is going to get kicked downstairs, but you're there in person and he's doing the stunt live and you don't know if he's going to be okay or not.
Like, that kind of energy in the room.
And then also, people...
You have this kind of, like...
It's kind of like when you watch, like, the UFC, like, these two guys are the best of, like, clashing.
You don't know what's going to happen.
That kind of, like, intensity, right?
That vibe in, like, UFC or before...
at fights.
It's like that, but they're, like, taking these crazy risks where they could get paralysed.
They could cut, like, you know, arteries.
One guy, Nick Gage, died...
And got brought back to life in a helicopter.
Like, he cut an artery from a light bulb.
unidentified
Jesus.
danny or michael philippou
And we did some events as well, like, on the YouTube.
I did...
Because we used to do when we were kids, deathmatch wrestling, as, like, teenagers.
unidentified
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
And we did a video for our YouTube.
And then, like, of us as kids.
And then fans were like, oh, do that again.
We want to see you guys do that now.
So we organised some free events where we got everyone to come for free to watch us wrestle.
And they thought it was, like, a gimmick thing.
And then we went fucking hard.
And once this light bulb smashed off, I got slammed into...
It was 70 light tubes taped together.
And I got smashed into it.
And one of them broke off wrong and went up into my ribs.
unidentified
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
And I was like, oh!
And I hadn't felt anything before that because of the adrenaline.
The barbed wire I didn't feel.
Thumbtacks I didn't feel.
I really felt that.
So I was like, I've got something here.
But let's continue the match.
And then I was like getting bloodier.
And then I laid on a table.
And a guy went on the balcony, jumped onto the table.
jamie vernon
Is this from one of them?
danny or michael philippou
Oh, potentially.
This looks like...
I don't know if that's...
unidentified
If you write CZW... I tried finding that actual one, but I'll play this too.
Yeah, play that.
joe rogan
Oh Jesus, he missed.
danny or michael philippou
That's like a wrestling photo.
I'll show Jamie this one.
I missed one.
joe rogan
Oh God, that guy gotta get fucked up from that.
danny or michael philippou
Well, there's a thing about it.
There's a camaraderie about it as well because your life's in their hands.
Their life's in your hands.
It has to be its ultimate trust.
If yous aren't committed together to pull these moves off, then you're going to hurt each other bad.
joe rogan
That's just a guy missing.
danny or michael philippou
Skip to a bit further in, probably like 30 seconds in.
This is what I always watch to get pumped up.
joe rogan
It's all light bulbs and barbed wire.
danny or michael philippou
A little further in?
Yeah, there we are.
joe rogan
Oh, God.
danny or michael philippou
It's so rogue.
It's so dangerous.
It's so exciting.
It's looked down upon because there's no technique.
It's just guys smashing each other.
That's why people don't like it.
But there is technique.
I feel like there is, yeah.
And especially now.
It's not just...
unidentified
because I like it if you good lord yeah It's intense.
danny or michael philippou
But you can't turn away, can you, Joe?
joe rogan
And how bad do these guys get fucked up doing these things?
danny or michael philippou
It depends on...
I think it'd be bad.
Sometimes they're okay, and sometimes you're not.
joe rogan
Oh, God.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
It's pretty insane.
joe rogan
Look at the audience.
danny or michael philippou
What's your first thought, Joe, when you see that?
joe rogan
Totally unnecessary.
danny or michael philippou
But you can't turn away.
joe rogan
I can.
danny or michael philippou
Do you feel like...
If you're watching two wrestling matches, one's standard and one's that, you'd be...
On that one, I feel.
joe rogan
Probably, yeah.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, because you're probably gonna wanna see how bad someone gets hurt.
danny or michael philippou
Normal.
joe rogan
Car accident.
Vibes.
Can't look away.
danny or michael philippou
They're defying death.
But also, there's a respect from the fans as well.
You're putting your body on the line like that extreme for our entertainment.
There's like 300 people in the venue and these guys are risking everything to entertain.
That's something that's like there's a respect that comes with that that's in those environments.
It's unlike anything you've ever experienced.
