Why Bring Her Back Arrived Before Talk to Me Sequel

Danny and Michael Philippou had no shortage of opportunities coming out of 2023’s Talk to Me. Their feature directorial debut achieved critical and commercial success, grossing nearly $92 million against a $4.25 million budget. The former YouTubers behind RackaRacka not only received compliments from industry heavyweights such as Peter Jackson, Jordan Peele and Ari Aster, but they also booked general meetings all over town, including one with Marvel Studios. Thus, the question of how to follow up their smash hit became even more consequential.

At the time of Talk to Me’s July 2023 release, the Australian twin brothers were already attached to a new take on the Street Fighter video game, but then they quickly signed on the dotted line for a Talk to Me sequel known as Talk 2 Me. However, an existing horror script of theirs called Bring Her Back soon began to gnaw at them. Knowing that Talk to Me 2 would always be an option at their disposal, the Philippous decided to use their newfound cachet to make their other original horror movie. Their pivot garnered A24’s blessing, but financiers were less enthused.

“When we submitted Bring Her Back to some of the funding places, they were like, ‘What about Talk to Me 2?’ So there was pressure from people,” Danny Philippou tells The Hollywood Reporter. “[Talk to Me 2] was going to be the next project, but I was like, ‘I really, really want to make [Bring Her Back]. Is it okay if I make this one?’ So A24 was on board, and they allowed us to.”

Michael Philippou adds: “To go straight into Talk to Me 2 always felt like it would just be capitalizing on hype, as opposed to what’s the right story we want to tell next. We needed a break from Talk to Me 2, so we can revisit it with fresh eyes.”

Like Talk to Me, Bring Her Back chronicles the great lengths that people go to in order to process their grief. In this case, Sally Hawkins’ foster mother character, Laura, provides sanctuary to a newly orphaned brother and sister, Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong), the latter of whom is partially sighted. Slowly but surely, Andy begins to recognize some sinister happenings within Laura’s home, and he’s hard-pressed to communicate his findings to Piper given her impairment and Laura’s interference.

The Philippous knew that they weren’t finished exploring grief, and sadly, grief wasn’t finished with them either. Bring Her Back is dedicated to Harley Wallace, a friend they lost shortly before filming began.

“He was a very close family friend, and he passed away at the beginning of pre-production. It was so out of nowhere, and it changed the way some of the scenes played as well,” Michael Philippou says. “When you’re dealing with [grief], you almost try to close yourself off from it, but then it comes out in different ways while you’re shooting. So that [grief] went into the film in a strange way.”

While there’s no explicit link, the brothers are confirming that Talk to Me and Bring Her Back are set in the same shared universe. The limb of Talk to Me lead actor, Sophie Wilde, also makes a cameo appearance in Bring Her Back, but she’s playing a different character known as “Middle Aged Mum #4.”

“We made a promise to each other that whatever we make in the future, even if it’s just a voice in the background, she’s going to be involved in some way,” Danny Philippou says. “Her head is actually cut out of the movie; you just see her arm. But she came on set, and she supported us, and we love her to death for it.”

As for Talk to Me 2, the brothers Philippou have written two different versions of the sequel, one that is directly connected to its predecessor, and another that’s more of a “sidequel.” Both stories are centered on new characters.

“One is continuing the story exactly on, and then another one is focusing on a new set of characters,” Danny Philippou shares. “We’ve written two sets of different characters in two different worlds that focus on two different themes.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, the Philippou brothers also discuss Hawkins’ transition from playing the most devoted foster mother in the feel-good Paddington franchise to the most demented foster mother possible in Bring Her Back.

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Coming out of Talk to Me, the world was your oyster, and you had several options available to you. Did you go with Bring Her Back mainly because the script was already in good shape?

DANNY PHILIPPOU There was this weird expectation where everyone was like, “The next one needs to be bigger and crazier. You need to expand.” But the story that I actually wanted to tell was smaller and more intimate. And because we’d [already] written the script and the [Laura] character felt so evolved, it seemed like [Bring Her Back] would always be hanging over my shoulder. If I went onto something else, I would only be thinking about this thing. We were going through a bit of grief at the time, and I was like, “I’m still not finished with that subject. This feels right.” So it was really hard to turn down some of the other stuff, and we had some amazing opportunities [like Street Fighter], but Bring Her Back just felt right. 

