The Joe Rogan Experience - #2053 - Danny & Michael Philippou

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

Danny and Michael Philippou are the directors of the horror film "Talk to Me," available now on streaming platforms and in select theaters.https://a24films.com/films/talk-to-me

The Joe Rogan Experience Showing by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day What's up? Hello, hello, hello. Pleasure to meet you guys. Nice to meet you too. Oh my god, we're live. Ladies and gentlemen. Introduce yourselves to everybody. I'm Danny Filippo, it my clone Michael and not clones oh well yeah there's a big difference isn't there Danny acts like we look well we're identical twins

mirror image twins Michael's the dumb twin the unreliable twin Danny's the arrogant twin I wouldn't say that but ladies and gentlemen we're here

on the Joe Rogan experience I'm so like yeah like a it's very surreal I'm fanboy yeah we got young Jamie over there we might pull some things up and we're going to talk about DMT and elk meat.

Did you guys prepare for this? No. Yeah, we were writing last night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Mike was like, we're going to be at the Joe Rogan podcast. And all of your guests are really smart.

I feel like people would be dumber by listening to us. There's a lot of dumb ones too. Don't worry about it. Okay. That'll be the playlist we're in so tell me about you guys the background first of all how did it come that you made that movie well

we've always wanted to make films ever since we were like little kids is that your first like real film that was our first proper production the fucking movie was awesome it was so weird that you posted about it how did you hear about it I was just flipping through I think I was just flipping through the current movies on Apple, on Apple TV. My daughter loves horror movies, and so we like to watch horror movies together. And I was like, let's try this one.

And we watched a preview, and she was like, oh, it's good. And then I watched it. I was like, that is a really good original movie fuck yeah fucking scary as shit oh man it's crazy and it wasn't like any other movie i mean it wasn't like oh this is like 28 days later or this is like the exorcist no it's like very original yeah it's something we've been like building towards making a movie for forever like uh and we've been writing scripts forever as well uh we had a youtube channel so we started off like uh making stuff as little kids we've been obsessed since we're seven years old with like making stuff even before filming we just draw

movie covers and shit like that and pretend we're we we like play act through a movie and look at the time and like act for 90 minutes and then draw the cover. Like, we were loser kids, yeah. That's creative. Yeah, I remember even in primary school, they had to bring my mum in. They're like, we're really concerned about Danny because I would draw the most violent, fucked up, you know, movie covers.

Or just, like, someone getting split in half trying to figure out different ways that I could kill these stick figures. Or, you know. Yeah, like, it was like... And then, like, we had a group of friends around the same age like 12 15 kids at same age in the neighborhood yeah and we do two things together we beat the shit out of each other like backyard wrestling and then we do uh make movies and like that's what if you if our friends were to hang out with us they had to do it like I feel bad for them and then like they come together and we just

fuck each other up and then we, like, film movies and stuff. So you've always been interested in some kind of filming and something. And so you started off with a YouTube channel? Yeah. Well, initially we were just making stuff with friends. We made a TV show. It was called Tamuffy, 96 episodes. And where was that?

That was just... It always says it's a TV show. It was never on TV. It was on our TV. We would play it for our friend's older sister Nellie and we would just premiere it for her. And as we got older, all of our friends were growing out of it and were 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. We'd organise a big weekend with everyone but everyone was 18. Like 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, what the fuck are you doing this shit?

And then, like, yeah, we had to... We were doing a media course after high school, didn't know what... We were 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 like there's no entertainment scene it's not like LA it's not like LA where you go

first time we went to LA and everyone's 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, yeah. But I 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 ever turn away like 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, like, the ones that were, like, there for a reason, like, they're, like, excited to be there versus the ones that were, like, you know, like, depressed and, like, don't really want to be there. It ones that were like you know like depressed and like

don't really want to be there it's just like a paycheck thing so like I remember like certain people caterers, grips all from different departments and I was like I'm gonna

use these people when we do a movie cultivate the good ones yeah because like on a film set like when it's like

the crew morale is so big like if you have like everyone clashing and working against each other it's the most fucked up that being said I think we did piss off crew

a whole bunch of times maybe because it was supposed to be an 8 week shoot it turned to a 5 but anyway you're skipping ahead man oi I'm just saying

but yeah so we went to wait before that so we had to finish this series that we did and no one wanted to do it anymore everyone had grown out of it

so we started just finding different ways to express ourselves. We could never get a normal job. So my only paid job I ever did was medical trials, checking into hospitals and testing out drugs that weren't on the market yet. You did that? Yeah, I did that for two years. What did they test out on you?

I stopped listening. You just let them try it? Yeah. They would tell me that like, oh, this could happen and this could happen. And I was like, just give me whatever. I don't give a fuck. Just give me some money. Danny would have crazy side effects. He was like yellow once.

Yeah, so yellow now. Yeah, yeah. He was like, once he was like, well, we have ADHD. We have oil shaking. But Danny was like, once he was like this. I went to visit him. He was doing shaking. And I was like, you're right.

I was like, yeah, side effect of the drug. Anyway, it was like muscle tremors all up through my arm. So I just couldn't physically. He was doing, like, shaking. And I was like, here, right? He's like, yeah, side effect of the drug. Anyway. It was like muscle tremors all up through my arm. So I just couldn't physically. Yeah, I just couldn't. What was that drug? I literally, dude, I did not listen to her. They would tell me.

They would send all these big pamphlets. And we'd have to sign a bunch of shit. But I would never listen. I would never know what I was there for. I would never do this, by the way. Did you have any concern about doing that? No, I was more excited to get some cash. How old were you at the time?

18. Yeah, that's the problem. Yeah, yeah. You shouldn't let 18-year-olds make that decision. Yeah, 18 to 20 is when I did it. Well, it was a way for you to write and meet people. Because there's a lot of interesting people that would go through there. But I just hate injections, so I don't know.

I also didn't 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. What was the worst side effect you got? He grew a third eye. Oh, fuck, I didn't. I remember

they were administering it with a cannula. It was a drip. They were dripping the drug in and it was really fucking hurting. And usually it doesn't hurt usually I just take it or they would administer it and I didn't really

feel anything but it was painful and it was hurting it was hurting I was like oh god she's like are you alright I'm like yeah yeah it's okay

you can keep and I was like oh fuck that really drills it felt like someone was punching my arm did they miss the vein no no

it was like whatever happened was my whole arm went paralyzed. And I was like, dude, I can't feel my hand. I can't move my hand. She's like, all right, well, just squeeze my finger. She put her finger there, told me to try and squeeze it. And I'm like, I literally can't do it.

So she said, all right, quickly take the drug out. And they took the drug out. And I was just sort of sitting there with a paralyzed arm. And it probably sat there for like an hour. And once the drug had worn off, I got my feeling back. And you don't remember what that drug was? Fuck, I'm so sorry. I really, I could dig it up in my emails probably, but yeah.

How many different drugs are they trying you? Well, I did it for two, three years. So over 10 drugs, I'd say, different things I tried. It was like, you go in there for like, like group, like patches of like four. See, I was doing the work experience on set. But I would say mine was free. So Danny would do the stuff that got the money. Yeah.

Or that. I think whatever that was. The longest time I was in hospital for, it could range from three days in hospital to two months. So, yeah, one time I was in there for two months. For what? For the drugs. So you just stayed in the hospital for two months while they administered drugs? Yeah, yeah.

And then they pretty much just wait to see what the side effects are going to be. And you have to sleep in the hospital and stay there? Yeah, you just stay there overnight. How much do they pay you for something like that? $150 a day? $120 a day. Australian, so $100 US or something like that. Less than that. $90 USD a day. For months?

Yeah. One to two months. Wait, wait, wait. No, it is crazy. Like, there was that famous case. I don't know if it was in where it was, but the patients, because they do it, like, in a row, they'll test one person, then half an hour later, test another, then another, right?

And then people started dying off. And, like, then he was, like, going down the line. Because, like, someone died half an hour later than they died. That was, like, a freaking... Imagine being the last guy and they go, and they go, look, look. Yeah, you're about to fucking die. Yeah, look.

No, there's this side effect. How many people died? 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 test it on mice before they test it 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. And this was after you'd already gotten the drug? Yeah.

This is a friend's experience. Yeah, they'd had the drug, and they brought everyone back in like a week later, and they said some of the mice have gone blind. Jesus. Yeah, yeah. But, drug and they brought everyone back in like a week later and they said some of the mice have gone blind. Jesus. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, what was the best part? The best part was when the blindness was the best part. No, no, the best part was when the drug goes wrong

and then you get to leave early. Because you don't have to stay for the two months. Like, this drug's too dangerous. We're not going to test it. And then you get paid for the full amount. Wait, wait, wait. That makes no sense. The drug goes wrong. Yeah. So like that one, when they administered it

and my whole arm went paralyzed, they realized they couldn't administer that drug to everyone else. So the trial got called off. But you got paid for the full month. No long-term side effects? No. Oh, look at him.

I don't know. I've never really questioned it until you look at it and be like, I'm crazy. Come on, man. It's just the drug trial. Well, if you pay attention to drug trials and how many drugs get approved and then pulled because they find – I mean, that's just after approval.

Yeah. And you're way before approval. Yeah, yeah. You're a guinea pig. Yeah, I was a guinea pig. I was a guinea pig after the guinea pigs. Yeah. Yeah.

It was – yeah. It's a little bit of a safety net to be like, oh, it's tried on hamsters before. Yeah. But, yeah, it was pretty dodgy. But it was the only way that I could make money. No, you could get a normal job. Yeah, you could have got a normal job.

No, I'm telling you, Joe, I could not get a normal job. Our minds would never let us do that. Like, I could never, I don't know, like. Focus. Yeah, focus. Like, you're always just seeing life through, like, as a't know, like... Focus. Yeah, focus. Like, you're always just seeing life through, like, as a movie scene or something like that. The one job I had, I had two jobs.

One was recycling, like, bottles. And then the other one was, I was... It was in between the years of the media course, and I was, like, I got, like, a job illegally, like, rolling dirt. You know, like, before they built a house, they, like, rolled dirt with, like, yeah, like, rolling dirt. You know, like, before they built a house, they, like, rolled dirt with, like, yeah, like, flattened earth. And I was in that machine on this hill flattening earth. And then I was, like, in my...

I was, like, to make time go by, I was, like, in my own, like, imagination world, like, in a movie scene, like, you know. And I was just, like, playing a movie in my head and I was going closer and closer to the edge and they started ringing... Like, they were talking to me on the radio, dude, stop, you're going too far past the you know you're gonna go off the edge and I rolled the fucking machine oh jesus and then I'll but to me it was like exciting I

was like oh something happened I feel like that's more dangerous than my drug trials no you're rolling fucking no no no because if you if you pay attention like if you pay attention in your drug trial you still still got to go blind maybe. Yeah. Well, no, no. It was, you know what I mean? It was like inattention. It's like, that's way safer.

Yeah. But I actually want to check back into a trial now and just to try and get some writing done because you can't. You want to do it again? I do want to do it again. Yeah. Yeah. You just meet interesting people in there.

Like who are these people that are in there? They're dumb people that are getting injected with experimental drugs. Don't do that. Don't do that again. I think it's like you can't go anywhere. There's no distractions. You're just in a hospital bed with your laptop, so you have to get some writing done.

Can't you just check yourself into a hotel? It doesn't work because you could just walk out. You can't leave this trial. She can. You'll get fucking shot. No, you won't really, but yeah. Look, man, if Joe Rogan tells you not to do it, don't do it. Write it down.

Don't do it. Don't do it. It's advice from Joe. Are you guys both left-handed? No, I'm right-handed. We're mirror image twins. We're mirror image. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, wait. I'm left-handed. Yeah, well, I'm right-handed. Yeah. But, yeah, the left-handed is your... We're split. We're split because we're mirror image. I guess I'm more physical and.