Wait, go Ronald WWE beatdown.
jamie vernon
This is fucking crazy.
joe rogan
Which one's this one?
jamie vernon
This is a fucking weed whacker.
joe rogan
No way.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
Okay, I get it.
danny or michael philippou
Go Ronald WWE. Let me just show you this thing that happened to me when we were doing ours.
I was dressed as Ronald McDonald.
It's one of our characters on YouTube.
And when I got the thing up my ribs, and then I got put on this table, and the guy jumped, and I felt all the pressure, like flesh.
You're doing a really bad job.
Oh, no, no, that's a different one.
jamie vernon
Not this video?
danny or michael philippou
No, no.
I write Ronald WWE beatdown.
Yeah, Ronald WWE. Write it into the search.
Yeah, that first one.
And just go like halfway through.
Yeah, a bit further.
You're making us look stupid and crazy.
But this one's like, when we have the stunt guys, I purposely tell them not to come to this stuff because this isn't like normal stunt performing.
joe rogan
You just get hit over the head by a neon lightbulb?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, so that's the one that went up into my room.
joe rogan
Oh God, dude.
danny or michael philippou
And keep going for another minute and you'll see like when they put me on the table.
unidentified
All right, I'll get back.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, that's the jump there.
I just felt all the fucking blood.
Like, it just splurted out of the side of my back.
joe rogan
So he jumped off of there onto you?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
joe rogan
Oh my god, dude.
You get paralyzed from something like that.
danny or michael philippou
I don't know what it is that draws us to it, but we're sort of doing the documentary to explore the psychology behind the need to do it or why they do it and talking to the wrestlers and finding out, you know, what's going on with them and why they're drawn to it and why we were drawn to it.
It's so interesting to me because I know it's disgusting.
I know it's weird.
And I want to figure out why the psychology behind it.
Yeah, why people would do it.
Why do you think people would do it, Joe?
joe rogan
Because they're dumb.
Or...
danny or michael philippou
Dumb.
Deeper?
joe rogan
Or dumb.
unidentified
I don't think it's all just dumb.
joe rogan
What else is it?
danny or michael philippou
It's a way to feel present, I feel.
joe rogan
Do you think there's a smarter way to do that?
danny or michael philippou
There probably is, but once you experience something like that, going back to normal life, you couldn't.
joe rogan
Really?
unidentified
You couldn't.
joe rogan
I bet you could.
danny or michael philippou
The closer you get to death, the more alive you feel, Joe.
joe rogan
Oh boy.
unidentified
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
We're going to do it right now.
Deathmatch.
Well, it's the same thing.
I guess it's different with martial arts, but when people look at it at base value, like, oh, they're just cockfighting, or people are just going to...
But it's so much deeper than that, martial arts and things like that.
Sure.
People would see, like, say UFC, like they see a street fight.
It's like, it's not that...
I remember I could watch deathmatch wrestling as a kid and always loved it, and then I would shake when watching UFC. I would physically shake.
I couldn't believe that they're actually trying to hurt each other.
As a young kid, UFC used to freak me out.
I remember when I played UFC 1, the game on Xbox, I was fucking shaking when they were hitting a thing.
Something about fighting and that really one-on-one violence, I found that so much more...
joe rogan
So no, maybe that's where we get into it.
So you like this performative violence.
danny or michael philippou
Yes, performative violence.
Yeah, there was something about...
joe rogan
Because it is actual violence.
There's actual cutting and bleeding, but there's something about it being agreed upon.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, and that it's...
Yeah, it's performative.
It's kind of like...
Yeah, UFC is like, you're the best in the world and let's see who's better.
You're not trying to get hurt.
Whereas this is like...
But you're not trying...
It's safely doing it.
No, the wrestling is like, how do we create this spectacle...
As safely as possible in that environment and be okay, I guess, and tell a story.
We're doing a bad way of verbalizing it.
The documentary will do it better.
We're trying to explore it.
We're trying to find out these questions, like what draws people to it.
joe rogan
And what is the other film that you're writing?
danny or michael philippou
There's a whole bunch of stuff.
We're writing three films right now, and it's just in constant circulation.
