Scott Beck and Bryan Woods have tackle pestilent aliens inA Quiet Place , vicious dinosaurs in65 , and the titular mythical animate being inThe Boogeyman . For their next act , the duo challenged themselves to scare audiences with words , not monsters , inHeretic , A24 ’s new thriller in theaters everywhere . Two Mormon missionaries , Sister Barnes ( Sophie Thatcher ) and Sister Paxton ( Chloe East ) , pick apart on the door of Mr. Reed ( Hugh Grant ) and ask if they can speak to him about the Church of Jesus Christ .

An excited Mr. Reed obliges and invites the girls within for some conversation , learning , and a slice of pie . What begins as friendly give-and-take transform into an interrogation as Mr. Reed challenge the girlfriend ’ religion and beliefs . Barnes and Paxton are trapped , and the only way out is to dally Mr. Reed ’s unreliable game .

In an interview with Digital Trends , Beck and Woods spoke about their relationship with faith and how they created a repulsion movie around dialogue .

Note : This article has been edit for length and clarity .

Digital Trends : Whose estimation was it to have a fast food debate in the middle of a movie about religion ? To some , that is just as important [ as religion ] .

Scott Beck : Oh , I mean that is our account of fuck each other for almost 30 years now . I think we ’ve had many debates over our preferred fast food .

Bryan Woods : What ’s your favorite fast food ?

I actually like Wendy ’s . I thinkWendy’smight be one .

Woods : jolly secure , veracious ?

Yeah . Ca n’t go wrong with McDonald ’s . In defence of Taco Bell , that ’s what I get on Sunday night . As shortly as this consultation is over , I ’m going to get it .

Woods:[laughs ]

Beck : That ’s awe-inspiring . Taco Bell is usually like a once - a - year occurrence for us , but since take in this movie , it ’s upped itself to twice a year .

I get it . The stomach fights back .

Beck : Yes , it does . [ laughs ]

One of the lines that really stood out to me get from Mr. Reed when he was talking with Paxton and Barnes about enquiry , and at the death , he say , “ The more you know , the less you get it on . ” I feel like that utilize to a luck of thing . As filmmakers , do you chance that seam to be rightful ?

Woods : Yeah . You know what ’s funny , speaking as filmmakers with that line of merchandise , our writing process is we find out things in life . We experience thing in person . We write them in notebooks , and then someday , they might materialize in a hand . That line , “ The more you know , the less you know , ” was a line we heard when we were in college . We were in our 20 , and I think it was Roger Ebert who askedMartin Scorseseabout religion because he ’s made so many picture show about Catholic guilt . He said , “ The more you cognize , the less you have intercourse . ”

And that was a frequent response to that interrogation . I think the older we get , the more we relate to this idea that life is a mystery . What happens when you drop dead is a source of a portion of anxiety for most humans . [ laughs ] It ’s one of the great mysteries in the mankind , and as we get older , we ’re attempt to embrace the dish in the secret . attempt to get past the terror in it because it ’s pretty frightening .

Did you eff that Sophie and Chloe had Mormon ties before casting them ?

Beck : We found out so late into the process while we were hone in on them . It ’s not a surprisal to us , in retrospect . During the cast process , we had a flood of people who wanted to make this movie , and we were very grateful that it was attracting that level of talent . But there was something so authentic about the way , during the casting summons , Chloe and Sophie were embodying these execution . Every time we kept watch their tapes back or bring them in for callbacks , they were capturing the Mormon idiom . And the slight discomfort of being partner with another missionary that you are assigned to , and you do n’t really know , but you ’re trying to do your best for your shared mission .

The added welfare of having their experience in the Mormon relationship was staggering . It feel like the genuineness could then be used in the summons of making the movie . There ’s one fit where they ’re run up the stairs too soon in the film as they ’re conk about their casual task , where we ’re seeing and hearing them say thing that are amply authentic to their experience and their experience of live with Mormon friends and other the great unwashed that have proceed through missionary work . It ’s the best you could hope for . But no , we had no clew [ of their Mormon ties ] when we were do off and bringing them back again and again and again .