Yeah, I'm like the nerd twin. Danny's more like the brains. Like I'll get hit by cars for videos and Danny will record it. And tell him to go faster. And every time we did a car hit, we'd have to like, we'd step it up a little bit. There was one nasty one we did and I was like, because I was like, oh, I know that if it does like half ass,

Danny will go do it again. So I'm like, oh, let's just do it like a good. And oh I know that if it does like half assed and you go do it again so my car let's just do it like a good and usually I have stunt performers for car hits because you usually you you are before you hit someone in a car you like break a little bit to like dip the bonnet down and uh this guy wasn't a stunt driver and I was like I'll just do it and then and then he hit me and I was like oh there's an interesting thing for car hits where it's like, because you lose where you are for like a flash second, you know? It's called getting a concussion. Yeah.

I'm going to show you. Wait, do you have the video of it? Yeah. It was extreme. He's a pretty brutal car hit. It was like a brutal one. How many times have you been hit by cars? Oh, two dozen, something like that.

What the fuck, dude? But it's like a stuntman. Michael's a certified. In Australia, you have to get certification to get a stunt license. In America, you can just say I'm a stunt guy and then... 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... Credation?

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.

It takes a few years. But I was driving. I was production running for a TV show. And I met a stunt guy, Judd Wilde. And we just got along. I was interested in stunts. We've been doing stunts since we were little kids. And I showed him some of our old videos 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, and we would create different, like, our videos on YouTube, we'd always go, like, with a new, like, oh, how do we do we do like a sinking set where we can fire in the set sinking and filling with water?

Or how do we do this rig, this stunt rig? And we'd 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. Really? Yeah, for the Capcom video game. Hold on. Do you have video of you getting hit by a car?

Yeah. Let me see this. Wait, because the thing at the... It's called... Here we go. No, no, no, no. Not this one. This is a bad one.

Wait, go ahead. No, no, no. Let me see this one. This one's fine. I mean, you can tell me a better one after this, but this one's fine. Let's see this one. This is not him. The next one will be him.

Yeah, so this is with a stunt performer seeing who could get hit faster. It's not faster. Shit! Yeah, so this is with a stunt performer seeing who could get hit faster. It's not faster. Oh, shit! This whole window is fucking coming through. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, we're done. Dude. If you go to...

I might have to send you a link. What the fuck? That was a... Wait, if there's... It's called Extreme Desk. Can I send you a link? Extreme what? Because I've got one that's unk. Can I send you a link? Extreme what? I've got one that's unlisted.

I can send you a link. If you have it on your phone, you can send it to me. Send the link. This is the most brutal one. It's a really good one. You will love this one. He goes flying. If you like car hits, man.

But the way that I do car hits is different to stunt guys. Because stunt guys, you kind of... Get the damn link. You lean back and you kind of get the damn link you lean back and you kind of let them you should be able to airdrop it to my computer shut the fuck up and get the link get the fucking link man all right i'm gonna get the link i don't know what's dumber the car accidents or the injections okay but stunt performers you, in films. You guys are fucking out of control.

But, you know, stunt performers in films, you know, get run over by cars all the time. Yeah, that's not good either. Yeah, no. You know, like the practical elements of filmmaking? The practical elements. Is that what you're going to call it? You know, there's a CG fight scene or like a practical fight scene where they're actually, you know, going hard. That's a profession. Yeah.

You don't want it to be – you can always tell – okay, I've got a link. What do I do? You can airdrop it to my MacBook Pro, I think, if possibly. Get it up, Michael. I copy the link. And then when you go to share, you should be able to airdrop share. Okay, gotcha. Share.

It should pop up. Talk about how dumb we are while I share. No, well, I just think that we always respect when you see things done practically in terms of stunts. Whenever it turns to CG, there's a disconnect. Stunt performers that really, really innovate their craft or really put their bodies

on the line or build up to a really big stunt. For our film for Street Fighter, we know we want to do a whole bunch of practical stunts. We've started designing the fight scenes already and figuring them out in our heads, 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.

So you guys are doing all this fucking around and having a good time and creating all these things. How does it get to talk to me? So we always wanted to... Oh, shit. We always wanted to get into filmmaking and make films the youtube stuff was a really good way for us to just yeah it was an accident though it was all like youtube we just posted because we were doing these fake fail videos like pretending things went

wrong when they didn't like sticking a knife into a toaster things like that and just putting them on facebook and they were going really viral um but no one knew where they were coming from. So we create, our friend said, you should do a YouTube channel just to show where, like who's making the stuff. And we didn't expect anything from it. Like we were working on short films and things like that. And then one, like inside a year, like the channel got how many? A million subscribers.

A million subscribers. And then we're like, we're not even putting that much effort into these videos. What if we actually focus on it? And then we went down the rabbit hole of YouTube forever. But the end goal was always film and television. We never set out to be YouTubers. But the world's so fun, you know,

and it's instant gratification. You see growth, comments, likes, you know, and cool opportunities to go to cool countries and do, like, awesome things. But you end up just, like, you're chasing trends and you're just following the algorithm and you're not really expressing yourself towards the end. So that's what I was like. I don't know if we were doing that.

Oh, we were towards the end. Don't even lie. It was more like you could, yeah, like, it was like our videos are, like, crazy, like, action comedy, but stunt stuff that we don't, like, the movies we start, like, it was, like, our videos are, like, crazy, like, action comedy, but stunt stuff that we don't... Like, the movies we start, like, watching is very different to the stuff we were making. So we couldn't do, like, a deep, serious thing on our channel, like, because people just click off straight away, you know?

You have to be, like... Someone has to jump through a window, like, within three seconds. Could never express myself personally. Like, I wanted to have scenes where two characters can sit down and have a conversation. But with our YouTube channel, we weren't able to do that. But hold on. You say weren't able to. You just didn't want to because you didn't think it'd get as much engagement.

Well, I think that the audience that we built would be like, what the fuck is this? Well, how do you know? We posted some, like, longer stuff. Yeah, yeah. But you know what? It's actually true. We never did, like, we never went for it in that way and tried to do it. But we just saw it.

Once we had like a minute intro, like a slow intro, and then you see the attention rate and it's just people that stayed the first minute watched the whole thing. But you were captured by that. So the attention span was what motivated you to either do or not do something. Yeah, because it affects your reach and you're yeah you're chasing the algorithm but we would never like youtube would always tell

us things to we'd never listen to them like if you do this you'll get more and get what you mean me you do like someone contacted you yeah i tried to coach you on how to do it well the first thing we didn't put ads on our videos at first youtube YouTube was like, at first, like, dude, put ads on your stuff. We're like, no, we're not doing this for money. We want to just do like. We're artists. We're just artists, dude. Crazy artists.

We're artists. As soon as we turn on monetization. We're artists who get hit by cars and we practice medicine. Can I see you get hit by a car, the good one? I didn't see it in here unless I missed it. It's the very beginning of it. Wait a second. What link did you send, Michael? Oh, no, I sent the wrong one. I sent that scene. That's what I'm talking about. It's the very beginning of it. Wait a second. What link did you send, Michael?

Oh, no, I sent the wrong one. I sent that scene. That's what I'm talking about. He's the unreliable twin. He's so stupid. Hey, man. What kind of ADD drugs do they give you over in Australia? Because you guys are on some shit.

Yeah, well, we haven't on any medication. We're not on anything. We need to be. I don't think you need to be. Good? No, no, no, you don't. No, what you have is a superpower. But it's too sporadic.

Everything goes... Yeah, but that's okay. That's okay. That's okay. Because that creates creativity. Right. And it also does this on podcasts. Yeah, it's okay.

That's all right. When was the last fist fight you were in, Joe? Fist fight? Yeah, when was the last brawl you were in? I'm not really a brawl person. But you have void fights. Well, you think he goes to bars and fist fights people? I want to hear about his last fight.

I have void fights. I haven't been in a fight fight and fist fights people? I want to hear about his last fight. I have void fights. I haven't been in a fight fight since I was in high school, other than like an organized fight. Oh, right. So it was in high school was your last fist fight? Yeah. What were you fighting about? Like a fist fight with another kid?

Yeah. What happened? Why'd you do it? Oh, I don't remember. Just some bullshit. Did you win? The last one I did. But the one before that you got beaten?

I definitely lost a bunch of them. That's how I got into martial arts, getting my ass kicked. And why would you get your ass kicked? What was the... I was just getting bullied. You know, some kids would find you and beat you up or try to beat you up or things along those lines. Nothing serious.

It's like a thing in high school. Hey, like you're automatically tested a winner. That's junior high school too. Okay, so this is you right here? Oh, God. Yeah, the quality's fine. This is supposed to be like... Yeah, okay. Shut the fuck up and play it. Hey, like you're automatically tested in your high school to see this is you right here Shut the fuck up and play Fucking Christ. Oh my god. no helmet no padding jackson yo i did a kidnap that kid there this is like a parody oh yeah it's a parody of like it's like kids at home don't try this yes no yeah it was parodying that stuff

people get mad at you because people are trying to imitate what you guys are doing getting hit by cars and saying that it's irresponsible? No, because our stuff was always like... That one was paying out YouTube trends like that. Like the Tire Pod Challenge and things like that. That was paying that out. Our stuff was always like a filmmaker... It was like

stunts and things, but it was done through a movie scene and stuff. It wasn't like jackass where it's like, just go jump in front of it. You've said like 64 times. That's okay. In that one sentence. Like, what's your problem? Do I have to like lay you out in front of Joe right now?

Like, you can give it a shot. Would you start commentating if me and Marco started brawling right now? No, I'd probably separate you. Oh, that's very nice. It's responsible of you. He'd probably jump in. I don't want you to break any wires. Would you?

Would you? You know how there's the influencer boxing scene? You know, should they do something like that in UFC where different people that are more behind the scenes fight each other? No. You versus Bruce Buffer? No. Would you watch that? No, you want to watch people fight that are actual fighters.

You don't want to watch people fight. Dude, I feel like if you were going to fight Bruce Buffer, that would sell really well. Bruce Buffer's my friend. I know, but. It wouldn't hurt Bruce Buffer. That's an example. But but you know what I mean? People would want to watch that. Yeah, but that's like

a thing where it's like, the YouTube stuff is... Yeah, you guys are thinking too much about likes and engagement. Let's get back to Talk To Me. You know we're friends with Israel Adesanya. You're friends with him? I love that dude. He's the fucking coolest motherfucker in the world. Him and his brother.

Have you met David, his brother? I met him when he was with Israel, but not like... He is the funniest guy ever. Their whole family is 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. I was a fan of him way back when.

I remember him, the first time I saw him fight, he was main event. He was fighting the champ. I was like, oh man, this guy's going to get killed to Izzy. Then Izzy just flying knee the dude in the face. First round, and the guy didn't get up for half an hour. Everyone started leaving.

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 to, 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 it. He's the best. He's a stage presence. Coolest guy ever.

Yeah. Yeah. He's so awesome. We want to cast him in something. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good idea. Because I feel like he about him. He's the best. He's a stage presence. Coolest guy ever. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's so awesome. We want to cast him in something. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea. Because I feel like he could act. Fuck yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And do his own stunts. So did you guys write Talk To Me? How did the idea come about? There was these neighbors 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. Oh, Jesus. 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 kid 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? There was no hand or anything like that. It was that kind of concept of using it for fun. Possession for fun. 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 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. Well, no, no. We went out, 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 studio said no. We couldn't get meetings anywhere. There's like a low budget place called Shudder. They do low budget horror films. We couldn't even get a meeting in there. Being a YouTuber comes of like, there's like a stigma attached to it. If you want to break outside of it, there's like a stigma for being a YouTuber comes of like there's like a stigma attached to it if you want to break outside of it

there's like a stigma for being a YouTuber because like people knew like we can keep an audience's attention for five minutes but a film is so different

like people will go yeah you're a YouTuber not a filmmaker but then like there was one studio that was like eventually but after that

we reached out to Causeway Films who Michael did some work experience on this horror film called The Bubble Duke. I love that movie. Yeah, yeah.

