Happy Sad Confused - 28 YEARS LATER with Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, & Danny Boyle

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

It hasn't quite been 28 years but it's been a long time since 28 DAYS LATER. Now at long last director Danny Boyle is back. He joins Josh along with his 28 YEARS LATER stars Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson for this sneak peek at the long-awaited sequel to the horror classic. Recorded live at the 92nd Street Y. Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes, video versions of the podcast, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting at 17 grams per medium latte, Tim's new protein lattes. Protein without all the work at participating restaurants in Canada. You're getting chased. Oh, yeah, that's right, in feel. Quite thick fields. Through nettles. Yeah, without any clothes on. Yeah, there was definitely some moments where you're like, what, you know,

Yeah Like it's a movie guys You don't have to go full speed They'll speed it up in post I was like I called for the last time I run this much Prepare your ears humans Happy Sad Confused begins now Hey guys it's Josh

And welcome to another edition of Happy Sad Confused Are you ready to talk 28 years later I always am ready to talk about this movie This franchise A Really Exciting event recorded for your eyes and ears with Danny Boyle, with Jody Comer, and Aaron Taylor Johnson. That's the main event on Happy Say I Confused today. Okay, before we get to this conversation, and this is a really cool one, reminder, check out our

Patreon. That's where you get the early access, the discount codes. We always have a lot of events. We've been doing a lot of them lately. You get priority seating and all that kind of fun stuff. Check it out. Patreon.com slash happy, say I'm confused. I thank you in advance for even checking it out and seeing if it may.

sense for you because if you do support us over there honestly it makes us it helps us make more stuff over here all right i've talked about in the past my love of 28 days later i'm pretty sure um i don't know if i've talked about my love of 28 weeks later but that's an underrated sequel by the way finally now so we are ready to talk about 28 years later um danny boyle is back it's been many years i think 23 years since he made this iconic first film in this now trilogy. That film revolutionized filmmaking, the way it was shot,

the way it launched, Killian Murphy, the way it kind of reinterpreted, the quote-unquote zombie genre. And I am pleased to say, I'm pleased to report, 28 years later is fantastic. I love this movie. I'm in love with this movie. It is scary.

It is emotional. It features some of my favorite actors. And when Danny Boyle is cooking, there are a few filmmakers that can compare and I think he's really cooking with this one. This is an event we did at the 9th Second Street while one of my live events there. We shot this actually a couple weeks back.

It was pretty early on. Nobody had really seen the movie yet. I was very lucky enough that they screen it for me quite early. So I felt like I had this like secret weighing on me. But the nature of this conversation is such that it's kind of the Danny Boyle show. And that's fine by me because Danny, not only great filmmaker,

a great, he's like Quentin Tarantino level of talking about filmmaking. Unbelievable. And Jody and Aaron, who I love, I think we're like a little bit like, how much can we say? What can we say? But they are delightful.

They've been on the pod before. Of course, I always love catching up with them. But I don't know. Sit back and enjoy because this is a fun one, especially for Danny and his enthusiasm and his insight into filmmaking and returning to the, this franchise now. So check out the conversation. See the movie. Most importantly, see the movie

because I need to see. They're trying to make three of these. They've already made two. They've made the sequel already, the sequel to the sequel to the sequel. But then Danny intends to come back and direct a third part of this new trilogy. And I need that movie in my in my life. So I have a vested interest in you guys going out and seeing this movie. It's got the coveted Harrowitz seal of approval. So I take you now to the 92nd Street Y, a conversation live on stage with Aaron Taylor Johnson, with Jody Comer, and one of my favorite filmmakers, the great Danny Boyle. Enjoy. Hi, everybody. Hi. How's it going? I'm Josh Horowitz, and welcome to a very special night at the 92nd Street Y, everybody. This is a very special live taping of happy to

confuse my podcast. And I am so excited to say that we're going to be talking about my most anticipated film of the year, which I have seen. And it's amazing, guys, 28 years later, what does not disappoint? But 23 years ago, 28 days later came out. And it shocked, I think, the world. It redefined horror. It introduced us, many of us, to Killian Murphy. It proved once again that Danny Boyle can do anything. And we've waited long. and hard for Danny to come back to this and he's come back to it not only as a director but without Scarland in tow as the writer once again and you guys are in for a real treat we're gonna show this audience here in New York some

exclusive footage that has not been shown virtually anywhere else so you're in the right place and we've also got the two leads of this film that are no slouches they're pretty amazing actors I'm so thrilled to welcome to the 92nd Street Y give it up give a warm welcome to Aaron Taylor Johnson to Jody Comer. Jody Comer, come on out. And to director, Danny Boyle, everybody. Come on out.