Michael, the grief that Danny just mentioned, is that a reference to the Harley Wallace dedication at the end of the film?

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU Yeah, he was a very close family friend, and he passed away at the beginning of pre-production. It was so out of nowhere, and it changed the way some of the scenes played as well. When you’re dealing with [grief], you almost try to close yourself off from it, but then it comes out in different ways while you’re shooting. Once the train is rolling on a movie, there’s no stopping it, so that [grief] went into the film in a strange way. 

You were originally going to make Talk to Me in the States until a few creative sacrifices became a dealbreaker. Did you have full creative freedom from the start on Bring Her Back? 

DANNY PHILIPPOU Well, what’s so amazing about A24 as a company is that they are filmmaker-first. It’s not filmmaking by committee where everybody puts in these notes, saying, “Oh, you have to do this, you have to change this, you have to explain this.” They really let us drive it. They were there as a sounding board when we wanted them to be, and they were also as hands-off as we wanted them to be. So we got really lucky with them as a company.

Are Bring Her Back and Talk to Me set in the same universe? 

DANNY PHILIPPOU I would say they are. There’s a mixed media thing that we’re working on at the moment, and it helps show the tie-in a little bit. So it’s not overtly shown in the film, but I would say yes.

Bring Her Back’s Laura (Sally Hawkins) and Talk to Me’s Mia (Sophie Wilde) both take major risks to reconnect with their lost loved ones, and they both have chipped nail polish as well.

THE PHILIPPOU BROTHERS (Laugh.) 

DANNY PHILIPPOU I love tracking a character’s mental state by the state of their fingernails. I’m obsessed with that, and I love showing it so much. I also want to find different ways to convey it as well. We wanted Laura to feel like a dying leaf, and that’s shown with her wardrobe, from those oranges and ending with the browns. There’s green in the flashback. Downstairs, she’s presenting herself as fun and bubbly, and so the greens are out there. But when she’s in her bedroom, it’s more deteriorated, and death is surrounding her. So it’s always finding fun visual motifs to tie the characters together.

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU But I do wonder what it is about characters like [Laura and Mia] that we’re drawn to. This is a strange story, and it’s a complete sidestep. But I once went walking with my little dog, and I went around this bush so he didn’t know where I was. But he could still hear my voice, and instead of going around the bush, he went straight through it in the mud and everything because all he wanted to do was get to me. And that’s what these characters do. All Laura wants is her daughter back, and nothing else matters. She just needs to be reconnected with her daughter, and she’s doing these horrible things and spiraling out of control. She’s lost her sanity to this grief.

Michael, it sounds like you’re responsible for Laura’s taxidermied dog.

THE PHILIPPOU BROTHERS (Laugh.) 

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU Yeah, Laura has a different relationship to death than a lot of people. She views it in a different way. It’s not the end to her. She also views funerals as a celebration of life.

DANNY PHILIPPOU Greek Orthodox funerals have open caskets, and they ask you to kiss the corpse on the head, which was always something that bothered me as a kid. [Billy Barratt’s Andy] doesn’t have to go up to the coffin or look at the corpse, but Laura, as smart as she is, understands the psychology of people, especially young people. She’s like, “I can help damage [Andy] here. I can tap into something here.” So putting all of those uncomfortable real-life experiences in a film always feels like you’re exorcising those demons.

When we last spoke, you were hoping that your Talk To Me star Sophie Wilde would become your good luck charm à la Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell or James Wan/Patrick Wilson. And you did bring her back in a partial cameo. Was there ever any doubt that it would happen? 

DANNY PHILIPPOU No, she promised us! We made a promise to each other that whatever we make in the future, even if it’s just a voice in the background, she’s going to be involved in some way. Her head is actually cut out of the movie; you just see her arm. But she came on set, and she supported us, and we love her to death for it. 

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU She’s credited as “Middle Aged Mum #4.” 

DANNY PHILIPPOU She really wanted that credit. 

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU We don’t know where one, two or three are, but she’s number four.