So Michael was. I was not, you were work experience on The Bubble Duke. I was production runner. Well, Michael was paid to drive around actors. Yeah, yeah.

And Danny was, you did lighting. I did lighting. Work experience was like an intern. Right. Yeah. So that,

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. That was part of the intrigue of the film.

It's like, what is that? Where'd they get that? And you don't really explain it that well, which is kind of cool. Yeah, yeah, which is what we wanted to do as well. It also seemed like typical, like what kids would do if they were partying and someone brought something fucking crazy out.

There would be a lot of confusion. Yeah, yeah. Instead of having a clearly defined origin story of it. Or like the scene where they go to the library and they dig up the old archive footage. Yeah. This was back in the day, the 18th century. Yeah.

We know what it is, but even the kids, they have an idea of what they think the rules are, but that's not necessarily the rules. That's just what they think they are. Right, right, right. And everybody's body reacts differently to drugs. So one person's experience with weed will be different from another person's experience

of weed. And so we wanted to sort of have that sort of vibe with the hand as well. Yeah, like they've got rules based on like, when I do it, you know, like, that's it. Like 90 seconds, you're good, man. Like, but depending on your mental state or the way that your body reacts to it, it's going to be very different. So, and it's also that thing of like how people, if you see someone drunk, like you're with a friend and they're drunk, like you find funny like someone's drunk at but if they're like say their family's religious i remember

a friend's family was very religious they came and he was like drunk in his underwear vomiting and we thought it was funny and then i looked over and his mom was crying because like she was like you know that's not her perception of it as well it's like that's a that's what it sounds like a devil and a son or something like He was so fucked up. And that was sticking as well. It's just different interpretations of what's going on. The kids are having fun with it, but there's that undertone of the reality of it's very different

to the way that they're perceiving it. So when you're creating something like this, when you're creating the script and the storyline, do you guys disagree with direction? How collaborative is it? Well, I can't ever write with Michael. We'll just butt heads too much and we'll start fighting.

So my co-writer, Bill Hinsman, him and I will work on stuff together and then when we've got a draft, we'll present it to Michael. 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 outlines like

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 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 find that really awkward. We just don't have that sort of relationship. We have more of a working relationship as opposed to... It's our whole lives. It's

filming and stuff. But there's... We don't go, oh, let's go hang out or whatever. We're always traveling together and stuff, but we don't like, oh, let's do this together. It's always film related. And so are you like at the end of it before you start filming, do you guys have to get approval on the final script? Is it like, did they have to give you the green light?

Like what is the process between you come up the concept, creating a script, them giving Okay, we're back. So do we like continue the sentence like it just happened? No. Where were we? Do you remember where we were? I tracked something down for you. This is one of the drugs I took.

What is it? What? I can't. Can you pronounce that? Ah. No. Yeah, this is... Can you spell it?

I'll try to look it up. Well, it says, Yeah. You smell it. I'll try to look it up. Well, it says, phase one, single randomized open label study to assess the pharmaceutical. Well, I don't even know what this word is. 7-8-7, deuterated, oh boy, dextromethorphanhydrobromidequinidesulfate. Did you get that one, Jamie?

And healthy volunteers. Well, this is what, so I thought I was never listening, but I was listening. I didn't know what the fuck they were saying. That's the drug, yeah, they'll tell us stuff like that. I wonder. That sounds like something they're definitely going to pull from the market. It does, doesn't it? That sounds like one they get sued for. How do you even come up

with a name like that? Like, oh, it's cool. Unless it's on purpose to trick people. No, scientific. Oh, no. How do we get every letter of the alphabet into something that sounds like... That doesn't even sound like it's a word. That's one how do we get every letter of the alphabet into something that sounds like – that doesn't even sound like it's a word. But that's one of the drugs I took.

That was the one where my arm got paralyzed. Sure. So that's okay, though. Okay. Where were we? We were talking about Talk To Me. We were talking about the process from going from – Okay.

How to get the script picked up to actually shooting. There was a blackout. We got a blackout in the studio so we got to the script gets uh approval you yeah managed to dodge all the uh the obvious tropes yeah but i remember going to the studios the people that financed it were still iffy on us directing they said to to Sam, our producer, they're like, can you, what have they done exactly? Can you send some stuff? They were still a little bit unsure because it's a big gamble. It's so much money.

So he sent them the car hit video. No. Well, we just sent them some examples of a more narrative driven video, which our YouTube videos never really were. So it was hard. I remember we did a short film called Deluge before we started the YouTube channel. So was there talk of someone else taking it over? That's what I thought.

They didn't say that specifically. The thing is, and one of the reasons we didn't go with the Hollywood studios because they would have Final Cut and be able to make changes and stuff. And every single shot and sound effect and everything was so like, I guess have a strong sense of how we want it. I couldn't imagine having that control taken away from us. Right. So we went the independent route, lost half the budget.

And then it was supposed to be an eight-week shoot. We ended up, it dropped to a seven and a six and a five. So we had five weeks. We lost an extra million dollars out of the budget because we cast Sophie Wilde because she wasn't a name yet, like as a lead. So they took a million dollars away from you? Meanwhile, she was great. She was incredible. She is the best. She's got a lot of stuff coming up, which is amazing.

It was worth it to us because she was the best performer. It's such an amazing experience having someone that's so good at their craft and elevated 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, like, 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, like, down but coming back up. So if you get COVID then, you know, you can't come to set for a week. So it was like survival on set.

There was one week we lost seven people, and that was on Friday. Come Monday, there's going to be no one left. We were just losing so many people. Everyone was constantly getting tested. If the production shut down, we weren't going to finish it. We weren't going to make it on budget. There was 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 how did the film get so popular? Well, so we had a... Was it just word of mouth?

Well, we got picked up from... So we got into Sundance Film Festival, which is, like, 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 like 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, 300 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, 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 like the most fucking surreal. It was the most overwhelming. We spent all of Sundance because we had the crew there and the cast.

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, all these companies that you've seen so many products from, saying, oh, do you want to look at this script? Do a look at this it was the first time i got so overwhelmed i couldn't even open emails i couldn't look or i was so did you just feel surreal everything like

jordan peele send a message like randomly and then uh ariasta who did hereditary he came to the premiere and like man it was there was all this hype around the movie before anyone saw i was like man i would have rather it be like you 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 at the back of the theater just cringing man like oh like it was the most painful experience because it was it was the first time we're going to be exposed to critics and like harsh critics you know sundance and 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 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'd open the back door and then light would go over the crowd. We're like, oh. Yeah. Constantly people were moving around. I'm like, wait, is the movie boring? why is people moving yeah yeah but i think it was like

a midnight screening as well like they play it at midnight in egyptian theater it was like a big famous theater and like it was midnight so it was late people like a little bit maybe drunk or yeah it was like a weird yeah that whole night i just remember being really emotional and troughing a lot and and cringing and dropping uh in film like this was actually some tropics and troughing a lot and and cringing and troughing uh in film like this peaks and troughs peaks and valleys yeah it was like troughing and feeling really down we went up to arias to apologize to him after the movie i literally got up to say i'm so sorry you got dragged here because of all this hype for no reason i went to apologize to him so i walked up to him i'm like bro i'm so sorry that and he's like that was amazing and i was like well what the

fuck and then he's so you thought it amazing. And I was like, well, what the fuck? And then he's. So you thought it wasn't being received well just because people were distracted and moving around or just you guys were hypersensitive. Hypersensitive and focusing on small things. Yeah. Anything that was like, you know, like a crackle in the speaker or someone going to the toilet was like a tsunami hitting. You were overthinking. It was such a very heightened emotional moment that every small thing I was like, this is playing like shit. So when did you realize that it wasn't? did you realize that this is a hit when at that night? Our producer said a 24 want to make an offer on the film. I was like what the fuck a 24

Which is we would joke about it on set. Oh, this is very a 24 this film. This is a very a 24 shot Yeah, we're a 24. No, what's that? So they're a distribute a distribution company. They're also a production company. They're a production company. They're like the most prestigious, kind of indie studio thing. So they're really selective

with their talent and it's kind of like art films. Can you give me an example of a film? Ex Machina. Oh, Ex Machina. One of my all-time favorites. I've watched that movie like 10 times. It's incredible. God, I fucking love thatina. Oh, yeah. Ex Machina. One of my all-time favorites. Yeah. I've watched that movie like 10 times. It's incredible. God, I fucking love that movie.

Witch, that's another great movie. Yeah, they've got all good stuff. Uncut Gems. Uncut Gems. Oh, shit. I love that movie. Yeah, we love

all these films as well. Oh, so they make dope movies. Yeah, they make amazing movies. Oh, Everything Everywhere All at Once, too. Oh, shit.

The Daniels. So that's the thing. We were at a party once with all those directors and actors and stuff, and it was like we never felt more out of place because they're like, you know. I know we're stupid than proper film directors. We feel so unsophisticated or on a. That's good. Yeah.

That's just authentic. Oh, yeah, but. It doesn't have to be a stereotypical movie-making human being to make a great movie, obviously. Yeah, thank you, thank you. Yeah, it's like a thing like I remember Adam Sandler walked in the room and I was like, dude, it's fucking Adam Sandler. I'm like, I want to say something to him.

And I was like, so like, it was like meeting you. And I was like, and he came up and I was like, hey, bro, big fan. And he's like, we're having fun. He would walk past. Yeah, it was like meeting you and I was like he came up and I was like hey bro big fan and he's like we're having fun he would walk past yeah it was exactly that Michael just starts being a two fanboy

he's cringing what is it here like oh I can't believe I'm here like Michael fuck be professional what are you doing yeah like look

we have to like wear a suit and like sip martinis or something I don't know nah just be yourself be yourself be annoying you know

yeah just be yourself well I do have a nightmare of being ourselves I have a nightmare of like you like chewing me out on something

and then you know then I'll be all comments on YouTube like hey look at this fucking guy getting chewed out like yeah he fucking showed you

I have a nightmare of being here as well you guys have a nightmare of being here yeah Joe so whatever you say like I agree with man please

don't worry. It's working great. No need for nightmares. This is fun. So the film, I don't think anybody told me about it. I'm pretty sure I just found it. Clicked it. That's something saying that was on there.

Yeah. It was because we always look in top horror movies, and it was one of the top movies. It's grossed $90 million worldwide now. Wow. Which is, man, I never. That's incredible. And they're a critical reception as well. It's on like in the, like we.

Sounds like you're bragging. You know Rotten Tomatoes? How they, yeah. In the 90s, 94%. Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I saw when I clicked on it. Yeah. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a really high rating.

Yeah, which is like, yeah. So I was like, I'll give it a try. And then we watched the preview and I high rating. Yeah, which is like, yeah. So I was like, I'll give it a try. And then we watched the preview and I said, fuck yeah, let's watch this thing. Oh, hell yeah. It seemed so interesting.

And it was so good, dude. You guys nailed it. It was so original. Like, that was the most impressive thing about it is because you're taking this sort of genre with, you know,

possession and demonic possession and you turned it into this very unique thing yeah it wasn't like anything else i'd ever seen it was really good man and i'd love the fact that you guys were so young and then it was just it was completely out of your mind you know it wasn't like you were trying to make some derivative thing it's yeah good man oh thank you like. That was the thing. That was the risk. When we walked away from the studio,

it was like, that was guaranteed theatrical release. And we're like, oh, let's do the indie thing. Even shooting in Australia was a thing because Australian movies don't make money. When we reinvested our fees, our lawyers were like, don't do that. Don't do that. Australian movies don't make fucking money.

He said 8% of Australian films make their budget back. But again, the money thing was like, whatever. We wanted to make the best movie. That was the most authentic thing was doing it in Australia. But the accents, for some reason, don't translate. Even Australians don't like watching Australian movies. Sometimes. There's a cultural cringe or something.