Very nice. Hi. Oh. Guys, this movie rocks. Congratulations. So, Danny, I haven't told you this to your face yet, but this movie, yes, it scared me. I've told Jody and Aaron this, this movie made me cry, Danny. Yeah.

This is an emotional movie. This is going to shock audiences. Does it please you to know that it was, were those two of the operative rules for you to make an audience feel in both those directions? I think that's why they're not showing it generally. because I think they want to, they know there's a horror crowd that might feel compromised if they feel it's too emotional.

Oh, I shouldn't have said anything. I'm sorry, you're not going to cry. Yeah, no, but it's silly. It's wonderful that you're here, and thank you for coming. But you know, in the first film, there's a bit that people remember where Brendan Gleason gets the blood in the eye

and he tries to protect his daughter from this terror inside him. And he says, stay away. And it's very emotional. It's like, whoa. And you get that with this family. Well, you've seen it. And I think they want to,

but they want the fans to keep thinking it's just horror and rather than some, but yes, we were very aware that it would be a very emotional experience that you go through as well as a horror film as well in many ways. And why shouldn't the two exist? I mean, it is

amazing horror as a genre, isn't it? Since, well, I mean, since time in memorial, really, since movies, it's been, it's a genre that keeps reinventing itself and keeps adding, and apparently, I don't know whether this is true, but it was told that one of the reasons it's getting a resurgence now

has become more and more women are going to it. Whereas it used to be, and suddenly when we made the first film, it was all about no women will ever come and see this film. You know, it's a boys medium. But now apparently, and certainly we did some test screenings, and the women in the audience at the test screenings in the focus group,

the whole back at the end, we're really articulate about its place, you know, how they saw it, how it fitted in and things like that, yeah. Jody, would you like to speak on behalf of all women? Do you like? Always. It's nothing like that pressure. No, talk to me a little bit about, you both have seen the film now, and it's one thing to shoot a film, you never know how it's going to turn out.

Just give me emotionally, intellectually, what was it like? Aaron, what did it feel like to watch this finished product for the first time? I really don't want to be the one spoiling anything and so it might be a bit crictip, cryptic, cryptic, cryptic. Crick tip, cryptic. That's a good job I'm not talking about it, then. Cryptic, yeah. Yes, it's Danny Boyle doing, you know,

filmmaking at its finest, it's a really, it's an extraordinary experience and I don't want to share too much but I think you're going to be so surprised. You're going to walk in with one feeling and be completely, you're not expecting to walk out feeling the way you do. And I think it's more than, yeah, it's interesting to be, and it's so unique to be a part of something like this when you've got a movie like 28 days later

that came out over 20 years ago and to have lived through that when that came out and that was such a shocking, iconic movie of its time, and then to like play in this world. And then for Jody and I, we're a family, we have our young son who we're trying to help navigate through this post-apocalyptic world. And so, yeah, it's a lot about dark and light and where's to find the hope in the darkness. And I thought there's so much that you can relate to in that and there's empathy in that. And I think that's why it's so, this world that Danny and Alex Garland created.

I mean, Alex Garland is such a genius. I mean, the material that we worked from was, was, was, was, was, exceptional. I mean, you read the script and he was like, you just, these characters, you know, came off the page. And then to be in Danny's hands was amazing. So, yeah, it's special, but yeah, come see the movie. Just to add to that as well, I think from like a, I mean, I know very little about filmmaking, but like even, you know, to, to realize actually how much filmmaking has advanced within the past 23 years and how the film, 28 years later, is still, still, you know, to realize actually how much filmmaking has advanced within the past 23 years and how the film, 28 years later, is still, stayed so true to its form, but has broken even more molds and even more barriers. Do you know what I mean? Like it's so cinematic and yeah, incredibly intimate and still so singular, an original and surprise. And you really get to see how Danny and Alex and everyone have kind of...

Same DP as the first time. Of course, Anthony Del Mantle. Yeah. It's exquisite. episode Hulu Original Limited series that blends gripping pacing with emotional complexity, offering a dramatized look as it revisits the wrongful conviction of Amanda Knox for the tragic murder of Meredith Kircher and the relentless media storm that followed. The twisted tale of Amanda Knox is now streaming only on Disney Plus.

What are the lessons learned from, you know, I'm sure folks, here remember how groundbreaking that film was. You chose to shoot 28 days later on DV cameras, and it had a Verite style that was very unusual for the time. What were the lessons learned that you applied here? Because you can't imitate. You can't do exactly what you did then. You want to utilize the technologies now in a different way.