THE PHILIPPOU BROTHERS (Laugh.) 

I know the timing didn’t work out this way, but I love the idea that Sally Hawkins traded Paddington for the brothers Philippou. (Note: Hawkins did not reprise her role in 2024’s Paddington in Peru.) She went from playing the world’s greatest foster mother in the most wholesome franchise to the most deranged foster mother imaginable. 

THE PHILIPPOU BROTHERS (Laugh.) 

Have you both had a laugh about this?

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU Yeah, we kept thinking, “What happened to her between Paddington 2 and 3.”

DANNY PHILIPPOU It was never like, “Oh, she was this in Paddington, and this is the inversion.” She’s naturally so maternal and so beautiful.

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU And warm, loving and inviting.

DANNY PHILIPPOU She plays all of her characters so differently. She feels like a different person every time. I was like, “What if she brought those qualities to this version of a mother?” That fascinated me and excited me. 

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU She does have that natural quality about her, and that’s what Laura was before this tragedy. As a child psychologist, she helped children. So for her to use these skills that she has to not help someone but to break them, it’s dark, and the mask that she has as this helpful lady is fascinating. Sally just knocked it out of the park.

DANNY PHILIPPOU After she read the script, they rang us up and were like, “Sally really loves the script. She wants to talk.”  And I could not believe it. I was like, “But it’s a genre film,” and she didn’t even look at it in that way. She was like, “I didn’t read it as a genre film. I was just really connected to Laura as a character.” She’s amazing.

Did she ever comment on the Paddington of it all? 

DANNY PHILIPPOU No, none of her other films ever really came up when we were talking about this. We broke down each of the scenes together, and we either talked about different elements of people that we know or personal experiences that we’ve had. So Paddington never really came up at all. 

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU No, it didn’t. She does this whole process of getting into character so that there’s no strings attached to anything else. She wants to become just this character, and she puts herself in that world. If she was bringing any of that, it would throw this character off in some way. She focuses on this person and this world, and she fully embodies it. She went shopping as the character, and she brought stuff to dress Laura’s house. She was like, “Oh, this is what Laura would buy.” She really put herself into this amazing character. 

DANNY PHILIPPOU She would spend days in character, acting out scenes that aren’t in the movie as well. There’s also a sense of history between Laura and [her friend/colleague] Wendy [Sally-Anne Upton]. They went out and hung out together, and we would give prompts, like, “Oh, Wendy has got a gambling addiction. Let’s talk about that.” They would then go along with that and play with it. And even though that specific scene is not on screen, they still have that sense of history and familiarity with each other.

You tried to cast Billy Barratt in Talk to Me. Did the dog and foot scenes scare him away?

THE PHILIPPOU BROTHERS (Laugh.) 

DANNY PHILIPPOU Well, he was going to play Riley in Talk to Me.

Oh, I wrongly assumed he was in the mix for Otis Dhanji’s part.

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU Maybe he read [Riley’s] face-smash on the table and decided [against it]. 

DANNY PHILIPPOU It was tricky to get him on that one. This one came from reading the script and connecting with Andy. He knew people like Andy, and so he could put himself into Andy’s shoes. 

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU When we first saw him in Responsible Child, there’s this inherent darkness that’s either in him or in the way that he plays things. There’s just a darker aspect about him, and I knew that he’d be able to play this damaged character in an authentic, subtle way. So Billy just understood it and was able to portray it in a real way. He’s awesome.

Piper (Sora Wong) being partially sighted means she has to rely on the descriptions of people around her, and so you create an interesting dynamic where she has to determine whose account she can trust. She was based on a friend’s kid sister?

DANNY PHILIPPOU Yeah, our friend’s little sister is non-sighted. She wanted to go and catch the bus for the first time [by herself], but her parents were a bit worried about her doing it. [Writer’s Note: Piper’s introduction is her waiting to ride the bus alone.] I found that dilemma to be so interesting from every perspective, and while talking to her, I asked her what she thinks seeing would be like. And she said, “I’m glad that I can’t see because I don’t have to see the ugly things in the world.” It was such a poignant statement that it became the theme for the entire film. When you talk to people like that or you cast authentically, they’re able to bring a perspective that you’ve never seen before on camera. They can be as personal as possible, and they can make it feel as real and built-out as possible. That’s why I love working with young talent, or people that haven’t been on camera before, because they’re not pretending. There’s something raw about their performances.