Because we don't sound cinematic. We don't sound epic. Yeah, but that made it more authentic. It really was kids just hanging out partying doing something insane yeah i think there's a take on that as well like what would kids do if this was real and that's exactly what they'd be doing yes you know especially now where it's like you know we all have that kind of thirst for attention and engagement and clicks so your people are doing things to get horrible horrible things to get attention. Even if it's negative,

when your moral compass isn't developed yet, you're seeing, oh, this is popularity. Even if it's negative, I'm still getting attention. And it even happens to adults as well. Do you remember Joe Rogan was going to fight Bruce Buffer? So how long did it take? Was it a slow build? How long did it take before it hit like 90 million?

Was it like... It's been in cinemas for a while now. It still hasn't come out. It's still in cinemas right now. Really? Playing in some theatres, yeah. I think every week they like drop it by half, the amount of theatres that it plays in.

Oh. 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 do it. So 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 a 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,

there's, like, a list of, like, 30 interviews that you're doing that day and then, like, you see 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 like kind of spread that way, I guess. It was a word of mouth campaign.

Yeah, word of mouth campaign. So it just sort of slowly kept going. Yeah. Because we've been promoting it since Sundance. Because we got into Sundance, which we did that whole thing there. Then in February we were in Berlin Film Festival, which is a bit more promo there. And then March we were in South by Southwest here in Texas.

And so all those screenings just came word of mouth and then they were just, yeah. And then Around Delight was good. I guess it did really good in South America, like Mexico, Peru, like all those places. And they went hard on the marketing. There's a company called Diamond Films. They'd made like a giant hand

and they were parading through the streets. It was so fucking awesome. I was like, man, I want to go over there. I want to get a picture. They had a whole bus stop where it was four bus stops with hands in between and all on the road for the film. Big walls over it. Yeah, Mexico went hard.

Yeah, I was like, man, next time, because we're going to do a sequel, Mexico. You're going to do a sequel now? Yeah. Even when you're writing something like that and 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 and these like word of mouth screenings, I was like, you know, A24 should give us a,

I was always just sort of hinting, saying that I would do it if they wanted to do it. That's a big thing now with horror movies where they have all these spinoffs. Like look at The Conjuring. How many movies do they have off of that yeah yeah there's a whole universe yeah it does help solidify things in pop culture if you look at friday the 13th you know with jason or freddie if it was just one it depends like at what point does it become like a money grab i guess, is like a thing where it's... Well, when you don't want to do it anymore.

Yeah. And you're just doing it for the money. 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 different because it can't be wherever even with the Japanese distributors they released a film really late it's released it hasn't come out yet it comes out in Japan 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 because they make the best horror the Japanese horror is the fucking best in the world. 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. So the Grudge and the Ring, you know, those are just as big and prevalent as those things. And they all just originate.

I don't know what the garage is. Oh, the grudge. Grudge. The grudge. The grudge. The grudge. The garage. It's the spinoff.

Yeah. We talk too fast. Did you ever see The Ring versus The Grudge? No. That was a real film. Was it really? Yeah. It was like Freddy versus Jason.

Did you make that movie? No. I would have. But yes. movie no i would have but yes there was a a good thing about um shooting in like shooting the movie all that experience from youtube we're able to kind of bring that to the set because it was so we had pulled things off before that we'd like new ways to like pull things off that isn't like the normal way so if we were running under the gun or, you know, had to, you know, change things up, we were able to do it more on the fly because we've been

in that environment for so long. Once we did these commercials in Norway, it was one of the random things, we did these Norwegian commercials with Magnus Carlsen. Do you know the chess player Magnus Carlsen? So he was in one of them and it was was promoting an internet brand. And we went there. Ulti Box. Ulti Box. And so we went there and we wanted to have this exploding bookshelf. And they were

showing us special effects and all that little sparks. I'm like, no, dude, it has to be huge. The bookshelf has to explode. Massive, big. It's like 50 of those put together. And it's like, no, dude, it has to be huge. The bookshelf has to explode. Massive, big. It's like 50 of those put together. And it's like, oh, yeah, but like big. And every day we'd see him in pre-production, we're like, big, has to be big, has to be big. And then we rocked up.

Yeah. We rocked up on set. We rocked up on set, right? And then the guy, this thing here, there. That. So what happened was we rocked up on set and he's like everyone needs to leave the studio well like we have to leave the set he's like no everyone needs to leave the studio we're like wow what's about to happen and he's like i don't know and he lined this bookshelf with a fucking cord or something something dynamite because yeah we said big so he like did fucking deck cord or something something dynamite because yeah

we said big so he like did fucking dynamite or something on the wall we went outside because he's like leave the studio like oh fuck

we went out all went outside and we all huddled around like a like a monitor that could see inside and then he goes three two one

press the button and the screen goes blank and we're like and you just hear and everyone's like oh and then we're like we open the studio hear, and everyone's like, and then we're like, we open the studio door

and like just steam started fucking filling out. If you look at that explosion, it blows a hole in the set. And there's, watch the, yeah, watch the background. This explosion is fucking huge.

Is that really a person in there? So we got a plate shot. We got a plate shot. So we did him like reacting without, yeah, but did you see that hole in the set? Yeah. So there was like big chunks of like wood like just fucking rickety through the everything. And I was like, we don't have to

leave the set for this. But then when that happened, he really delivered. Yeah. Because there was nothing left for that bookshelf. It's not selling how big this explosion was, but it was fucking huge. That was a bookshelf and it was gone. It just vanished. Yeah. Poor guy.

But, like, it was good. All that stuff was just experience to be, like, you know. Like, one day there's a montage sequence in Talk To Me where they're all, like, having fun, like, using it. And, like, we only had two hours to shoot that whole montage sequence and we had 50 setups to get, 50 shots we wanted. And we wanted to riff and, like, you know, just, like, do improvisation.

And the first AD was telling us, you can't, it's mathematically impossible to get all these shots in this amount of time. They were like, let us control the set for these two hours. And we just had a boom box and we were just like, and, yeah, two cameras and we were just like, get in there, get out, get the frigging, get in there, make up, change, go, blah, blah, blah.

We had jibs and the grips, like, and we just, like, get in there, get out, get the frigging, get in there, make up, change, go, blah, blah, blah. We had jibs and the grips like, and we just like had this like momentum that we were able to like, just like shoot this. And I think that energy translates through the screen instead of just like, you know, set up. Actually, you're having fun now. No, the montage is one of my favorite parts. It was just very creative. Oh yeah, it was so fun.

And having all the actors riff it and be in that, there was a certain energy in the room and capturing it was incredible. Yeah, I think, but then Sam, our producer, pulled us aside after that scene. She's like, this is not how you run a professional film set. No, but she wasn't being a bitch about it. It was true. No, no, it was the truth.

It was true because the first day, he's like, what the hell is happening? Everyone's like, what are checks? I was like, don't worry about checks. Don't worry about this. Just trying to know. Once we get into the edit, who cares if something's not perfect? It was like, we need to get every single shot that we want for this okay oh boys

this is a cursed interview does it feel like something's trying to stop this from happening not really because it keeps starting up again it's just yeah we just need a break you need to have a little bit of a break every now and then. Joe does that with his guests and shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a blackout. Where were we? We're talking about the montage sequence, I believe. Can I just say something? Have you ever recorded one and then you lost all the footage of a podcast? No, no.

Once we filmed a video for Deadpool, promoting Deadpool, and we went to a junction, like a junket, like 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 one of the actors Danny he spoke to as well and like but we didn't um tell them that danny was this character so they were like it was really like an awkward like filming thing and we ended up we knew that we weren't that they wouldn't let us use a lot of it but we ended up losing the footage and like 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 like beverly hills listening and we're like oh. And we had to tell them. Because they had us in like 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. I was talking about the montage sequence.

Yeah, the montage sequence was good. You got told off. Sam told us off, but in a nice way because she has to keep things on track. Oh, Sam's the best producer. But that was your flexibility from doing YouTube videos. You guys shoot things on the fly. Yeah, yeah. And they had to pull certain things off.

Even like our makeup. Our special effects department was so fucking good. Yeah, makeup effects group, they're incredible. How did you decide how to have them look when they're being possessed? I knew that we didn't want it to feel too elevated and for them to feel and look like corpses. You know, and so our... Well, the light, the eyes as well. Yeah, yeah.

Did you guys use contact lenses? Yeah, everything was practical. Scalaras, big, fat scalaras. You know when you're on, like, people and they're on, like, pingers and your iris changes? Pingers, mate. Bloody, it's Australian term. It's Australian term for, like, ecstasy or...

Oh, pingers. Pingers, mate. Never heard that one. Yeah, no. Come down to Red Square in Adelaide, mate, get some pingers. Yeah, and so, yeah, we just wanted to... We told, we sat the actors down, Come down to Red Square in Adelaide, man. Get some penis. Yeah. And so, yeah, we told, we sat the actors down because makeup, 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. Like we need to be able to do it. So I said, I will do it as well. I will wear these contact lenses in a few do. I wore them for like 30 minutes. I'm like, 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 interact properly

and practically. Like a prosthetic face on each face. How did you have him slamming his head against things? So we did it a few different ways. We had the way that we initially thought of, which it worked, but we had some backups just in case. We had like a foam cover of the table. So he was just

hitting his head on foam. And then we did one where we had like a head mold made of him and then we were just slamming that into a real table. And we had like blood tubes going through his head and that for blood effects. That fucking kid, man. Up to six hours of makeup. Joe Bird. Yeah, Joe Bird.

The kid just didn't complain once. There were scenes where we're like, you have to be out of focus, sitting on the bed, man. Up to six hours of makeup. Joe Bird. Yeah, Joe Bird, the kid. It just didn't complain once. There were scenes where we're like, you have to be out of focus, sitting on the bed, and he has to go through all those hours of makeup. And he just did it without complaining. Yeah. Long prosthetics. But there's something about it.

When you do things practically, it has a genuine feel. It feels a lot more real. Even if audiences don't understand it, like base level, like what they're looking at, something will just not feel right. Even if you can't verbalize what it is. The uncanny valley. The uncanny valley, yeah.

The uncanny valley. What's that? Oh, come on. Sorry, mate. What's the uncanny valley? There's just something off about it. It's when you see CGI footage that's not quite there. It's not quite a real person,

and you kind of know something's off. Yeah. You know what? It's the same with things like sound and things like that. And people will not be able to say what it is if you're not like a filmmaker. Right. But you just feel the uncanny valley. Well, you know, have you ever seen a photograph of a model car, and you know it's a model car?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why is that? Yeah, it's true. Let's get an example that get a photo of a model car like just say model 1974 trans am there's something about the model like where you're looking at it and it looks perfect but you go something's wrong is it the way the lighting of the lights are is right? I don't know, but it's almost impossible to describe. Yeah, yeah. But I can tell.

Like, if someone sends me, like, a photo, or if I look at it on Google, I can look at a tiny photograph on my phone and go, oh, that's a model car. That's not a real car. You know those miniatures in films when they build a small version of something big? Mm-hmm. So, like a model. Like a house that gets destroyed by Godzilla. Yeah, yeah.

But they do a thing called bigatures where they make it a little bit bigger. What are these, Jamie? Model cars. These are model cars and they just have it superimposed. I cannot tell. Yeah, I can't tell there.

But that's trick photography. Or there I can tell. See what I'm saying? It's the lighting. No, it's the size of the ground. Yeah, but that's just because of the ground. But if that was on just concrete, it would be the same effect. Yeah, it's the lighting.

You can see the paint. Write that one. That's a good example. Why can I... Well, that's a shitty one. That's a shitty model car. See if there's some other examples, Jamie. I mean, other examples on Google. Yeah. Oh, there's one there examples jamie i mean other examples on google yeah

oh there's one there to the right right yeah oh that's a perfect example why does that look fake dude i do think it's because it's clearly on the floor on the ground i think it's got to do with it's the what's surrounding it and the way that the light and also because it doesn't have like the amount of I guess like Like little creases and light like shining off it than a that a normal car would like a there'd be a lot more light Bouncing off I guess right size thing would represent more surface area Yeah, we we use the variation in the light would represent more surface area Yeah, when we were kids we used to put toy cars and blow them them up and we thought it would look cool. That's a shitty version.