How did that experience inform filmically how you were going to approach this one? So one of the tensions that always exists is that cinematographers and the industry generally want the story to look perfect. There's this feeling of perfection that's being chased and everybody's

contributing to it. And in a way it's trying with stories like this, that for me that feels inappropriate that you feel like they shouldn't be perfect. There should be if you're lucky, they should be extraordinary

looking, but you're looking at post-apocalyptic world it's not perfect and it's got much damage in it, there's damage and danger in it and fracture in it and it's that that you're trying to get out and that's I think the real reason

that we don't use conventional cameras because they do give you perfection these days what they can achieve is extraordinary and you're trying to find an edge in it somewhere that will take it away from that but still be exhilarating to watch on a big screen And we got away with it on the first film

because somehow, because like in some of the shots, the wide shots of Killian walking around London, he's basically two pixels, two green pixels when you look at it, and we just managed to cut away from it in time before people started demanding their money back.

And now, of course, technology has moved on so much, so the phones in your pockets will shoot 4K, which is what films are shot at anyway. They don't tend to record at 4K because your cloud storage would be enormous, but you can set them to record at 4K, and they will do, you know. So the technology is extraordinary. And it did throw up interesting questions, which is like, if technology, if

our path, we generally think we're improving, don't we? Give a take, obviously certain things that we may think are not improving. Society is perfect, Dan. I don't know what you're talking. Generally speaking, you feel like there's basically a move forward. But if it gets interrupted, what happens to you? And is that just linked to technology? Because that's the big. biggest difference, isn't it, between the society that existed before this 28 thing and after it, which is there's no technology, the electricity's gone and they can't use any. That was really interesting. And there is a scene in it late on where you're slightly confronted with that, where the kid

who is an analog native, he sees, he asks this guy, what's that? You kind of realize he just doesn't have... Didn't grow up with, yeah. Yeah, he just doesn't have any experience of that. So I want to talk about the story in a second as much as we can, but I do want to talk a little bit more about the technology for you guys. Like, how does it affect your performance based on the kind of camera, where the camera is, the style this was shot? Does it affect performance or does it not matter where the camera is, acting's acting, or what? I found it to be incredibly playful.

There was something amazing about witnessing the communication with Danny and Anthony R. D.O.P. and then both being very instinctive, you know, and Anthony would often be very, very close, and he'd also be like, I'm going to be here, but if you do something that I feel like I want to lean into, I'm going to follow you, you know. So there's just like a constant awareness, it feels like as a team of, like, moving as one,

which was amazing, and it kept it all very kind of very alive and in the moment. It was a way in which I'd never, ever worked before, which was so much fun. But yeah, or like the camera would be like swinging off a wire or on someone's back or, you know, you just be like, wow, what's gonna happen next?

Or probably sometimes even in your face. Right, right? Like Aaron, for you, like when a camera is that close. Yeah, informed quite a lot and it definitely at times made you feel it was invasive, so it made you feel quite vulnerable. It's like the way someone would film you now with an iPhone or something like that makes you feel like you, that you can't hide.

There's a lot that's, and I think that's something like what Danny was saying, when you have a different camera, a different set up, there's a sense of you kind of know, you've been trained, I suppose, to sort of know your light and where your mark is and all that, and they sort of stripped all that away. So you felt like there was no safety net in that respect. So it was very raw, and like Jody mentioned, like Anthony, our DP, was very much,

it was instinctive and it kept everything spontaneous you know because he can go from here to like there and it come from different angles it just feels like this thing was like it made me so exciting to watch it actually because I was like I actually don't have no idea how the shots are going to look you know that's another reason why I couldn't wait to sit down and watch it because I thought wow I really want to see how this is

yeah yeah absolutely there was something of there was I've never really worked on I think where I was like as excited to and I want to see what we did and working with Danny and what we were doing on this movie. Because it was very, it was bold. Danny, as a filmmaker, it's so bold and making, and it was, yeah, it was new and different and experimental,

and it meant that we could explore. And you were trying all new things. And you even said some things, God, don't even know if they're going to work, but we're going to do it anyway. And I was like, that's so, so refreshing. It was so refreshing. Every day going to work was like the enthusiast. that you got from Danny just lit up every day

of like being back in like your craft again in a way that you're on your toes. Yeah, the cliche is you expect a filmmaker to get more conservative, go to the tried and true. In your DNA, Danny, you were incapable of doing that, it seems. So Bertolucci, the great Italian filmmaker, said you should always leave a door open on your set because the danger with sets is that you're sealed

and you kind of know what you're doing or you think you know what you're doing and everybody knows what they're doing and he said you should always remember that you should let the door, there should be a door open where things come in that you've no idea how to handle necessarily and they become part of it.