Whenever we hit a roadblock of one, it'll sort of jump onto the next one.
So we're developing the Talk To Me sequel, and we've got another project of A24. We're talking about Street Fighter right now as well, with Capcom and Legendary.
And then, yeah, so it's just sort of developing a bunch of stuff and working on a bunch of stuff.
It's finding time, like delegating time's the thing now.
I guess with the ADHD, it's like...
You know, you're like, and then you start going to rabbit holes of each script.
And then I can't help but explore certain avenues.
There was a script that was sort of due two months ago, and I was like, it's going to be done.
And then I was like, oh, what if we change this ending a little bit?
By changing the ending, we change the midpoint.
By changing the midpoint, we've changed the start.
And you're basically rewriting the entire thing.
But I need to follow that thread through and see if that's a more exciting way to tell the story.
And yeah, so we're a little behind on things, but we're getting there.
Yeah, it's kind of...
Yeah, we're trying to figure out.
We want to shoot early next year.
And I need to figure out sleep as well.
I have a big sleep issue as well.
I've had it my whole life, not being able to fall asleep.
And then when I fall asleep, I wake up every 90 minutes or something like that.
What's your diagnosis?
There's different people that say different things.
I did sleep studies, like, overnight, then a full 24-hour day one.
They said idiopathic hypersomnia.
Someone said narcolepsy.
But it's more...
It's falling...
Like, my mind...
Like, I guess...
And I've tried, like, meditating and looking at blood and, like, exercise.
Like, it's falling asleep.
Like, you know, meditating before sleep.
Trying everything to try and...
What is it?
But...
I can't fall asleep.
And then when I do finally fall asleep, even if I'm exhausted, I set up like two, three days straight, I still wake up after 90 minutes.
joe rogan
So is it just your mind is racing all the time?
And your mind wakes you up?
danny or michael philippou
Maybe.
joe rogan
Because it seems you guys are very hyper.
You've got a lot going on in your heads.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, and I guess that's the thing, like, that...
Well, yeah, my sleeping pattern is just...
Because you're the same, but you don't have it like I have.
Yeah, my sleeping pattern is just weird.
Like, I'll run off naps.
I'll sleep for two hours, and I'm like, all right, I'm up now for four hours.
I'm like, oh, I'm tired.
I'm going to have one hour.
Then I'm like, oh, I'm up for 12 hours.
All right, I'll sleep for three hours.
It's just sort of...
There's no set time to go to sleep and wake up.
It's sort of just random.
joe rogan
So maybe it's a genetic thing with you guys.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, I think so.
Well, I don't think our parents are like that.
Yeah, I don't know.
joe rogan
But you're twins.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
joe rogan
And maybe it is just genetic with you.
Like you, whatever that gene is, you both got it.
danny or michael philippou
But how come he's dumber than me?
Come on now.
Yeah, I don't know.
Man, come on, man.
You fucking embarrassed me in full of joy.
unidentified
Hey, man, what are you doing?
danny or michael philippou
I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know what it is.
joe rogan
But it's the energy that you guys have that leads you to be so productive, too, I'd imagine.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, it is.
joe rogan
It's the sort of manic energy that you have.
danny or michael philippou
That's right.
It's literally, man, if I could just switch it off at the end of the day, it would be awesome.
joe rogan
Right, but then you wouldn't have it on all the time.
danny or michael philippou
Exactly.
joe rogan
You get the gift you get.
danny or michael philippou
Have you heard of Zyram?
joe rogan
Zyram.
What is that?
danny or michael philippou
That's a medication for narcolepsy that knocks you out.
It's the only medication that apparently puts you through the stages of sleep.
But it's a medication, so it knocks you out.
But it has all these side effects.
It's GHB. It's like people use it for...
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
Party drug.
danny or michael philippou
It's a party drug.
joe rogan
So what is the side effects?
danny or michael philippou
Well, the first page says suicide attempts.
And then also, the sleep doctor I was speaking to is like, there's two...
It's like, people are debating, they actually don't know whether it's people that are in bad places, don't have the energy to take their own lives, but being on Xyrem gives you the energy to do it.
Or is the Xyrem changing your mind to...