It really didn't. How about that one? That red one? This one? Yeah. Click on that. Well that's on hardwood. You can tell. But I feel like that was... When it's composed in like that other thing is, it's harder to tell. Well it's better than CG. Oh damn.

That's a tough one. That looks fake. It looks little. It does look a tough one. That looks fake. It looks little. Yeah, it does look a little small. But why? Fuck, it's a good question. I'm stumped. But it does.

Yeah, it does. It has to make it... It has a plastic look. That's why they do the bigatures, because it needs to be a little bit bigger than this. This is too small. But is it the light, the way the light reflects off of it?

In your head, does it in your head does it generate this uh idea of a smaller thing that's my theory is is that the level of detail and the light yeah it's the light because it's like this is kind of blurry but still i'm looking at it i'm like that looks fake yeah click on the ones right there those right there okay those all look fake why it's because of the background as well. Like we're clearly looking at something that is a model. But that could easily be, you know, just some sort of a matte black floor and a black background.

Yeah, they look, you know what? It kind of is like you can see the weight. It feels, you don't feel the weight or something about it. They look light. They look like there's nothing in them. I don't know, man. I feel like if we put that into a proper background, like that other picture, it'd be harder to tell. I think so, too.

I think definitely this white car in the left would be the hardest to tell. For some reason, that one seems the most real to me, whereas there's something about the rough car, the yellow car, that just seems fake. Yeah. It just seems small. I think it's the detail. The color's just like pure, full Yeah. It just seems small. I think it's the

detail. The color is just like pure, full yellow. There's nothing else. See, is that a model car? That looks pretty real. That's a 1.4. See that? If you zoom out, it's a 1.4 model. It's bigger, so there's more light reflecting in things.

Instead of like one piece of like that yellow one. You're saying it so short, you could be completely wrong. I'm completely right. I wonder if it's, no, but I think he's right. I think if it was a matte car, like if it was matte paint, it would be more difficult to... That's why those Lord of the Rings miniatures and bigotures, the bigotures... They still look good.

Yeah, the bigger ones. That's 1 24th. Oh, shit. Dude, that looks real to me. Really? The seats look fake. The seats look fake, but everything else looks real to me the seats look fake but everything else looks real I know what you're saying though oh definitely and that's the thing with movies

what is that click it no that's that's how you caught on the wrong hole we're just getting caught down a clicking rabbit hole. Yeah, we're going to get a rabbit hole. How did we get on the subject? We'll talk about VFX and uncanny valley.

That's the thing is, like, when we're recording that makeup, you have to roll for, like, five to ten minutes to try and grab something that looks realistic for, you know, one second. You just keep rolling. Oh, move that. Change your eye here. Look over here. Move your hand up here.

You're just trying to find those magic frames. And lingering on it will take away from the effect when you're just trying to stay on it for too long. But having those flashes of violence. And that's the thing. You don't have that. Yeah, like, yeah. And not, I think it's also not lingering on things to be like,

oh, look what we've done. And then like lingering on like an impressive effect or anything like that. I appreciate movies more when they show something that's really impressive but they don't just keep cutting back to it or show it forever. There's only just flashes of it. And you're like, that would have fucking taken forever.

But they only showed it for a second. I love that stuff in movies. It probably does suck for the prosthetic department. It does. I feel bad for our Megafix team. They're like for the prosthetic department to put all this time in. I feel bad for our Megafx team. They're like the drowned woman. They put all this effort into it.

It took a long time to do. Bloated face, everything. And she's on screen for 15 frames. But as an effective 15 frames, it stays with you. It stays with you longer. It lingers. What was cool about doing all the YouTube stuff as well, our makeup artist, Bec Barado,

who would help us do all the YouTube stuff for free, were able to get her 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 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? What?

Are you allowed to show super violent stuff? Sure. Can you look up Raka Raka Mortal Kombat fatalities? He's already on it, mate. Go a little feather in. A little feather in. Yeah, here we are. Oh, yeah, there we are.

Oh, Jesus. I remember seeing that. Yeah, yeah. Have you seen it? Yeah. Oh, Jesus Christ. But all these small effects here, like the thing in his head.

What the fuck? Can you take me to school? Mum's passed out. But it's those really exaggerated effects when you're shooting all that stuff, you can try and, when you're trying to make something look super realistic, practicing with the exaggerated stuff helps. Yeah, because then you can do that. This is like showing ridiculous Mortal Kombat fatalities in real life.

Very sticky. Two-day shoot. Jesus Christ. Okay. Yeah, you get the idea. Ultra-violence. But practicing with those super-elevated things helps with the smaller stuff. Yeah, and you know the way to shoot practically and practically and stuff like we did the it's it's a lot more grounded in and

people say that it was like too far sometimes in talk to me but we're like we could have made that scene go for three times longer he was smashing his face it was too far well no people like people in a screening people fainted in the cinema for one of the screenings. It was the coolest thing ever. Good. That was perfect. And people walking out. Did you guys love horror movies before you made this? Were you fans of the genre?

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- watch PG. PG. They're like medium level violence, no low level violence. It's different in Australia

the ratings, but it was like medium level violence low level violence, like we weren't allowed to watch but there was a sim 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. They split up when we were 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 then we'd get him to get us the r-rated stuff like the adult stuff and then he got told off our dad's like even dad was like you can't get him ah 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 yeah 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 so he wouldn't be i used to love it yeah i loved it i got him to get me the exorcist book i let him yeah all those r-rated films he would always buy it for us he would never understand and then you just just say, yeah, Dad said it's okay. It's fine. Always that imagination

when you look at things like the Goosebump covers from R. R. Stein or if you go onto the VHS, when you're looking at all those covers of horror films that you're making up in 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? That's fucking crazy. Yeah, yeah. It was just trying to capture that magic and I just remember there was always, yeah, this fun to being thrilled or watching something you weren't supposed to see. Did you have one when you were a kid that scarred you? Yeah, what was your traumatic childhood film?

Oh, I don't know. I loved horror movies when I was a kid. Yeah, yeah. I didn't have like a traumatic, terrifying one. Well, you didn't watch one that fucked you up as a kid? No. Oh, really? No, they don't really fuck me up. Man, it did with me.

Damn. We had a lady that used to take us to, when we were like 11, to go see the adult movies, like the horror movies. And she took us to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003. The remake. The remake. And the theater guy's like, the lady's like, are you sure?

Because they're too young to go watch. She's like, yeah, they're fine. And then we went in there and then I had to leave. I felt sick. And I felt sick because I was like, we're trying to be mature and show that we can handle these movies. Michael runs out. And the theatre owner's like, told you.

And I was like, fucking. So scared. I heard chainsaws were fucking. I literally heard a fucking chainsaw at home and then what was even there what do you guys think back now on all these influences and all these things that happened and how it sort of led up to making films like this yeah yeah because it's all the resistance all the don't watch this all the telling you what to do so many different things because i remember well even since mom was so specific on what we could watch with the classifications,

I started collecting movie classifications. I was like, oh, I would break down and have a booklet of different film classifications. 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.

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, weird. Yeah, and then also, that's the same thing that these things influence you from early childhood that you don't even realise.

But I think a lot of it has to do with your parents or something. We're affected in ways you don't even realize. But I think a lot of it has to do with 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. And you don't even realise that they are. 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 mum took her own life when she was like six.

Oh, Jesus. And mum has like real dark, deep, like falls into that as well. And then you start thinking, is that hereditary? That's probably why she didn't want you watching those movies. Yeah then you start thinking, is that hereditary? It's probably why she didn't want you watching those movies. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's so many different things.

But you look at that and you see a reoccurring pattern and you're like, is that my fate? And yeah, it is in your head. It is part of you. It's part of your genes. It's genetic. But then also things like, I guess, everything we see is like a film scene or something. So it's like always just ideas going, stemming from all different things. 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 going, 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, OK, 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,

like, 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 2 AM. This was like a month or so ago. I drove out to that cliff at like three 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 to 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, all right, 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. Yeah. Are you guys now kind of committed to this sort

of genre or do you want to make all kinds of films? All kinds of stuff. See, mine's different. We're developing Street Fighter at the moment. The video game into a film. And for for me i like going to environments like that so i'll i traveled to thailand and i was trying to find sagat who's the in the character in the game he's based on a real person uh 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 that, being in that environment just helps with like writing and ideas like that. 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 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 mean 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, like, 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. When you guys wrote Talk To Me, did you try to talk to someone who's had experiences with the supernatural?

So many people like that. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. Who did you talk to? I remember I had one friend that went through a really extreme trauma. And he told me about this kinesiologist that um made him levitate off this table he's like i 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 and 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. 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. But what do you think about the levitating part? I think that he was in a really heightened emotional state

and so he believed that was happening when actually maybe it wasn't. That's my theory. And what is the thing like, that's the thing with the supernatural, if you open your mind up to it, I feel like even if it's not happening, you will kind of think that it is in your mind. Like if you go into a room, like I love saying at haunted places, like if there's a haunted place nearby, I love like just going and saying, oh, this room's haunted.

I'm like, oh, can I sleep in there? I want to experience whatever. If you go into that room and not know and you're just like, you know, you'll just have a normal night. But if you go in there like, oh, someone was murdered in this room, there's a noise that happens at this time, you open yourself up to be like hypersensitive to any kind of reaction for anything.

I remember I went to this place called Kapunda in South Australia, which is a town of, I think, like houses that they bring over from like different places. And it was like haunted for some reason. And the church was haunted. And the back room of the church was the most haunted. So we were in this room, it was like 2 a.m. in the morning, and they're like, who wants to go in the back room and talk to the spirit?

Fred, his name is. And I was like, I will. And then I sat in this dark room and we had like these infrared cameras and I was sitting there and I was like talking to Fred. I'm like, hey, Fred, do you want to make a noise for for me do you want to throw me across the room uh you know everyone says you're real i don't believe that and then i heard like a and my heart just fucking sank and i like am i i sat there i was like i'll get the fuck out of this room and i went and just left but if i had that same experience not knowing that,

I would have heard a noise and be like, oh, it's whatever. Right, the power of suggestion. Your mind starts playing tricks on you. I spoke to a psychic once and I said, how much is a mental perception as opposed to reality? And she said, when I go into it, because she does 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 then 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 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. I still do not believe it. That's the thing. If it is real the amount of bullshitters around that's 99%. 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 they 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, OK, is there a... Oh, your wife is here. I'm talking to her. He's like, oh, OK, what... Is she saying a code word? They're like, um... Oh, no.

Oh, 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 could say The fucking Well he He started doing like

A prize pool Of like if anyone can guess His code word No that's a different That's a different thing That's a different thing That was the one where he was like I put a code word up

I think I believe It was Houdini Oh it was Houdini Yes yeah Oh it was Houdini Okay she moved to Inwood, Manhattan. She tried to connect with Harry during seances with a code that only two of them knew about.

To be sure that the spirit medium was not a fraud. The code was, Rosabelle, answer, tell, pray, answer, look, tell, answer, answer, tell. Oh, so they had like a whole thing. No one could guess it. We said it.

Do you believe in psychics? Do you think people can? 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 like almost a stain in a place. It just feels strange. Right. And I think that sometimes people think about someone and that person calls. And I don't know what that is.

I would, it might be coincidence but it might not be oh yeah it might be an emerging property of the human mind so if you think about many of the emergency like language had to be developed over to even eyesight had to eventually be developed did you know 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 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 where. That's the one. Yeah. Yeah. And no one ever claimed the money. Yeah.

No one claimed the money. It seems 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. This is I knew it was like 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 at power of connection, we'll open the door to the spirit world and you will hear spirits. And then we were sitting in the room.