And that can be a mental thing for the actors that something happens to them, that changes them, that changes the way they see a scene or it can be a technical thing, like an ingredient when there's a scene. Like there's a couple of scenes, there's one scene where Aaron is running at the end. You'll have seen it in the trailer

or it shouts at the end, Spike! And we gave him, this camera to run see if he could run with it like that. And we'd no idea whether it would capture anything. But you get this moment of him unleashed, you know, and it kind of gets through a kind of barrier of prettiness or perfection. And it's kind of rorer, really.

And there's a great bit of one of the, there's these characters called the Alphas in it. And there's a great, who had a great guy called Chai Louis Parry. And he does it in this train sequence. And it's like, whoa, it's quite scary. Okay, I want to tease the audience a little bit as much as we can about the storyline. You've done it a little bit already, Danny. But folks like me have been asking you and Alex for over a decade for 20 years about a sequel.

There was a sequel 28 weeks later, which is a fine movie. But you and Alex have not returned. No, I legitimately like that movie. But you and Alex have chosen, or maybe, I don't know if it was an active choice or you couldn't crack the story. How did you crack this? because there was talk it was going to be 28 months later. This is how long this has been going. How did it arrive at 28 years later in this particular storyline?

Well, it's, I mean, it just, it's true. It's not, it's not vanglorious saying it. It's crowds that change it. Because most of the films you make fade away, they kind of like, even if they've been a hit, they're kind of like, you know, and if they've not been a hit, they really fade away. And you kind of like, you know, and you never hear of them again. And they kind of, and that's as it should be.

But this one stuck around 28 days later. There'd be odd screenings like this where people, and you'd be asked to go along and do a Q&A, and you realize there's a bunch of people who really enjoy the film and want it to... So because of that, we talked about it, occasionally about whether we should return to it. And we did come up with this idea.

It's a very good script that Alex wrote about weaponising the virus. And it's what you'd expect, though. It's about a government or a nefarious corporation or a military entity weaponizes the virus. You know, and you go, yeah, I've seen that before. It's alien, isn't it? You go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, wasn't it?

And we didn't get any traction between us. And then he went away and he came back with a much bigger idea where we withdrew from Europe because in the 28 weeks later you see the virus approaching Paris. And we decided to do away with that and to actually, that Europe, the UN, the EU, whoever, you call them, had managed to contain it within the UK only

and had been left quarantined to die out, hopefully. And that was the key, I think, because it allowed Alex to write a much, ironically, in containing it like that, it allowed him to write a much bigger story which arcs across three films, ultimately, that's the ambition.

And we've shot two of them, and one of them was still looking for finance, so there'll be a QR code in the lead. Which will be... Honestly, you'll all write to Tom Rothman at soon and persuade him to give us the money. And it was to eventually, but each film stands alone

and it stands a lot, you can watch it without knowing the first film as well, and they each other, and it was a bigger idea, ironically. You think the palette is smaller, but it's actually bigger because of that. It is, that simultaneously large canvas, and yet it is also an intimate story of family. It is about this family.

The actor that's not with us that we should mention is this wonderful young actor, Alfie, who plays your son in this. And it's truly his coming of age. It's a coming of age story. He goes through a rite of passage, essentially, where it's fair to say that as he explores the outer world. I know we can't say too much about your characters, but this is kind of a change of pace for you, Jody. I've never seen you. You've played a lot of, you know, very self-possessed together, strong characters. And this is a woman struggling.

This is a woman mentally and physically struggling. What are the unique challenges of playing Ila for you here? The uniqueness about Ila was that she's got a lot going on inwardly, which in a way kind of saves her from a lot of knowledge that everyone else has about the dangers of the outside world, yet she has a lot of inner turmoil. But her North Star is her son, and she kind of clings to him and that. And they have a really, really beautiful relationship.

But again, it's a journey film, and the characters go a long way. So it was kind of mentally plotting that out with the condition that she's in and trying to figure that out. And there's an interesting dynamic between the two of them because of the position that she's in. So it was working with Little Alfie and discovering that family dynamic. We did like two weeks rehearsal in Newcastle

before we started, didn't we? And we got to go through every scene and map it out and map out any beats that felt important or what Alfie felt he needed in each moment. And that was invaluable because it was like we could then get to set and feel like we had actually really created a family dynamic and a family human.

history, even though you very, you don't see any of that, you know, it was something that we could all kind of hold on to, and especially for Alfie to hold on to, yeah. For you, Aaron, taking, I mean, most of your scenes are with this young actor, and it's, it's a complicated relationship. Talk to me a little bit about establishing that bond, why was it important to connect, or how is it important to connect with this young actor on this one? So there's a lot of connection. Now, Alfie was, you know, This is this kind of first movie, right? It's his first movie.

