Danny and Michael Philippou—identical twins turned filmmakers—kick off their Joe Rogan Experience debut with childhood antics, including a 96-episode homemade show for Nelly, and viral YouTube stunts (like 20+ car hits) earned through Judd Wilde’s mentorship. Their indie horror Talk To Me, shot in five weeks after studios rejected it, premiered at Sundance, won praise from Jordan Peele and Ari Aster, and grossed $90M with 94% RT scores, proving authenticity over algorithms thrives. Now, they’re juggling three films—Talk To Me sequel, Street Fighter with Capcom, and a deathmatch wrestling doc—while battling ADHD, sleep disorders (waking every 90 minutes), and AI’s creative limits, arguing lived trauma can’t be replicated by machines. Their hands-on approach, from practical effects to last-minute composer swaps, contrasts studio-driven projects, but success risks losing their raw, unfiltered vision. [Automatically generated summary]
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.