This is the first time ever we've had any blackouts. Four. This is the fourth one? Yeah. Well, we'll give it one more chance. Do you have any of those smelling salts? Yeah, for sure. Here? Yeah. Can I try it? Sure. Quickly? We got any smelling salts, Jamie?

Try this thing. What is it? Oh my god. Smell it, Danny danny no thanks i'll find out which one is good see which one's good that's the good one that's good that's a good one how do you smell just a little bit just get it right on your nose and breathe in Dude are you fucking serious on your drug rat? You're a lab rat do it God damn. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Let's go. What's with that? It's like someone fucking lit your nostril on fire. That's what it feels like. That one's been open for a few weeks.

You should really try them when they're brand new. It's worse than that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, quite a bit. Dude. Yeah, quite a bit. I mean, I gave it a jolt, but it didn't really go down to my toes. God damn.

Yeah. That's intense. Dude, that's fucking crazy. Those guys do that stuff before they power lift. I guess somehow or another it excites your system. I just want to go for a run.

Yeah, there it is. Maybe more something. Oh my God. It's rough. I feel like that opens up your airways a bit as well. Does something. Probably not good.

They say you're only supposed to do it twice in a day, right? We've done it dozens. I feel like you're saying you play Uno and the loser has to do it every time. At the comedy club, at the mothership, we have them laying around the green room. People are always, like, taking turns, taking hits. It's become a thing. Dude, that's like the hand.

You should sneak it into. It's like the hand. Where did you guys come up with the concept for the hand? So my big inspiration point was this car accident that I was in when I was 16. And I sort of split my eye open here. And it was like a really, I went to sleep in the back of my friend's car. Everyone had just got their pee plates. And then he crashed it.

And then I went to hospital afterwards with this busted open face. And I just couldn't stop shaking in hospital. So I was like trembling, trembling. They were turning on all the heaters, giving me extra blankets, doing could to get like get me warm i just would not stop shaking and then my sister came in to visit me she sat next to me and she held my hand and then the shaking just stopped and it was just that moment like the power of her touch pulled me out of this state of shock that i was in and i just yeah hands and connection and all that was in the first draft of the script. It was so prevalent.

It was the main theme of the film. So it just felt right to be our object of horror. And did you try to, did you have different ideas about where the hand came from? Oh, dude, we've got an entire mythology Bible 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

blocked all that out. Once they were supposed to see a draft delivered and then I have the script's exactly the same. It's like, yeah, but the pitch Bible, the mythology Bible's different, guys. They're like, we're meant to have a draft of the script on. I was like, yes, but it's mythology Bible. It was just so much fun. That's never going to be on screen. Why are you... Because it's fun to explore and

have just little hints of 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. I don't want to spoil it, but I love the end of it. Oh, fuck yeah. Yeah, yeah. Full circle.

It's that thing that when you're drafting and redrafting and you're always figuring things out and you can strengthen things and you really follow an idea or a theme and you just find things like that ending. Yeah, and you punch them all through the script. That's a cool thing. Movies that are layered like that and work on

different levels, that's the stuff that we liked watching. So when you get to that point in the 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 the midpoint, this is the characters, this point in the story, 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 crew write us like, okay, I've got to try and fit this into film structure now and this means this and 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 uh 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 uh the dad pulls it out the mom who's overdosed and and is trying to give her CPR so

she's like tapping into small things like that anything that bothers you just try and express it in a way or put it in there so yeah yeah you know that's that's part of the writing process the whole process of filming it and then editing it and then seeing a final draft like what was that like when you watched the thing for the first time all the way through I remember because we were editing while we're on set there was we have to bump out of a location in three days so we shoot all day we'd go home and edit all night we go back to set shoot all day then we go home and edit all night no sleep mostly come on three days in there yeah yeah fucking smelling salts for

that because it's sort of like it's so engaging and stimulating you have to A couple of three days in there. Yeah, yeah. Three days straight. 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. It was 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 McCliskey, 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 can ever could have imagined even like our sound designer emma boarding young as soon as she started doing passes you see things getting stronger of every single part i don't know it's the most yeah you're not rewarding each time 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 two minutes. We were like, oh, stop, stop. We've got to do

scene by scene and then kind of look at all three cuts and kind of do it like that. So it was like a big process of looking at what works best for the overall story. I think it's an annoying process because people don't usually work like that. It's a unique way to work, but because we've been doing so hands-on with the YouTube stuff,

luckily they were accommodating. All those heads of departments were down. Yeah, like to do that, but we were really involved. Is it difficult when you're so close to something and then you watch it to see it the way an outside person would see it? Because you just you're aware of every detail

and how it was made and is it difficult to like have an objective perception of what the film was like i say that uh when we finished it and i'll say this is really good we'd bring in someone to watch it so when we're 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. Right. Yeah. 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 is a good thing as well. That's good for writing too.

Also having like a group films do it a lot we only did it once where we had like a bunch of different people come in from like all different age ranges and like you know we had real old people like uncles a teacher uh younger like teenagers and they all come and watch the movie and then like ask did it all make sense is there 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, oh, maybe there's something here. Maybe that isn't clicking right now. Yeah, yeah. But every time we put it together, I was more like, it just turned out so much better than you could have imagined. So I can't imagine the opposite experience when you're like turning it together and it ends up being really bad.

It's a nightmare. Well, there was a difficult process where the music was really difficult. That was the most stressful thing. Why is that? The movie. This is more your fault than anyone's fault. Yeah.

Because Michael's very specific. Michael's so specific with music that he edited to a really specific temp score. And so I listened to like hundreds of songs and then like 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 licenses 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 go, oh, fuck, like we have to kind of start again.

I feel bad because you record it 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 then we were trying to fix it in time. We couldn't in time before it was supposed to be delivered. And then we went back to mix the movie. And then I was with, you know, I was with the music editor.

After mixing days, we'd stay up all night trying to do the music and, like, kind of figure out a way around the music to make the music work. And then when we watched it back, it just was a different movie. And I remember Sam saying, it feels like a different movie. It doesn't feel like I can get inside the movie now. There's something wrong here. And it's kind of that thing of like you not understanding why it was.

But I knew what I wanted and it just wasn't coming across. So then, and that's when I broke down crying because I was like, oh, it's over. Like it's over. And we had the tickets for the premiere just gone on sale. This is before Sundance. We did a premiere in Adelaide. The tickets going on sale. I'm looking forward to it We did a premiere in Adelaide. The tickets came on sale.

I'm looking forward to it. I'm like, we have no music. I'm like, I'm not going to the fucking premiere for the music shit. Yeah. You know? But then luckily, Sam, our producer, fuck, oh, we love you, Sam.

She's like, let's get a new composer and let's do this properly. We didn't get this far to fuck it up right at the end. Yeah, yeah. So we got a new composer that I worked with and we made this thing come together. Cornell. Yeah, he fucking saved the film.

Yeah, he's amazing. And like, I would give, man, I feel bad for him. I'd give fucking pages of notes and he just fucking everything. He was so amazing. He's like OCD with certain, with music and sound. I don't even understand like 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, just lower. That one, that one, that one. And then like, it's like a feeling of music as opposed to, I don't understand technically what it is. But learning to communicate was a new thing because even when Emma would send in stuff

and Michael would be like, no, like this. Like 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, like, we have not worked with this person before. We don't know how our tone is coming across.

And it's a collaborative effort. It's such a, 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 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'm going 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?

Make-up 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 realize, you know. Of course. And it's like finding those heads of departments like Emma and Cornell, people that are achieving things that you could never possibly achieve.

And Jeff, our editor, like we can't accomplish this by ourselves. Someone that we can really look up to and rely on. That does it better than us. Yeah, it does it better than us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's so fun finding those heads of departments and building a team. Well, it seems like you guys are so specific

with your visions. It's so important that you maintain creative control. Yeah, yeah. But also, yeah, have room. 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.

Yeah, and that's the thing is, sometimes these movies, they want to have more control. And that's the thing is sometimes these movies they want to have a creative director but they have to protect their investment and the way to protect your investment is to do what's worked in the past so then it turns, instead of being like a new thing, it kind of turns

into what has worked in the past. Right. But you know, I feel really grateful. A24 is, we don't have to worry about that because A24 moving forward, like, they're so, they're like a family. Like, they don't feel like Hollywood execs

or something like that where they're, like, just, like, thinking about money and capitalising on money. They're all about the director and director's vision. So they will give creative cut, creative final cut to us and like say, they trust us. Well, they certainly should now after that.

I mean, you guys know what you're doing. I mean, it's really good. But, until the next movie comes out and it's shit. That does happen occasionally.

Like M. Night Shyamalan, like he has an amazing movie in Sixth Sense and then the movies after that are just like... Split was pretty decent. Which one? I liked Split.

I liked Unbreakable. I didn't see Split. Unbreakable was okay. Yeah, yeah. It's just the Sixth Sense was so good. So incredible. It's so hard sometimes when your best one is your first one. And you got nothing after that.

And then there was the one with Marky Mark where the plants were killing people. Okay. You know what happens sometimes? You get... And then like there was the one with Marky Mark where the plants were killing people Is that the happening? No, that was the other one Which one was the happening? The one where they all kill themselves And they walk backwards? Don't know, they start walking backwards Is that the happening? That's the happening, when they all kill themselves. They're drawn to kill... And they walk backwards? Don't know. They start walking backwards.

Is that the happening? That's the happening when they all start killing themselves. Right? Was that him? Are you sure about that? Am I making shit up?

Am I drunk? Whatever the fuck that thing was, I don't know. I'm making movies off my head. Yep, yep, yep. It's the happening.

Yeah. You know what happens also? It's weird. After the movie comes out, you get the opportunity to do whatever you want next. What do you want to do next? Like, we'll do it.

Like, that's the kind of position we're in now. I could see people rushing into things like half-baked ideas or something too early because you're thinking about money and capitalizing 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, you haven't had that time to develop the script, you know, and you kind of rush into the half-baked idea.

Well, there's a new one that we've been writing for three years, and I'm so excited to fucking start filming it 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. Yeah, you were telling me about this death wrestling. What is it called? Deathmatch wrestling. death match wrestling death mattress so we're doing that with a24 at the moment and this is in japan do they do this where is this oh and in america as

well it's it's worldwide it's like a very niche it's pretty it's pretty i guess controversial in a way a lot of people don't like it well they were throwing people in the barbed wire show the video yeah oh good the video i i I can't show that one because it's part of the documentary. But if you write Sick Nick... Write CCW Ultraviolence at its best. That's a good compilation there.

These guys are covered with scars. Like legitimate scars. It's the most extreme form of wrestling. And it's the most dangerous. And it's the least paid and the least viewed because it's so graphic. It has a very niche audience and they brutalise themselves. Yeah, legitimately. Yeah.

And so when you look at wrestling, wrestling's already a risky sport. These guys are doing week in, week out for like $100 getting fucking annihilated and 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 death match in a company called IWA. And that was my first time seeing a death match tournament where he was wrestling. Bob 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 all, 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 paralyzed, they could cut like

you know arteries. One guy, Nick Gage, died and got brought back to life in a helicopter like he cut an artery from a light bulb and we did some events as well like on the YouTube I did, because we used to do it when we were kids,

deathmatch wrestling as like teenagers. And we did a video for our YouTube. And then like us as kids and then fans were like, oh, do that again. We want to see you guys do that now. So we organized some free events where we got everyone to come for free to watch us wrestle. And they thought it was like a gimmick thing.

And then we went fucking hard. And once this light bulb smashed off, I got slammed into, it was 70 light tubes taped together and I got smashed into it and one of them broke off wrong and went up into my ribs. And I was like oh! I was like, and I hadn't felt anything before that because of the adrenaline.

The barbed wire I didn't feel, thumbtacks I didn't feel. I really felt that so I was like, I've done something here but let's continue the match. And then I was like getting bloodier and then I laid on a table and a guy went on the balcony, jumped onto the table. Is this from one of them? Oh, potentially.