There are certain movie titles where you just know that the title is going to serve as dialogue, and Bring Her Back is the latest example by way of, “We can bring her back.” How many different ways did you try to incorporate it? 

DANNY PHILIPPOU It was always the one in the movie. The buildup to it just felt natural. 

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU That felt like the right time to say it. The whole film is about truth and lies, and what you see and what you don’t see. When there’s nothing else to hide behind, you tell the truth. All of that stuff really did stem from [our friend’s] non-sighted sister not wanting to see the ugly parts of the world. It was a through-line through everything, such as Andy not allowing Piper to see the good and the bad to where she can’t navigate the world.

They’re not the exact same shape, but did you choose the location for Laura’s house because the shape of the pool is similar to her tattoo?

DANNY PHILIPPOU Yeah, it was all about finding a location where the pool was at the heart of the house. The pool shed could then be sort of like the soul. We wanted somewhere where the pool could be seen through every window or vantage point. 

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU You can’t escape it. 

DANNY PHILIPPOU We built the pool shed at the location of the house, and it was in this valley where the sun sets earlier. So there would be shade over the entire backyard, and we could do those rain sequences without having to try and block out the sun. It was the perfect location.

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU We re-tiled the pool with the circle in the center, but that was the house. We’re so lucky we found it.

Steven Soderbergh uses the pseudonyms Peter Andrews and Mary Ann Bernard when he serves as his own DP and editor. Are Peter Andrews and Mary Ann Bernard friends with your “co-writer” Bill Hinzman?

THE PHILIPPOU BROTHERS (Laugh.) 

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU There’s a big thing going around about that. 

DANNY PHILIPPOU I cannot collaborate with Michael on a writing level. I could never write a script with Michael. Bill Hinzman has been around for a long time. He was in Night of the Living Dead. But I promise that he’s not Michael. [Note: Night of the Living Dead actor Bill Hinzman passed away in 2012.]

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU I’ll be happy to embrace it, but I’m not that smart. Hinzman has such a deeper understanding of story. If you say a film, he’ll break down every aspect of it. We can write scenes and moments of a movie, but he can create a structure and say, “This is what it looks like in this format.” He just understands things that I wish I could.

DANNY PHILIPPOU We’re really dumb.

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU Do people think me or Danny are Bill Hinzman?

DANNY PHILIPPOU Michael is not Bill Hinzman.

I just don’t think he exists at all. That’s as far as I’ve gone with it.

THE PHILIPPOU BROTHERS (Laugh.) 

DANNY PHILIPPOU Who knows? I love that Bill Hinzman has become this of, “Who is Bill Hinzman?” That’s awesome.

What’s the latest on Talk 2 Me?

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU Let’s ask Bill Hinzman. (Michael points directly at Danny.)

DANNY PHILIPPOU You won’t get an answer! 

THE PHILIPPOU BROTHERS (Laugh.) 

DANNY PHILIPPOU We’ve got two versions of the script. We’ve written two sets of different characters in two different worlds that focus on two different themes. It’s about stepping away from it for enough time so that we can come back into it really reinvigorated and with a really fresh perspective. When we submitted Bring Her Back to some of the funding places, they were like, “What about Talk to Me 2?” So there was pressure from people. We had signed on for Talk to Me 2, and that was going to be the next project, but I was like, “I really, really want to make this one. Is it okay if I make this one?” So A24 was on board, and they allowed us to.

MICHAEL PHILIPPOU To go straight into Talk to Me 2 always felt like it would just be capitalizing on hype, as opposed to what’s the right story we want to tell next. We needed a break from Talk to Me 2, so we can revisit it with fresh eyes and make sure that it works as its own story, without just going straight into it.

You said you have two different scripts. Is one more directly connected to the first movie than the other?

DANNY PHILIPPOU Yeah, one is continuing the story exactly on, and then another one is focusing on a new set of characters.

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Bring Her Back opens May 30 in movie theaters nationwide.