He's the lead of this movie. And he is absolutely tremendous in this movie. He's sublime, and I'm so proud of him what his journey and his arc is in this movie. But he embodies it physically and also emotionally. He's tremendous. But I felt like, not just me, I feel like we all felt this weird sort of duty to, I mean, I felt like I wanted to be, I had this paternal. sort of connection to him anyway, and I wanted that to come across.

But I feel like we also felt like we wanted to sort of mentor him through making a movie, making a movie on this scale and the sort of, you know, the stamina you need to get through this sort of a movie. And then I have my moment with him. Jody, then we passed the baton, you know, with him, and Jody has her moment with him, and then there's a couple of other characters that appear in this movie. And so he has had, you know, had the gift of sort of being amongst us all. But, you know, Danny being, you know, sort of puppeteering him through everything has been extraordinary.

And he's a special, special boy. And he's absolutely amazing in this movie. And, yeah, there was a lot of love. I wanted them to have a bond and have a lot of love and connection because my character is putting a lot of pressure on him to be a bit of a man in a moment and and and maybe maybe I'm projecting too much on him and he's still a child and you know and it's just so it's so beautiful to sort of see in this I know I'm excited to see him come of age both as a character and as an actor because it's a right of passage in both respects for this young man right

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so your business can stay unfazed. Learn more at SAP.com slash uncertainty. There's so much in there. That's everything I love about what Danny Boyle does for the record. It's the energy, it's the emotion, it's the music, it's all of it together. You do it like nobody else, sir. Can you talk me a little bit about, like, I see that clip, that opening, and there are like five images that will haunt me for a long time. Do you ever start with an image and kind of build out a sequence from that?

How does it evolve for you? How do you find, like, the iconic imagery that ends up in your film? So that, it was telitubbies. really. Because exactly, yeah, you're just like it's that connective tissue straight away you go telitubbies. It's like, and I remember

so we, I was involved in the Olympic opening ceremony in London and we did, we designed this set and the press got photographs of it and they said it looks like, and we did these press conferences and the journalist said it looks like a telitubby set and it was, and they said it like it

was a bad thing. And I remember saying to them, but it's that a bad thing? And they they thought it was, they thought it was we're going to be described as it. So I've always loved the telitubbies. Yeah, no, and it's like, and when you brought up kids, you kind of get attachment, you know, some of you all know

what it's like, you get attachment to different parts of kids' entertainment, whether it's Parra Rangers or telitubbies or whatever, and they do come back, you'll be glad to know. And there is something happens in the mind of that kid that's just

mind-blowing in it. Alex is right, what is happening to that kid's mind as he quotes this religious because we know that's Christ's last words on the cross and there's something going on there that you see a bit later and then certainly in the second film which has already been shot with Nia da Costa

so it's kind of in the writing but it was also in the innocence of what it suggests and then the girls and that was very difficult to cast those girls and they're very difficult to direct kids to direct fear in them because that's when you get

very close to being, it's a bit, you've got to be very careful as a director, because you're trying, obviously, you want them to look frightened, and yet you're introducing them, and some of them don't know fear. They, and why should they? They're seven. You know, you want, you think that's wonderful, they don't know fear, but I've got to introduce them to it. And it's, and there was a little, and the little girl who covers her eyes at the front, and she was like, she seemed confident at first. And we kept saying, you know, these, you know, these, guys are going to come in and it's kind of it's all pretend and make-believe and their parents or their minders were there and everything was like that and i was but i had one of the cameras behind the television and she they all said we're fine we're fine we want to do it and everything like that so it was all and you just think well am i doing the right thing and everything like that and then and what she did and you can see the beginning of it there very very quickly is just as they hit the door she she knew to get out of the way and she literally jumped

like this, over the television into my lap like this, and said, I kid you not, no, I kid you not. She said, Danny save me. And I felt I was crushed for the rest of the day

because you realize, and anyway, they were all fine and we talked and talked and talked and they'll come to the, we're doing a little premiere in Newcastle, which is where we shot a lot of the film and they'll come, but sorry about that, Josh. I have my own kind of trauma I'm dealing with now.