Think more like that, more radical or something like that.
Are you taking Zara?
I'm scared to take it.
I don't want to be, like, addicted to a drug.
Like, you know, I don't want to be relying on that.
joe rogan
Just deal with whatever sleep you get.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's obviously working.
danny or michael philippou
As I'm getting older, though, now, I feel like it weighs on you a lot more.
joe rogan
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
I feel like if I'm engaged, I can go for days.
But if I'm not, I'll get tired, but I can't sleep, but I'll be like...
joe rogan
Do you ever do hard exercise before you go to bed?
Does that help?
danny or michael philippou
I've never tried going alright before, but I've done days where I'll fucking smash go to the gym and do boxing, go sparring, do a full day of exercise to exhaust myself.
And it will help me sometimes initially fall asleep, but then 90 minutes up.
How many hours are you getting a night?
joe rogan
Seven, eight hours.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, you are?
And you go all the way through?
joe rogan
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
How the fuck is that even possible?
joe rogan
Sometimes I drink too much water before I go to bed.
I have to pee in the middle of the night, but then I go right back to sleep.
I don't have a problem sleeping.
danny or michael philippou
But staying awake, are you always taking energy drinks every day?
joe rogan
I mean, I might drink one or two.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
I drink coffee a lot.
danny or michael philippou
Even tea will fuck me up.
If I have an English breakfast tea, that'll keep me up all night.
I'm so sensitive, extremely sensitive to caffeine.
Yeah.
Well, you are.
To me, it doesn't really do anything.
Yeah, I don't know.
joe rogan
Have you ever tried what happens when you don't drink energy drinks?
unidentified
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
Does that help?
No.
Energy drinks helps me when I get like a low in the day or whatever, if I'm bored.
But when I go, I did a full health streak, you know, like when I had like a diet that I was sticking to and like a time, getting up at the same time every, you know, morning, going to get the sun in the morning, and then doing all that, whatever, you know, like I did that, and then it still...
joe rogan
Still.
danny or michael philippou
The frustrating thing is when you do go to...
It's the waking up, and you're like, fuck.
Like, man, I was like, I've got to sleep.
And then you just wake up 90 minutes.
And it's like, I used to think it was a good thing when I was a kid, because I'd be like, oh, I still have six hours before I have to get up for school.
And I go to bed and I wake up again.
I go, oh, I've still got three hours.
Like, it was like, I felt like I was getting more sleep.
Because, you know, when you wake up and you're like, oh, I've got to get up now.
joe rogan
Right.
danny or michael philippou
It was like waking up and being like, oh, I don't have to get up yet.
joe rogan
Right.
danny or michael philippou
But it was like...
What a weird psychological...
You're rambling right now.
Yeah, I'm rambling.
unidentified
Right.
danny or michael philippou
Fuck yeah.
But yeah, I think that...
Let me just complete side note.
There's a UFC fighter you're going to see come to the UFC. Heavyweight.
Brando the Balkan Bear.
Right now, he's training with Izzy.
He trains with Izzy.
This guy is going to be a problem in the heavyweight division.
Is he signed for the UFC? Not yet, but he'll be there inside a couple of years.
joe rogan
Yeah?
danny or michael philippou
I promise.
You heard it here first!
joe rogan
Is he a friend?
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, he's a friend.
Six foot six.
Fucking machine.
And he doesn't fight like a heavyweight.
He's fast.
joe rogan
Is there video on him?
danny or michael philippou
Uh, maybe.
You can probably find him.
He does a lot of kickboxing, doesn't he?
Muay Thai?
He's training MMA now to get ready for the UFC. This the dude?
There he is!
The Bulk and Bear, baby!
The Bulk and Bear, baby!
Let's go!
joe rogan
Let's see if there's any highlights of him.
danny or michael philippou
I remember we watched him do a tournament where he did three matches in one night.
Yeah, he fought three times in one night.
Like one of those tournament things.
And he won like 20 grand.
Oh, that's actually a YouTube video called that.
Surely there's some.
Oh no, he's on a count.
I think he wins.
