Interview: Cast and Crew of ‘Bring Her Back’
After the seismic success of Talk to Me, all eyes were on what Danny and Michael Philippou would do next. The answer? Bring Her Back, a relentless, grief-soaked nightmare that’s somehow tender, character-driven, and gleefully gnarly all at once. “[Horror is] the best genre in the world,” says Danny. “I love it so much. It’s so fun. It’s a fun way to talk about dark themes. The films may not be fun, but the behind the scenes certainly is.”
But Bring Her Back isn’t just another scare-fest. Beneath the blood and bile is a raw sibling story, one that’s anchored by Piper, a blind teenage girl (played by newcomer Sora Wong), and her older brother Andy (Billy Barratt), who’s doing everything he can to shield her from a world that keeps getting uglier.
The seed of the story was personal. “Our friend’s little sister is non-sighted, and there was a situation with her family where she really wanted to go and catch the bus by herself, but her parents wouldn’t let her do it,” Danny has previously said of the inspiration behind the film. “She was trying to communicate that she needs to have her own independence.” That conversation became the soul of Bring Her Back, a film about letting go, even when it hurts, a theme that collides with demons both metaphorical and literal.
“You make sure the characters feel like real people,” says Danny of their approach to balancing the film’s horror genre with its more grounded, dramatic elements. “And then when the horrific stuff happens, you just feel it so much more. It’s like making sure the film works as a drama first, and then you add the horror elements on top. That way, you’re able to jump between the two genres.”
That balance is part of what drew the Philippous to their cast, including Jonah Wren Phillips as the disturbing, silent Oliver. “Literally, as soon as we saw each of their auditions, except for Billy, who we saw in Responsible Child and loved him in that, we just knew,” says Danny of the casting process. “Jonah’s audition was incredible. Sora came in and did an improv for us and she was the best as well. It’s never between two people. You just know that they are the character.”
Casting Wong, who was born with coloboma and microphthalmia, was a deliberate and meaningful choice. The brothers were adamant about finding a vision-impaired actor to play Piper, and despite her limited acting experience, Wong’s emotional intelligence and presence blew them away. “Sora immediately placed herself in the mindset of Piper,” Michael says. “It was, in a way, not even acting.”
The emotional heart of the film belongs to Sora and Billy, and off-screen, that bond was just as palpable. “Billy’s incredible, first of all,” says Wong. “There was this one scene that was really tough for me. I was stressed out and nervous. And I remember Billy just coming up to me, no words at all, just hugged me and then left. That was enough to get me in the scene and calm me down. It’s one of my favorite moments on set.”
Barratt, a veteran despite his age, plays Andy with a raw vulnerability and quiet desperation; a teenager trying to hold it together while the world around him falls apart. He bottles everything, protecting Piper not just from what’s out there, but from what’s inside him. It’s a performance that never asks for sympathy, but earns it anyway. “Emotionally it was pretty tough,” says Barratt of the emotional toll of playing a character like Andy. “But for my character, there ended up being some physically challenging moments too.”
Jonah Wren Phillips plays the film’s most unsettling character, and does so with a haunting stillness that lingers far after the credits roll. As Oliver, a silent, feral child with an insatiable hunger and a mysterious connection to the shadows of Laura’s home, Phillips barely speaks, but his physical transformation tells its own story. “There was a scene that was cut that was pretty tough,” says Phillips of the intensity of shooting certain scenes. “But just [filming the scenes of] the seizures in the rain, that was tough.”
And then, of course, there’s the cat. The character of Laura, played by Sally Hawkins, has a pet cat who seems to have put Danny and Michael through the ringer.
“The most difficult scene for me was trying to get the cat out the door,” laughs Michael.
“That cat would not come out the door,” adds Danny. “It took us three hours to get that shot.”
Still, Bring Her Back was no chaotic set. Hawkins, who plays the mysterious Laura, a twisted maternal figure with a past full of unspoken grief, set the tone. “Oh, Sally’s a genius,” Billy says. “She just lives in the character. Even when they called cut, or when she goes home, she had this technique of buying something her character would wear. I don’t know if I could do that. I have to step out of character to then step back in the next day. Sally just has this ability to grow with her character.”
It helped that the film was shot in chronological order, allowing Hawkins to evolve with Laura’s descent. The brothers drew inspiration from classic characters like Baby Jane Hudson in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, fascinated by characters “not necessarily bad to begin with,” but broken by the world and seduced by comforting delusions.
And while the performances are emotionally gut-wrenching, the physicality was no joke either. “We’re so lucky that everyone was so physical and down to do things,” Danny says. “Sora did her own stunts, which is the craziest thing ever. There’s a scene in a pool towards the end of the film and Sora was literally like a gladiator in there. Jonah went through so much prosthetic work too. He was so resilient and so tough.”
As with Talk to Me, there’s a deeper mythology running beneath the surface of Bring Her Back, one hinted at through VHS tapes, glimpses of rituals, and monstrous transformations. “I don’t like it when filmmakers over-explain that stuff,” Danny says. “I believe you should hint at it.” The brothers have a whole backstory written, ready to tease out post-release, just like they did with Talk to Me; the brothers gave audiences a glimpse of Duckett and Cole’s backstory through TikTok videos that showed the gradual build-up of Duckett’s fate in that film.
As for what’s next, Danny and Michael say they have written two different scripts for Talk 2 Me, a planned sequel to Talk to Me, which was a massive hit when it was released in 2023, but they still haven’t decided which one to go with at the moment. In the meantime, they are focused on the release of Bring Her Back, a film that might be quieter than their last, but cuts even deeper.
BRING HER BACK is now playing in theaters.