But it's innocence and you, and you wanted to, because of course we knew going into it, the studio would want us to do a recap of the first film. Right. Or the first two films, and we didn't want to do that. So we thought, how can we write a sequence that kind of gives you a reminder of what it was, of what it was,

and also introduces this idea of innocence and introduces this character who comes back as a man later on in the film. So that was the idea of it, yeah. So we know it's tough for kids to portray fear. What about adult actors? Of all the emotions, is it tough to like portray sustained fear throughout a film, among other emotions?

I think it is. I remember you saying that you enjoyed it the most because it's an emotion that you can't fake. Like you have to go there in order for it to be believable and the audience to be with you. I feel like you spend a lot of the time hyperventilate. hyperventilating or you know in these you know and you will kind of come down from a take and you'll you know there might be a reset and you luckily have a little bit of time to

reconfigure but um there is there's one shot where like I feel like I something wasn't visibly there that I could see so I had to pretend it was and I'm like oh boy I really overham the fear too far I think I don't know if there's a danger that sometimes but um It's intense, it's really high energy, I find. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. For you are, I mean, like you've done obviously physically intense roles. Is it slightly different, though, like this is more emotional.

It is physical, but it's also just emotional intensity for you as an actor, I would imagine. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think, you know, it goes back to Danny creating an environment that is, just feels authentic and, and I, and I think, I think, you know, it goes back to Danny creating an environment that is, just feels authentic and, and I think. I think it's about the stakes. I think about the character, you know, what have they really got to lose in the stakes that they've, you know, in the situation they've put themselves in. So it's more about that. The stakes feel so high from the gecko as well. Yeah.

From that, from those moments with you and Alfie. That's what I really felt. I was like, there isn't a beat from the beginning where you're like, you don't feel how high those stakes are. No, there's dread hanging over this film. You're just waiting for the shit to hit the band. It's the entire film and it happens multiple times. I do want to talk about music.

It's so important to all of your work. Is there music on set? Is there, like, how do you create the musical landscape for something like this? No, we get, we're using, we get a playlist together. Yeah. Kind of, you know, just like you do, and Spotify or Apple or whatever,

and you get a playlist together, and then you share it with people. Sometimes you give it to the actors, sometimes you ask actors for their tunes, if they've got tunes, that things, so there is music that you can talk about rather than, you know, because it's so difficult to talk about music. It's far better just to play it and play music.

And so it's mostly in the editing. And we got this amazing band from Edinburgh called the Young Fathers who are a bunch. If you've never heard their music, listen to their music. They are wonderful. They're like a kind of rap version of the Beach Boys. But from a really tough area of Edinburgh, some really rough estates and their most beautiful three blokes.

They're just gorgeous. And they just started contributing music to it. And, yeah, the music's beautiful. And they wrote this tune towards the end, which is very emotional. I think the stuff that Josh was talking about. That's very beautiful. That's quite special.

So we were very pleased with that. But you have to trust them. And you've got to trust musicians. Because often the business doesn't. It's kind of like thinks it can manipulate them or thinks it can just take the best bits of them and then do the rest. Right.

Or imitate this as opposed to give someone free reign to kind of create something. You've got to trust them because they speak a language that reaches you in a way that we can't. They just do. And it's unspoken and it's out there. Oh, it's an amazing part of the process for me. It's one of the most beautiful parts of the process.

Did either of you have an inspired 28 years later playlist to help you get in the zone of sustained fear? I did. Mine wasn't really to sustain fear, though. Mine was more, I guess, an emotional connection to Spike. Like, I wouldn't be able to record the songs on it now, but I do quite enjoy that when I come to a new character is making a little playlist, even just of like 10 songs.

Just for like emotion kind of thing, yeah. I don't think it reveals too much that first trailer and the second trailer also has it, the Rudyard Kipling poem, Boots. like amazing, just amazing, sets the mood. It's in the movie as well. How did you arrive at that? Was that in the script process, or did that come in the editing or?

No, so the guy, there's a guy at Sony, I'm sure he's part of a big team, a guy at Sony. And this is the story we heard. They put it in the first trailer. And when Alex and I heard it, we thought, that is amazing. And we were looking, we were developing a sequence where the Holy Island survivors,

of which this is part of the family, one of the ways that they organize their lives is that they have retrenched, they look backwards. But once the technology stops, rather than keep progressing, which you could argue theoretically you could, without technology,

they don't. They look backwards to a better time in England, which for a lot of people is post-war. The feeling of the 50s where life was simpler, you know, and there was deprivation, rations, etc., but people were honest, And there's that romanticism about it, and they do that. And we wanted a way to represent that, and it connects it with their training that they were giving the young men.