Dude, that guy's massive.
joe rogan
Oh, he got dropped?
danny or michael philippou
No, no, no, he didn't.
unidentified
no no he's unstoppable that dude he's fighting is gigantic too Holy crap.
danny or michael philippou
Dude, and Brando's massive.
That guy's fucking huge, man.
joe rogan
Wow Yeah that guy's a lot better than him That's crazy.
danny or michael philippou
But that heavyweight, isn't there no weight limit towards the end?
joe rogan
It depends on the organization.
The UFC doesn't have a weight limit at super heavyweight, but they do at heavyweight, but they've never had a super heavyweight fight.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, wow, right.
joe rogan
Yeah, the UFC heavyweight weight limit is 265. Oh, I didn't know that was okay.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, he's been training over there with them in New Zealand.
Yeah, working on his skills.
You'll see him.
You'll see him.
Are you embarrassing Brando right now?
Yeah, I hope not.
Brando, I love you.
Go to the highlight room!
unidentified
He wins this fight, I think.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
joe rogan
That dude's getting tired.
Big fat dude's probably shocked.
There's still guys around.
danny or michael philippou
Oh.
unidentified
So is the decision.
danny or michael philippou
Man, I get so pumped when you're watching Friends fight.
You know what I mean?
There's nothing like it.
I saw a thing with Izzy when Volk defended his title fight before the last one, and he's in a crowd going crazy, and the comments are like, giving him shit.
I was like, dude, when we watch Friends fight, you're like, fucking yeah, come on!
Fucking yay!
And they're getting that energy with them as well.
It's like a fucking...
Oh, man.
When your friend's fighting, it's the craziest feeling in the world.
Because you want them to win so bad in that environment, you know?
joe rogan
How are you connected to the martial arts world?
You were saying that you train...
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, physical stuff has always been, like, you know, ever since little kid, like, I love doing, like, the stunts and whatever as kids.
Then I did a bit of Muay Thai, just training.
And then we were part of the reason why Logan Paul fought KSI.
Because we were friends with both of them.
We're good friends with both of them.
Logan wasn't going to fight KSI.
And then Danny went over and convinced him to.
He's like, dude, you have to.
It's going to be the biggest thing because KSI called him out.
Logan didn't want to do it.
It's like different audiences.
There's no fucking reason to do that.
And Danny went there and kept hassling him.
And he's like, all right.
And then he agreed to fight him.
So I fought on the undercard of that.
And I did...
I'm undefeated, guys.
1-0.
And also, we even sponsor a fighter named Tim Rogers, who's champion right now in South Australia, which I think he could maybe crack into the UFC as well.
So I'm just obsessed with it and watching it.
It's just like a thing that we love as well.
I listen to Ariel Hawane every day, the fight news, everything.
I love it.
I'm obsessed with it.
And then, so the fight, I remember my auntie saying...
You're too little to fight.
And I was like, this weight class is in the fight thing?
She's like, no, when I was saying I was going to fight on the undercard.
So I told the people, I want the tallest person to show my auntie that I can fight.
So my opponent was six foot three.
And then the fight night, God bless you, Scarce.
He wasn't very good.
But the training camp where I had to fucking get my fucking head kicked in by six foot three guys every fucking twice a week.
That was like a hell.
And I went to...
I did, yeah, five months training at TJ Smith.
Oh, no, don't watch it!
No, I'm bad.
jamie vernon
I found a good spot where you had a number of times.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, God.
See?
No, you're not impressing anyone with this performance.
I know, I know, I know.
Hey, look, push the beginning.
Leading up to that was, like, just getting smashed by six-foot-three guys.
And I remember once, the first six-foot dude that I sparred was 100 kilos.
And I remember my trainer, Chris, being like, all right, you're going to do five three-minute rounds, all right?
And then behind him, I just saw this guy just...
Hitting the heavy bag.
And then Chris is like, yeah, just got to make sure you see that.
And then, like, the guy walked off and I just see this fucking dent in the middle of the, in the heavy bag.
And then I went there and he just fucked me up.
Like, three standing eight counts.
Then the second time we spotted, I spotted him three times though.