This looks like probably... I don't know. If you write CZW... I tried finding that actual one, but I'll play this too. Yeah, play that. Oh, Jesus, he missed. He missed, yeah.

That's like a wrestling. I'll show Jamie this one. I missed one. Oh, God, that guy got to get fucked up from that. Well, there's a thing about it. There's a camaraderie about it as well, because your life's in their hands, their life's in your hands. It has to be this ultimate trust.

If yous aren't committed together to pull these moves off, about it as well because your life's in their hands, their life's in your hands. It has to be this ultimate trust. If yous aren't committed together to, like, pull these moves off, then you're going to hurt each other bad. Well, this is not that. That's just a guy missing. Yeah. And skip to a bit further in, probably like 30 seconds in. This is what I always watch to get pumped up for Deathmatch. So this guy's, it's all light bulbs and barbed wire.

A little further in. Yeah. Yeah, there we are. Oh, God. It's so rogue. Yeah. It's all light bulbs and barbed wire. Little fervorine? Yeah. Yeah, there we are. Oh, God. It's so rogue. It's so dangerous. It's so exciting. So it's looked down upon because there's no technique.

It's just guys smashing each other. That's why people don't like it. But there is technique. I feel like there is, yeah. And especially now. It's not just... Because if you... Ah!

Good Lord. Yeah. It's intense. But you can't turn away, can you, Joe? And how bad do these guys get fucked up doing these things? It depends on. I think it'd be bad. Sometimes they're okay, and sometimes you're not.

Oh, God. Yeah. It's pretty insane. Look at the audience. What's your first thought, Joe, when you see that? Totally unnecessary. But you can't turn away. I can.

Do you feel like if you're watching two wrestling matches, one's standard and one's that, you'd be on that one, I feel. Probably, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because you're probably going to want to see how bad someone gets hurt. Yeah Accident vibes can't look away They're defying death but they're also there's like a respect from the fans as well Like you're putting your body on the line like that extreme for our entertainment when it was like

It's like 300 people in the venue and these guys are like risking everything to entertain There's like 300 people in the venue, and these guys are like risking everything to entertain. That's something that's like there's a respect that comes with that that's in those environments. It's unlike anything you've ever experienced. Wait, go Ronald WWE beatdown. This is fucking crazy. Which one's this one? It's a fucking weed whacker. No way.

Oh, Jesus Christ. Okay, I get it. I get it. Shut it off. Go Ronald WWE. Let me just show you this thing that happened to me when we were doing ours. I was dressed as Ronald McDonald.

It's one of our characters on YouTube. And when I got the thing up my ribs and then I got put on this table and the guy jumped and I felt all the pressure like flesh. You're doing a really bad job it's so i don't know that's a different one not this video no no i write ronald wwe beat down yeah ronald wwe right into the search yeah that first one that first one and just go like halfway through

yeah a bit further. You're making us look stupid and crazy. But this is one side. When we have the stunt guys, I purposely tell them not to come to this stuff because this isn't like normal stunt performing. And you just get hit over the head by a neon light bulb. Yeah.

So that's the one that... This is the one that went up into my room oh god dude and keep going for another minute and you'll see like when they put me on the table all right go back that's one Yeah, that's the jump there. And I just felt all the fucking blood. It just splurted out of the side of my back. So he jumped off of there onto you? Yeah.

Oh, my God, dude. You get paralyzed from something like that. 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 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'm i want to figure out why the psychology behind it yeah why people would do it. Why do you think people would do it, Joe? Because they're dumb.

Or? Dumb. Or? Deeper. Or dumb. You don't think that's... We're going to figure out. I don't think it's all just dumb. No?

Yeah. What else is it? It's a way to feel present, I feel. Do you think there's a smarter way to do that? There probably is. Yeah. But once you experience something like that, going back to normal life, you couldn't. Really?

You couldn't. I bet you could. The closer you get to death, the more alive you feel, Joe. Oh, boy. Yeah. We're going to do it right now. Death match. Well, it's the same thing.

I guess it's different with martial arts. People look at it at base value. Oh, they're just cockfighting. People are just going to... But it's so much deeper than that. Martial arts and things like that. Sure. People would see, say, UFC like they see a street fight.

It's not that. It's different. 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 like 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 pussy. So no, maybe that's where we get into it. So you like this performative violence.

Yes, performative violence. Yeah, there was something about knowing them. Because it is actual violence. There's actual cutting and bleeding, but there's something about it being agreed upon. Yeah, and that it's, yeah, it's performance art. It's kind of like, yeah, like UFC is like, you're the best in the world and let's see who's better.

You're not trying to get hurt. Whereas this is like, how do we... But you're not trying. It's safely doing it. No, the wrestling is like, how do we create this spectacle as safely as possible in that environment and be okay, I guess, and tell a story. We're doing a bad way of verbalising it. The documentary will do it better. Yeah, that's the thing.

We're trying to explore it. We're trying to find out these questions, like what draws people to it. And what is the other film that you're writing? There's a whole bunch of stuff. We're writing three films right now, and it's just in constant circulation. Whenever we hit like 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 um 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 times that the thing now although because you know i guess with the adhd it's like you know you're like this now and then you start going to rabbit holes of each script and then 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, 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, like 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, falling asleep, like, you know, meditating before sleep, trying everything to try and what it is, but I can't fall asleep.

And then when I do finally fall asleep, even if I'm exhausted, I stay up like two, three days straight, I still wake up after 90 minutes. So is it just your mind is racing all the time and your mind wakes you up? Maybe. It seems you guys are very hyper. You got a lot going on in your heads. Yeah. And I guess that's a thing like that.

Well, yeah, my sleeping pattern is just because you're the same, but you don't have like I have. Yeah, my sleeping pattern is just weird. Like I'll run off naps. I'll sleep for two hours and I'm like, I'm up now for four hours. I'm like, oh, I'm tired. I have one hour. Then I'm like, oh, I'm up for 12 hours. All right, I'll sleep for three hours.

It's just sort of there's no set time to go to sleep and wake up. It's sort of just random. So maybe it's a genetic thing with you guys. Yeah, I think so. Well, I don't think our parents are like that. Yeah, I don't know. But you're twins. Yeah.

And maybe it is just genetic with you. Like, whatever that gene is, you both got it. But how come he's dumber than me? Come on, now. Yeah, I don't know. Matt, come on, man. You're fucking embarrassing dumber than me? Come on now. Yeah, I don't know. Matt, come on, man. You're embarrassing me in front of Joe here, man. What are you doing? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what it is. But it's the energy that you guys have that

leads you to be so productive, too, I'd imagine. Yeah, it is. It's the sort of manic energy that you have. It's literally, man, if I could just switch it off at the end of the day, it would be awesome. Right. But then you wouldn't have it on all the time, I think.

Exactly. That's the gift you get. Have you heard of Zyrum? Zyrum. What is that? That's a medication for narcolepsy that knocks you out. It's the only medication that apparently puts you through the stages of sleep. But it's a medication, so it knocks you out.

But it has all these side effects. It's GHB. It's like people use it for. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Party drug. It's a party drug. So what is the side effects?

Well, the first page says suicide attempts. And then also the sleep doctor I was speaking to is like, there's two, it's like people are debating. They actually don't know whether it's people that are in bad places don't have the energy to take their own lives, but being on Zyrum gives you the energy to do it. Oh, God. Or is the Zyrum changing your mind to think more like that,

more radical or something like that? Are you taking Zyrum? I'm scared to take it. I don't want to be, like, addicted to a drug, like a, you know, I don't want to be relying like that. Are you taking Zara? I'm scared to take it. I don't want to be addicted to a drug. I don't want to be relying on that. Just deal with whatever sleep you get. Yeah. Yeah.

It's obviously working. As I'm getting older, though, now, I feel like it weighs on you a lot more. I feel like if I'm engaged, I can go for days. But if I'm not, I'll get tired, but I can't sleep, but I'll be like. Do you ever do hard exercise before you go to bed? Does that help? I've never tried going all right before.

But I've done days where I'll fucking smash, go to the gym and do boxing, go sparring. I do a full day of exercise to exhaust myself. And it will help me sometimes initially fall asleep but then 90 minutes same thing up yeah how many hours are you getting a night seven eight hours oh you are and you go all the way through yeah how the fuck is that even possible what sometimes i drink too much water before i go to bed i have to pee in the middle of the night but then i go right back to sleep man i don't have a problem sleeping but like staying awake are you always taking i do do energy drinks every day?

I mean, I might drink one or two. Yeah, yeah. I drink coffee a lot. Even tea will fuck me up. If I have an English breakfast tea, that'll keep me up all night. I'm so sensitive, extremely sensitive to caffeine. Oh. Yeah.

Well, you are. To me, it doesn't really do anything. Yeah, I don't know. Have you ever tried what happens when you don't drink energy drinks? Yeah. Does that help? No. Energy drinks helps me when I get like a low in the day or whatever, if I'm bored.

But when I go, I did a full health streak, you know, like when I had like a diet that I was sticking to and like a time, getting up at the same time every, you know, morning, going to get the sun in the morning, and then doing all that, whatever. I did that, and then it still... Still. The frustrating thing is when you do go to sleep, but it's the waking up, and you're like, fuck.

I go, man. I was like, I got to sleep. And then you just wake up in 90 minutes. 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. Right. It was like waking up and being like, oh, I don't have to get up yet. Right. But it was like. What a weird psychological. You're rambling right now.

Yeah, I'm rambling. Fuck yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I think that. Let me just complete side note. There's a UFC fighter you're going to see come to the UFC. Fuck yeah. I think that... Let me just complete side note. There's a UFC fighter you're going to see come to the UFC. Heavyweight. Brando the Balkan Bear.

Right now he's training with Izzy. He trains with Izzy. This guy is going to be a problem in the heavyweight division. Is he signed for the UFC? Not yet, but he'll be there inside a couple of years. Yeah? I promise. You heard it here first! Is he a friend? Yeah, he's a friend.

Six foot six fucking machine. And he doesn't fight like a heavyweight. He's fast. Is there a video of him? Maybe. He does a lot of kickboxing, doesn't he? Muay Thai? He's training MMA now to get ready for the UFC.

This is the dude? There he is. The Vulcan Bear, baby. The Vulcan Bear, baby. Let's go. Let's see if there's any highlights of him I remember we watched him

do a tournament where he did three matches in one night yeah he fought three times in one night like one of those tournament things and he won like 20 grand

oh that's that's a YouTube video called surely there's some Oh, that's a YouTube video called that. Surely there's some. Oh no, he's on a count. I think he was. Dude, that guy's massive.

Oh, he got dropped? No, no, no, he didn't. No, no, he's undroppable. Dude, he's fighting is gigantic too. Holy crap. Dude, and Brando's massive. That other guy's fucking huge. Wow.

Yeah, that guy's a lot bigger than him. That's crazy. But at heavyweight, isn't there no weight limit towards the end? It depends on the organization. The UFC doesn't have a limit But that heavyweight, isn't there no weight limit towards the end? It depends on the organization. The UFC doesn't have a weight limit at super heavyweight, but they do at heavyweight. But they've never had a super heavyweight fight. Oh, wow. Right.

Yeah. The UFC heavyweight weight limit is 265. Oh, I didn't know that was. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, he's been training over there with them in New Zealand. Yeah. Working on his skills.

You'll see him. You'll see him. Are you embarrassing Brando right now? Yeah, I hope not. Brando, I love you. Got a highlight reel. He wins this fight, I think. Yeah, he definitely did.

At the end, it looked like it. Yeah. That dude's getting tired. Big fat dude's probably shocked. That dude's getting tired. Big fat dude's probably shocked. Five rounds of it. Still guys around. Oh.