And it's interesting they don't train the girls, because again, they've retrenched back to that process before we evolved into better people. They went backwards like that. And they're not bad people, but they just went back there, subsistence farming, training the boys to be fighters to protect the island, which is part of the process of the story. And Boots became a wonderful soundtrack for that. Yeah, so... And it also gave us an excuse. We cut in at one point, Lawrence Olivier as Henry V.

And so it's our first... It's a chance for... We've all got a credit now with a Lawrence Olivia. You've worked with the greats. What's a typical Danny Boyle direction? If only he had some enthusiasm, as we can tell, he's a very calm... Yeah.

But that's the beauty about Danny is, like, there is so much energy and passion and excitement in what he does because he loves what he does so I feel like whenever Danny would come to you with a note he's often expressing what he wants you to

or not even like what he wants he's not showing you what he wants you to do but he's feeling the emotion in which is in the scene and that I think is so beautiful because you feel like he's proper in there with you or something Sometimes you'll kind of watch him, you'll cut, not when you're acting, but like if you catch him watching the monitor at some point where maybe you're off camera and he's just like glued in, you know, there's not a beat that he isn't considering or not taking note of.

But yeah, I think I feel that you're a very, very emotionally intelligent man. with a real sensitivity and a real intellect that was my experience I would say on this job. I want to mention also not only the evolution of this kind of isolated society

that's fascinating in this film it's the evolution of the infected that I find very interesting that I think people are going to be fascinated by they've gone in different ways basically. There are some that have been to the gym and are really working out

they're really scary and there's some that have let themselves go a little bit and I think they're equally scary for me How did you arrive at that? I guess do you just kind of like you and Alex think out, okay, how would this go down? How to extrapolate from 28 years?

It was very serious because the authorities, the EU, UN, whoever is the military who are quarantining the island of the UK are imagining it will die out, but that's a complete mistake. It's nature.

It's a part of nature just like anything and it will evolve and it will survive. It's not just a story of survival of the people on the Holy Island who are survivors we recognize as being like us. Everything else survives as well

and it finds ways to survive rather than let itself be burn out. So one of the big things was the amount of energy that's needed to be a rage infected is enormous. The calories you're burning up just phenomenal.

So you think, well, they're starve to death straight away. So you go, Yes, they would unless they survive, because, and they, so they hunt, of course, to eat, to survive. Except some of them do it differently. They expend no energy at all, and they live on the ground, the people you're talking about being out of condition. And they eat grobs and worms and things like that. And then others evolve, and it's more like the virus acts of steroid on them.

And they evolve into the leaders of the hunters, if you see what it means. So it becomes a kind of hierarchy in a way, and you realize you get little glimpses, you think they're a little, they're a bit organized in a way. Because 28 years is, obviously it's a ridiculous amount of time for that kind of evolution to have taken place, but once you accept that it's just a period where evolution is seen to happen and it's accelerated for our purposes. For you guys, again, this gets back to what you keep saying, Aaron, about sort of like the set that he creates, like being in that environment and seeing these folks,

in that amazing makeup must be like, okay, I'm in, I'm into Annie Boyle's 28 years later. This is 30% of the job right now. Now I know where I'm at. What was it like to sort of see, I don't know, this amazing makeup job done. Yeah, yeah, our prostate team was. Yeah, they were brilliant, yeah.

Who the names, do you know? John Nolan. John Nolan. And his studio, yeah, they were victorious. Because they were absolutely, yeah. They were terrifying, actually, yeah. Also, they're often, like, stunt performers, they run at full speed.

Nobody's slowing down for you. You're getting chased. Right, in feet, quite thick fields. Through nettles. Yeah, without any clothes on. There was definitely some moments where you're like, what, you know, big, yeah. Yeah.

Like, it's a movie guys, you don't have to go full speed. They'll speed it up in post. I was like, I can't remember the last time I ran this much. Yeah. Yeah, there's some pretty terrifying, infected out there. But there was some of the prosthetics on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, yeah. I don't want to, yeah, unlike, ones that aren't very well conditioned, as you, as you put it. Yes.

That like to eat the grubs on the floor, which you've said, so that's okay. It's terrified when you get on the backstage. But, but, yeah, no. Hats off to those individual actors who were willing to be in that, those, yeah, the prosthetics for a whole day and out in the cold and things like that. It was, yeah, it's a whole other level. That's a whole other kind of dedication that, you know, actors can do that in a way. Because it's, and feel, because you can feel incredibly vulnerable, of course,

in the way that they were performing. It's so true, actually. You really do have to have an element of fearlessness in there. It's such a good point. Some people were in the chair for like five or six hours. Yeah. But amazing as well to think of like that they have advanced or regressed in different ways. Like just that detail is...