The second time was one standing eight count.
joe rogan
Why are you fighting 220 pound guys?
danny or michael philippou
I don't know.
I guess that was all the bodies that we could find.
It was like different.
How much do you weigh?
75 kilos.
joe rogan
What is that?
170?
danny or michael philippou
I don't know.
2.2 times 75, about 160. And I think he was 10 kilos heavier than me on the fight night, that guy.
It was just like, but I was fighting all different kind of sizes.
A couple of them was the 100 kilo plus dudes.
Wait, I just want to backtrack.
Balkan Bear won that fight, right?
joe rogan
Yes.
danny or michael philippou
Yes, okay, good.
It was just, yeah.
jamie vernon
152 they had you at.
joe rogan
Yeah, 152 for the fight and he was 174. But you just did it for the fun.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, and then I wanted that feeling of going out to a fight.
Every time I watched it, I got envious.
People coming out.
I want to know what that feels like.
To be like, we're going to go and put it all on the line in a fight.
That's what I wanted to experience.
I'm a coward.
unidentified
Don't look at me.
danny or michael philippou
I love that physical rush.
I think that's the same thing with the deathmatch wrestling.
It's like doing something risky, you know, something that could go wrong or could go very right is very engaging.
And I feel bad, like, when we're doing the...
The movie and stuff, which is a lot of fun, but I'm like, I want to jump off something now.
I want to get...
I need to do something physical and I need...
I don't know.
Something that's in me.
I'm addicted to it.
I love it.
That stuff.
But then the fighting stuff, my ego, I couldn't take it if I lost.
So I first...
Like Danny said, he's like, when you get knocked out, I'm going to replay every frame over and over again.
He was, like, tormenting me.
unidentified
Oh, Danny.
danny or michael philippou
No, as a joke, like, you're mucking around with him, but seriously, I would have played it.
And I used to think I was, like, I trained in Cyprus for a month before the fight, and then I was, like, I didn't realize about how the climate change, like, your cardio just goes.
Like, I was skipped for one round.
I was like...
And I just couldn't...
I was like, man, am I just shitter now suddenly that I'm overseas?
And I was in these fucking...
We were in these underground concrete gyms with no ventilation.
And then I'd get my ass kicked and they'd go, all right, go out and get some air, man.
And I'd go out and it's fucking worse outside than it is in the gym.
I couldn't breathe.
Couldn't breathe air.
I say Michael's a bad fighter.
Michael choked me out once.
He broke down my door.
Oh, this guy.
But that's such an achievement.
Choking me out.
Anyone can choke you out.
What are you talking about?
I'm just saying that, yeah.
You're a good fighter, Michael.
You should have another fight.
joe rogan
He wants you to get fucked up.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, you should do it.
If Misfits does an event, the YouTube one, if they do one in Australia, I'll do it again.
I want to do one more.
Do you hate the influencer boxing stuff?
unidentified
No.
danny or michael philippou
No, I hate it.
Why haven't you had Logan Paul on your podcast?
unidentified
I don't know.
danny or michael philippou
He's looking at you like, stop fucking asking these questions.
There was a moment in that fight that I got a little bit emotional.
Sorry, I'm jumping around.
You'll see Volkanovski's speech after the fight where he was saying that he felt that down when he wasn't training or he didn't have that purpose.
And then that made him rush into that fight.
Getting really emotional, seeing someone open up like that and be vulnerable like that.
joe rogan
That was a weird one.
Whenever someone takes a late-minute fight like that, last-minute, 10-day fight, it's just...
I know that people want to do it, but it's not the right thing to do at a championship level.
Especially if you look at what happened with Volkanovski.
He got KO'd in the first round, and the first fight was so competitive.
And you've got to wonder, would he have gotten KO'd if he had a full camp?
Would the result have been different?
Would he have prepared differently?
danny or michael philippou
100%, right?
joe rogan
Would he have had more faith in his cardio?
Same thing with Kamaru Usman and Hamzat Shmaev.
Same thing.
Like, he didn't trust his cardio.
It's just...
danny or michael philippou
He was dealing damage there, right?
unidentified
He was.
danny or michael philippou
He was kind of getting a flow on it.