I liked how once thing take a tour for them [ Paxton and Barnes ] , they ’re on the verge of breaking down at any indorsement . You see their eyes watering during the whole second half . But they never have a full equipment failure , which I chance so fascinating . It ’s almost like they were participating hostages . Why was it crucial to portray them that way ?

Wood : We really wanted to undermine your anticipation of what a Mormon missionary is . We want to lean into the naïve façade and then show depth underneath the surface . That ’s just our experience in in person lie with a lot of Mormon people and having meet with Mormon missionaries . So we wanted to depict that .

Specifically to your doubt , it ’s interesting . There really was a deleted scene where Sister Paxton breaks down a little flake more than what you see in the movie . She gets kind of overwhelmed and more emotional . It felt not true , in retrospect . It was one of those thing you publish and put on the pageboy , and you think this feels how she would oppose . Seeing it on film , it was kind of like , no , she ’s a niggling tougher than that . It was of import for us to perfect that and ensure that the character always felt true .

You just want to pass in and give them a hug . Tell them everything ’s die to be all right . Give them a tissue or something .

Beck : Yeah . Totally .

You have Hugh across from them , who you may tell is having the time of his life , specially with the juicy dialog . In your conversation with Hugh , what were the independent trait you want to hammer down for him to inject into Mr. Reed ?

Beck : Well , I cogitate in terms of traits , the really important thing that we all come to terms with very early on is he has to have a bit of appeal that draws the audience in , just like it draws Paxton and Barnes in . And the safety , to a degree , that we ’re just here to have a conversation . There needed to be a darker undercurrent , but that could n’t show its head too early on . It had to have an phylogeny .

One thing I remember Hugh always saying is that this guy , Reed , is having playfulness . It ’s one affair when you have the script and you ’re like , there ’s wickedness to this role . And he kind of imbued this role with that ounce of merriment that allowed laughable bit to come through . We always tattle about this flick as each scene needed shifting Baroness Dudevant underneath the character ’ feet , where you did n’t quite know where you stand at that moment . Are we in a secure situation , and it just feels a trivial odd , or is it actually dangerous ?

You never could obtain out the answer to that question until , inevitably , it ’s too late . So all of those conversations with Hugh very early on , months before we started shoot , we traded electronic mail about the pitch contour of each view , [ and ] sometimes the dialogue , so that eventually , when he got to set , we did n’t need to have those in - depth conversation . They were already done , and he could just show up on set and really fetch to life what he had study and prepare so meticulously for .

It felt like a convo everyone had atThanksgiving .

Beck : Yes .

I ’m assuming one of you has had one ?

wood : Oh yeah . [ laughs ] We all have . I stand for , it ’s kind of the perfect fourth dimension to release this picture show in November . Just beforehand of the holidays .

Beck : And flop after the election too . You know , it ’s right on in that sweet spot .

Woods : A24 knows what they ’re doing . … We truly hoped , like our biggest ambition for the moving picture , that it ’s a theological conversation for two minute . Then , you leave the theater , and the Leslie Townes Hope is that you go to dinner afterward or drive home with your acquaintance and kinsperson , and the debate continues .

With the thriller and the horror aspect , you could have someone with a mask and a weapon , and that ’s scarey . Or there ’s spring scares when you film it . This moving picture is so dialogue - centrical that it ’s really the driving force of the tensity and the horror . As writers , how were you able to weaponize the dialogue to attend to as that basal source of tingle and horror ?

Beck : Oh , thanks for saying that . We ’re amount off the heels of doingA Quiet PlaceandBoogeymanand65.These are movies that are built on the traditional cinematic proficiency of start scares or monsters and whatnot . And so for us , this was a vacillation in the complete opposite direction . How can you make dialogue and ideas about religion terrifying ? To us , it was always about render to make it personal , trying to make it about things that we ’ve been struggling with , and in the pursuit of that , hop-skip that there are many other mass out there who will see this movie that have been struggle with those same things or come to similar conclusion .