I'm thinking specifically of this one girl and who had her eyes completely stitched up and stuff like that. Like, there is some uncomfortable situations. Sounds awful. No, it was terrible, right? And she just was like... She was amazing. She got on with it.

Like, and that's kind of crazy. So you have teased that already the second film has been shot by another great filmmaker, Nia da Costa. Yeah. There is an intention to do a third. Can you hint a little bit about the scope of this story? So we have not... We can say this for the record.

Killian Murphy is not in this film. We love Killian Murphy. He is an executive. producer. He is. He is indeed. And and and and I've been told that, um, to say to you. You are your romance. Say what you want to say, Danny. No, it's not as simple as that. Um, no, no, I've been told to say to you that good things come to those who weigh. Okay. There are many good things associated with Killian and, um, no, he, he, he, he, he, there's a, there's a handover technique. Although the film, sit and exist individually as you hope to be satisfying stories on the home within each

one is a handover sequence which Josh has seen where these characters are introduced and that happens in the second film and and then if we get the money Tom Rothman at tom Rothman dot com the if we get the money Killian will obviously be a dominant factor in the third part of the film. But the story arc is worked out, as Alex has very carefully worked out. So we're just poised, really. I mean, you know what it is? They're just waiting to see what business it does, really.

Has it been, I would imagine, as an executive producer, he's been part, at least to some extent, of creative discussions. I mean, you met this man at a much younger age, and now to be collaborating with him coming off this Oscar win. And it's very telling that coming off an Oscar win, like, he wanted to prioritize working with you guys and coming back. I know, that's very nice, and it's lovely. And he's a great guy, and he's smashing. And, yeah, he was very complimentary about the film.

And so we were very, yeah, it's gone. Yeah, it'll be good, I think. Of course, a lot has changed in the world in the last 23 years. We've, there was a pandemic. I don't know if you heard. There was a pandemic. How does that inform this film, you think? I mean, it has to impact the story long.

It does in obvious ways, and it sort of, but it did something in less obvious ways, which is that, you know, it wasn't just like the shock of the pandemic, which we, it was the way that we got used to it. Because I remember thinking, if you were, like in the first film, everybody was super, so cautious about getting infected. It was like, did the blood get on you? It was like, and if it did get on you, I'll hatch it you to death. And it was like, everybody's like this.

But you can't exist like that for 28 years. It's exhausting. Dead anyway. So they kind of, it's like anything like humanity behaves like that. You begin to become not casual, not relaxed about it, but you begin to take more risks. There's kind of a slight latitude. So we built that into it. It felt like, you know, they, yeah, anyway, it's weird thinking like that.

But that's what the experience of Colvid did when you go through that. experience. Because I remember, I remember when COVID started and the guy, the groceries were delivered, I used to put blue gloves on to take them in at the door. And when I look back on it, I think, what was I doing? What was I doing? And I get the groceries in and they rub bleach on like this, on the plastic containers that the letter was in. That's insane. So, and obviously you relax after that initial panic stage. Anyway, so stuff like that works its way in. I want to mention one other actor we haven't mentioned yet. Ray Fines, no surprise to anybody, is amazing in this film.

Amazing in this film. A very unusual, fascinating character. I don't know, can any of you just talk a little bit about working with one of the all-time greats and what he brings to set? This is so good. What I think is beautiful about his character is, what he's providing the characters in the film, you as an audience feel yourself.

There's just this really, I don't know, this kind of magic happens when you're watching the movie. He kind of, yeah, I don't wanna say too much, but he gives the most incredible performance, but he kind of provides the audience with exactly what he's providing the characters, which you really need. Come that time, guys, yeah.

And he's, I mean, you guys, I know I've seen the trailers, like, I mean, from the outside in, I was like expecting a kind of a, a Colonel Kurtz figure, like a madman. And he is mad in his own way, but in another way seems to be the most rational person we find in this story. He also, again, it's quite difficult to see.

He represents something in England that's really important to us. I hope this wasn't cruel for you guys to tease you guys for this movie for an hour, but as you can tell, it's very special. And this is a special group of actors, and it's so exciting to see Danny do what he does best in this genre like nobody else. I'm going to thank you guys. And as we go out tonight,

I'm going to treat you guys, we're going to treat you guys to a five-minute sequence from 28 years later. But before we do all that, give it up one more time for Aaron Taylor Johnson, Cody Comer, Danny Boyle. The movie is out June 20th. We're going to set up the go-fund me for the third film. We're going to make it happen from Heller Highwater. Thank you guys so much. And so ends another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pushed to do this by Josh.

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