I feel bad for Volkanovski because he did block the kick, but it was a little too low, right?
joe rogan
Well, he was getting kicked in the body a bunch of times.
I think he thought it was coming to the body, and he kind of went like this, and he got kicked in the head.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
But last one, I feel like he just went above his guard.
joe rogan
That was perfect.
I mean, it was a perfect setup.
He threw a bunch of left kicks to the body, and then threw that one to the head.
It was perfect.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
I just hope he can bounce back.
I like that he was open about that stuff and vulnerable about that stuff because it speaks to so many people.
Hearing that from him is so meaningful and impactful.
joe rogan
It shows his character too, the way he accepted the loss.
Yeah, I can't wait to see him get back in, but sometimes you get knocked out like that, you really should take a bunch of time off.
He got really cracked.
I mean, if you watch the head kick, it was like head kick right to the temple, right to the side of the head.
It's a bad place to get hit.
He got hit really hard.
You might want to wait a little time after that.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
There's a thing also when we're talking about mental perception about if that happens, are you going in kind of like with that in the back of your mind now?
It could happen.
joe rogan
Sure.
I mean, that was the first time it happened to him in the UFC. He only had been stopped once in his career ever, and that was at welterweight.
So he was fighting someone who was 170 pounds.
And that was quite a long time ago, early, early in his career.
And he's been completely undefeated in the UFC. And then there was the Makachev fight.
So he loses that decision, very close decision.
He looks like a world beater.
And then he takes this fight with very short notice and not really prepared and gets knocked out.
So it's one of those things that's like there's a very high risk.
And the reward obviously is very high as well.
If he beats Makachev, he becomes two-division champion.
But you really can't fight a guy like that without really going through a camp.
I mean, you can.
You might get lucky.
It might work out your way.
But it might not.
danny or michael philippou
It's going to be...
Surely if he goes on another run, you're going to have a crack at...
joe rogan
Boxers would never do that.
That's what's interesting.
Like, if Terence Crawford was supposed to fight Errol Spence and Errol Spence got injured 10 days out, they would just cancel the fight.
They would never have a completely different opponent step in with no camp on 10-day stonis.
It's very unique to the UFC, and I don't know if I'm a fan of it.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, really?
You don't like the loss of it?
joe rogan
Well, I don't know.
I mean, I love the fact that people take a chance, but I don't like it in terms of someone...
I want someone to be fully prepared.
That's what I really like.
I like when someone goes through a full camp, fully prepared, absolutely ready for this one opponent.
Because you're dealing with this insanely high-risk sport that's very difficult to do.
And I just don't feel like with proper preparation.
You know, he's probably at 65% of what his potential is.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
And he feels like, because he's such a champion, he feels like that's enough.
danny or michael philippou
But I guess it's in service of the people that have bought the tickets and have done it.
They're trying to not let down the fan base.
joe rogan
Yeah, but this guy's got a lineage.
She's got a legacy to worry about.
I mean, it's a full career.
And one loss like that can define you forever because it can change the course of your career, especially if it's a really bad knockout.
Like if you get completely knocked unconscious, go to the hospital, neck brace, the whole thing, wheeled out on a stretcher, that can define your entire career.
It can change the course of your career.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
unidentified
And that...
danny or michael philippou
Sorry, just...
I've got to say, this is so surreal that we're talking fighting on Joker.
But, like, that...
Yeah, I guess everyone wants that kind of Michael Bisping, Luke Rockhold 2 moment where it's like, oh, you're just going to get that one.
joe rogan
In that situation, it worked out great.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, it's rolling the dice.
joe rogan
Yeah, he rolled the dice, but Michael Bisping is a crazy dude.
I mean, that's a guy who fought 10 people with one eye.
danny or michael philippou
One eye, yeah.
I like that reveal thing where he's pulled.
Yeah, that's crazy.
joe rogan
Just wild.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
How uncordated, our dad has one eye, and he's like a bit off.
joe rogan
Your depth perception, depth perception gets very skewed.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
You don't exactly know where things are.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, can you do things like VR and stuff with one eye?
joe rogan
I'm sure you probably could.
unidentified
Because if it's about 3D glasses, you wouldn't get that 3D. I think VR is different.
danny or michael philippou
From the 3D glasses.
joe rogan
Yeah.
danny or michael philippou
It's that thing, we were just talking about it before, how crazy, is AI going to take over?