So it's a decision. Man, I get so pumped when you're watching friends fight that and you know what I mean? There's nothing like it. I saw a thing with

Izzy was when Volk defended his title fight before the last one, and he's in the crowd going crazy, and the comments are giving him shit. I was like, dude, when we watch friends fight, you're like, fucking yeah, come on, let's fucking yeah. They're getting that energy with him 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. How are you connected to the martial arts world? You were saying that you train. 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 uh wasn't gonna fight ksi and then danny went over and convinced him to he's like dude you have to it's gonna be it'd be the biggest thing because ksi called him out logan didn't want to 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 I agreed to fight him. So I fought on the undercard of that event. 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, 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 full three guys every fucking twice a week, that was like a hell. And I went to, I did, yeah, five months training at TJ Smith. Oh, no, don't watch it. No, I'm bad. I found a good spot where you had number two times. Oh, God. See? See? No, you're not. I found a good spar where you hit a number of times. Oh, God. See?

No, you're not impressing me over this performance. I know, I know, I know. Hey, look, watch the beginning. Leading up to that was, like, just getting smashed by six-foot-three guys. And I remember once, the first six-foot dude that I sparred was 100 kilos. And I remember once the first time guys, the first six foot dude that I sparred was a hundred kilos. And I met my trainer, Chris being like,

all right, you're going to do five, three minute rounds. All right. And then behind him, I just saw this guy just hitting the heavy bag. And then Chris is like, yeah,

just going to make sure you see that. And then like the guy walked off. I just see this fucking dent in the middle of the, in a heavy bag. And then I went there and he just fucked me up like three standing eight counts. Then the second time we spot up, I spotted three times. So the second time was one standing eight count. Why are you

fighting 220 pound guys? I don't know. I guess that was all the bodies that we could find. It was like different. How much do you weigh? 75 kilos. What is that? 170? I don't know.

2.2 times 75, about 160. And I think he was 10 kilos heavier than me on the fight night, that guy. It was just like... But I was finding all different kind of... Sizes, because you're always big sizes. A couple of them was the 100 kilo plus dudes. Wait, I just want to backtrack.

Balkan Bear won that fight, right? Yes. Yes, okay, good. It was just, yeah. 152 they had you at. At least for the fight. Yeah, 152 for the fight and he was 174. I don't know.

I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. He's not a good fighter. Yeah, I was not a good fighter. But it's like something that I've... But you just did it for the fun. Yeah.

And then like I wanted that feeling of like going out to a fight. Like every time I watched it, I got envious. People coming out, I want to know what that feels like, to be like, we're going to go and put it all on the line, like a fight. That's what I wanted to experience. I'm a coward, don't look at me. I love that physical rush.

I think that's the same thing with the deathmatch wrestling. It's like doing something risky, you know? Something that could go wrong or could go very right is very engaging. And I feel bad when we're doing the movie and stuff, which is a lot of fun, but I'm like, I want to jump off something now. I want to get... I need to do something physical

and I need, I don't know, something that's in me or I'm addicted to it. I love it. That stuff. By the way, the fighting stuff, my ego, I couldn't take it if I lost. So at first I'm like, maybe not. And Danny said, he's like, when you get knocked out, I'm going to replay every frame over and over again. He was like tormenting me.

Oh, Danny. No, as a joke, like you're mucking around with him. But seriously, I would have played it. 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 like underground, like concrete, concrete gyms with no ventilation.

And then I'd get my ass kicked and they'd go, all right, go out and get some air, man. And I'd go out and it's fucking worse outside than it is in the gym. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't breathe air. I say Michael's a bad fighter. Michael choked me out once. He broke down my door.

Oh, this guy. But that's such an achievement. Choking me out. Anyone can choke you out. What are you talking about? I'm just saying that, yeah, you're a good fighter, Michael. You should have another fight. He wants you to get fucked up.

Yeah, you should do it. Fight the walking bear. If Misfits does an event, the YouTube one, if they do one in Australia, I'll do it again. I want to do one more. Do you hate the influencer boxing stuff? No. Oh, no?

No, I hate it. Why haven't you had Logan Paul on your podcast? I don't know. Oh, he's a, yeah. He's looking at you like, stop fucking touching me. Stop fucking asking these questions. There was a moment in that fight that I got a little bit emotional. Sorry, I'm jumping around.

That UFC Volkanovski's speech after the fight where he was saying that he felt that down when he wasn't training or he didn't have that purpose. Yeah. Yeah. And then that made him rush into that fight. I was talking about, yeah, getting really emotional, seeing someone open up like that and be vulnerable like that. That was a weird one.

Whenever someone takes a late minute fight like that, last minute, 10 day fight, it's just, I know that people want to do it, but it's not the right thing to do at a championship level. You know, especially if you look at what happened with Volkanovski. He got KO'd in the first round, and the first fight was so competitive. And you've got to wonder, like, would he have gotten KO'd if he had a full camp? Would the results have been different? Would he have prepared differently? 100%, right?

Would he have had more faith in his cardio? Same thing with Kamaru Usman and Hamzat Shmaev. Same thing. Like, he didn't trust his cardio. It's just... He was dealing damage there, right? He was. He was kind of getting a flow on it.

Yeah. I feel bad for Volkanovski because he did block the kick, but it was, like, a little too low, right? Well, he was getting kicked in the body a bunch of times. I think he thought it was coming to the body, and he kind of went like this, and he got kicked in the head. Yeah. But that's why I feel like it was, it just went a bit of God. That was perfect

I mean, it's a perfect setup be through a bunch of left kicks to the body and then through that one to the head It was perfect. Yeah He can bounce back after that Yeah, bounce back I like that he was open about that stuff and vulnerable about that stuff because that speaks to so many so many people Oh, yeah, hearing that from him is so meaningful and impactful yeah it's really it shows his character too the way he accepted the loss yeah so it's such a yeah yeah i can't wait to see him get back in but sometimes you get knocked out like that you really should take a bunch of time off

because he got really cracked i mean if you watch the head kick it was like head kick right to the temple right to the side of the head. It's a bad place to get hit. You got hit really hard. You might want to wait a little time after that. Yeah. There's a thing also when we're talking about mental perception about if that happens,

are you going in kind of like with that in the back of your mind now? You're not fighting as free. Sure. I mean, that was the first time it happened to him in the UFC. He only had stopped stopped been stopped once in his career ever and that was at welterweight so he was fighting someone who was 170 pounds and that was quite a long time ago early early in his career and he's been completely undefeated in the ufc and then there was the makachev fight so he loses that decision very close decision so he looks like a world beater and then he takes his fight with very short notice and not really prepared and gets knocked out.

So it's one of those things where it's like there's a very high risk. And the reward obviously is very high as well. If he beats Makachev, he becomes two-division champion. But you really can't fight a guy like that without really going through a camp. I mean, you can. You might get lucky.

It might work out your way. But it might not is it how take that third that's gonna be surely if you guys don't have a run you're gonna have a crack at boxers would never do that that's what's interesting like if terrence crawford was supposed to fight errol spence and errol spence got injured 10 days out they would just cancel the fight yeah they would never have a completely different opponent step in with no camp on 10 day stoners it's very unique to the ufc and i don't know if i'm a fan of it oh really you don't like the loss of it well i don't know i mean i love the fact that people take a chance but i don't like it in terms of someone i want someone to be fully prepared that's what i i really like

i like when someone goes through a full camp, fully prepared, absolutely ready for this one opponent, because you're dealing with this insanely high risk sport that's very difficult to do. And I just don't feel like with proper preparation, he's probably at 65% of what his potential is. And he feels like, because he's such a champion, he feels like that's enough. But I guess in service of the people that have bought the tickets and have done it,

they're trying to not let down the fan base. Yeah, but this guy's got a lineage. He's got a legacy to worry about. I mean, his full career. And one loss like that can define you forever because it can change the course of your career, especially if it's a really bad knockout. Like if you get completely knocked unconscious,

go to the hospital, neck brace, the whole thing, wheeled out on a stretcher. That can define your entire career. It can change the course of your career. Yeah. Sorry, just I've got to say, this is so surreal that we're talking fighting on journey. But like that, yeah, I guess everyone wants that kind of Michael Bisping, Luke Rockhold tumor. Yeah. In that situation, it worked out great.

Yeah. It's rolling the dice. It's like, yeah. He rolled the dice. But Michael Bisping is a crazy dude. I mean, that's a guy who fought 10 people with one eye. One eye, yeah. I like that reveal thing where he pulled the eye.

That's crazy. Just wild. Yeah. How uncoordinated. Our dad has one eye, and he's like a bit off. Your depth perception gets very skewed. You don't exactly know where things are. Yeah.

Can you do things like VR and stuff with one eye? I'm sure you probably could. Because if it's about like 3D glasses and people would... Right. You wouldn't get that. I think VR is different. From the 3D glasses. Yeah.

It's that thing. We were just talking about it before. How crazy. Is AI going to take over were just talking about it before, how crazy. Is AI going to take over? It is, I guess, everything. And you can't. Not fighting. Yeah, it depends on how convenient it is to use.

Like if it gets to glasses, just regular glasses, yeah. Yeah. It's going to be, I mean, it's going to get better and better and smaller and smaller with battery technology and all sorts of other things that are going to be, you know, all new innovations. Who knows? Speaking of filming, some people, like, they're shooting, like,

Mandalorian on just, like, screens, right? You don't even need to go to locations. You get to, they can just be at any place they want on the screens and it'll have real, the light will be identical to what it would be out there. And then you don't have to worry about, you know, taking unit out on helicopters to these places,

you know, like, you know, lost the TV show. They'd fucking had to fly the whole crew over there, like, and shoot like with the nature and the sound and all that stuff. But there's still certain things you can't capture.

Like, come on, on location. So much cool. Yeah. But I guess it kind of feels like, yeah, that's the same as much cooler. Yeah, but I guess it kind of feels like I like practical, but it kind of feels like... I'm down for those screens of sci-fi

movies as opposed to trying to just say we'll do that on an island instead of going to an island. Just go to the island. Yeah, but if you can afford it. Why? I'm just trying to think. I like practical as well. But if the CGI and stuff gets to a point

where you literally can't tell the difference between the model car and you know a real car then it's like it's kind of like it reminds me of when they were doing disney videos movies back in the day where they would draw every single frame and then when that cgi came in like toy story i think toy show was the first film to do it with like we don't need to do that anymore we can do it like when i was the first 3d film yeah we go through a computer. Well, that was the first 3D film. Yeah. We can do it through a computer. And then the traditionalists are like, no, what the fuck?

You're moving it. This is a work of art to do each frame. But it kind of feels like that now where it's like, you've got to embrace it more, man. I feel like it's different because AI is, if you look at the artist AI, it's taking, oh, yeah, I don't know, actually. It's a tricky conversation. That was part of the writer's strike,

was trying to figure out artificial intelligence. AI writing. Yeah, AI writing and incorporating it into film writing and screen writing. It's crazy that's even a conversation. It's horrifying. But, yeah. It's unavoidable at this point. Yeah.

I feel like stories coming from the heart is going to always be better than something that's... I think it would be very difficult to write a movie like Talk To Me and do that through AI. Very difficult. There's something about human creativity, at least at this point, that's very unique. Because it's drawing from personal experience, it's not drawing from everyone's

experience. It's a personal subject. It's impossible to replicate it because it hasn't happened to someone else. It's your own personal experience. Yeah, it could do things based on things that happened in the past, but this isn't that person's experience, I guess. No, it's not an expression of any

single person, so it can't be unique art. Well, listen, guys, whatever you're doing, you're doing awesome shit. I mean, that movie was amazing, and whatever you're doing next, I'm going to be watching because I think you guys are very uniquely talented, and you're full of energy. And it was a lot of fun.

Thank you so much for having us. It was an honor. Thank you so much. My pleasure. The honor was mine. Tell everybody how they can access your social media, where you guys are at, how they can find you. Just watch Talk To Me. Stream Talk To Me.

Go stream it. It's awesome. For Halloween. Yes. Yeah, it's a good Halloween movie for sure yeah yeah yeah Halloween stream talk to me thank you

listen you guys nailed it you should be proud of it and congratulations thank you again thanks for being here alright bye everybody Bye.