Investigating the same darkness of why I consider what I trust , or why do n’t I believe these things that other the great unwashed believe . The permeating question that we ’ve make out with , but also the movie touch upon , is what happens when you die . The fear of that unknown , which to us , is one of the existent , scariest thing that we all will be confronted with at some point .

With the house , I study you saw it as the 4th character . As they go deeply , they ’re fall into hell . Did it [ the star sign ] always start as something that was go to go down and became this house of horror ?

wood : We just wanted the mansion to be a second of a mystery story box . It start off innocuous , secure , and almost benign . But then , the nigher you look , there are little thing that are weird . There are so many eldritch details that were in the localise innovation that I do n’t even think are in the movie . In the first living elbow room , there ’s wallpaper that ’s peel , and behind that wallpaper is a different wallpaper , which creates this sense that Reed has made up this room multiple time .

He ’s always been changing and shift it , depending on what he ’s doing . We love theDante ’s Inferno - style descent that gets sour and darker and more real in terms of who Reed is . Like what he is beneath the surface . We wanted to keep surprising the audience and ourselves .

Phil Messina , our yield graphic designer , is one of the outstanding of all clip . He started his calling onTheSixth Sense . You do it , one affair we have n’t peach about is the room underneath the planetary house that we in reality refrigeratedExorcist - style to get the role player ’ breath to be genuine .

Beck : And it was improbably uncomfortable in a fat direction for all of us . I ’m glad we did n’t fritter away more of the movie in that room . It was pretty Byzantine .

With how it ’s shoot , I recognize you saidChung - hoon Chung , the cameraman , was your arm . What were your conversation about how you want to shoot the back - and - forth dialogue ?

Beck : Our greatest fear , collectively , with Chung - hoon , was that this would just feel like a degree gambol . If we had just scoot a stagecoach play , then we should have just made a stage play . So it was a challenge for us to think of how the cinematic language evolves over the trend of the motion-picture show . That was very important to us — that it did n’t feel like we were replicating dart after shot . Chung - hoon really gainsay us in the best way possible , and it made its way into the last motion picture . He was like , “ I intend we should start the film off and dash it very ho-hum . ” Like very electrostatic . dispatch the instinct to move the camera .

Bryan and I ab initio were like , “ Oh , yeah , we ’ll shoot this parking area bench view , and we ’ll kind of dolly around here . ” He was like , “ No . Still . tedious . rent ’s do that . ” All of a sudden , it opened up the power to picture out , when we start go the camera , how to really chase the characters ’ psychological science . How do we section this single character , and it feels like they ’re being isolated , even when they ’re in a room with all three of them there ? Another aspect of it too was trying to find a way that we would n’t inhibit the performances .

So much of our dearest for cinema is filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock orM. Night Shyamalan , who meticulously storyboard every single frame . That ’s usually our instinct . But on this , we knew that would entirely blockade a great execution from being what it could be . We do n’t require to pigeonhole Hugh Grant into this tiny little box .

With Chung - hoon , we spent a lot of time figure out how we become exacting with the tv camera but also being freeing , which seemed like two contradictory things . What we did in each room was lay down this dolly dance floor on the ground so we could have a moving photographic camera go anywhere . We would let the public presentation go on for sometimes up to 10 page of dialogue . We ’d be shoot these really long takes , and then Chung - hoon would operate the camera himself .

Over the course of the view , we ’d have a radio on him . He would expend his instinct , which were so beautiful and masterful . We ’d be like , “ OK . Now let ’s get closer to Hugh . ” We ’d radio that in and create this flake of a dance between the camera and the functioning in a way that still left Chloe , Sophie , and Hugh costless to follow where the view take to go in the moment .

Hereticis now in theatre .