It is, I guess, everything.
And you can't, not fighting.
joe rogan
Yeah, it depends on how convenient it is to use.
Like if it gets to glasses, just regular glasses, yeah.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's going to be...
I mean, it's going to get better and better and smaller and smaller with battery technology and all sorts of other things that are going to be, you know, all new innovations.
Who knows?
danny or michael philippou
Speaking of filming, some people, like, they're shooting, like, Mandalorian on just, like, screens, right?
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
danny or michael philippou
You don't even need to go to locations.
You get to...
They can just be at any place they want on the screens and it'll have real...
The light will be identical to what it would be out there.
And then you don't have to worry about...
You know, taking unit out on helicopters to these places, you know, like, you know, lost the TV show.
They had to fly the whole crew over there and shoot, like, with the nature and the sound and all that stuff.
But there's still certain things you can't capture.
Like...
Come on.
On location is so much cooler.
Yeah, but I guess it kind of feels like...
Yeah, that's the same as well.
I like practical, but it kind of feels like...
I'm down for those screens of sci-fi movies as opposed to trying to just say, oh, we'll do that on an island instead of going to an island.
Just go to the island.
Yeah, but if you can afford it.
Why?
But I'm just trying to think like...
Because I like practical as well.
But if...
You know, the CGI and stuff gets to a point where you literally can't tell the difference between the model car and, you know, a real car.
Then it's like, it's kind of like, it reminds me of when they were doing Disney movies back in the day where they would draw every single frame.
And then when that CGI came in, like Toy Story, I think Toy Story was the first film to do it, where they're like, we don't need to do that anymore.
We can do it through the computer.
When that was the first 3D film.
Yeah, we'd do it through a computer.
And then, like, the traditionalists are like, No, what the fuck?
This is a work of art to do each frame.
But it kind of feels like that now.
You've got to embrace it more, maybe.
I feel like it's different because AI is...
If you look at the artist's AI, it's taking...
Oh, yeah, I don't know, actually.
It's a tricky conversation.
That was part of the writer's strike, was trying to figure out artificial intelligence.
AI writing.
Yeah, AI writing and incorporating it into film writing and screen writing.
It's crazy that's even a conversation.
It's horrifying.
But, yeah.
joe rogan
It's unavoidable at this point.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah.
I feel like stories coming from the heart is going to always be better than something that's...
joe rogan
I think it would be very difficult to write a movie like Talk to Me and do that through AI. Very difficult.
There's something about human creativity, at least at this point, that's very unique.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, because it's drawing from personal experience.
It's not drawing from everyone's experience.
It's a personal subject.
It's impossible to replicate it because it hasn't happened to someone else.
It's their own personal experience.
Yeah, it could do things based on...
Things that happened in the past, but this isn't like that person's experience, I guess.
No, it's not an expression of any single person.
So it can't be unique art.
joe rogan
Well, listen, guys, whatever you're doing, you're doing awesome shit.
I mean, that movie was amazing.
And whatever you're doing next, I'm going to be watching because I think you guys are very uniquely talented and you're full of energy.
And it was a lot of fun.
danny or michael philippou
Thank you so much for having us.
It was an honor.
Thank you so much.
joe rogan
My pleasure.
The honor was mine.
Tell everybody how they can access your social media, where you guys are at, how they can find you.
danny or michael philippou
Oh, just watch Talk To Me.
Stream Talk To Me.
joe rogan
Go stream it.
It's awesome.
danny or michael philippou
For Halloween.
joe rogan
Yes.
Yeah, it's a good Halloween movie for sure.
danny or michael philippou
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Halloween, stream Talk To Me.
Thank you.
joe rogan
Listen, you guys nailed it.
You should be proud of it.
And congratulations.
danny or michael philippou
Thank you again, Joe.
joe rogan
Thanks for being here.
unidentified
All right.
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