28 Years Later The Bone Temple (2026)

Hello. My name is Nia DaCosta, and I am the director of this film, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, and I'm super excited to talk a bit about the film. Thank you, Sony, for your money, is where I'll start.

So, starting out, we did this sort of soundscape over the credits or over the main titles because we wanted to have a reason for the 28 Years Later chyron to pop up. In every other film, you see a scene from a point in time, and then you have the chyron, whether it's 28 Days Later or Weeks Later or Years Later. And it wasn't built into the script that that would exist, so instead of shooting a scene that was sort of in the past, we decided to do... Hello? ... that. And have Jim's voice, and then, 28 Years Later. And that's Jim's voice from 28 Days Later, when he's holding his little plastic bag, looking for people on the streets of London. Now this... So this sign did not originally say "no children beyond this point." It was something else, like, "no floaties or something beyond this point." But we thought it would be funny, at the top of this film, just to let maybe parents know, and children, you know, it's not for you.

And these are the Jimmies.

The purple velour that Jack's wearing was his idea. Originally, I think the idea was that he'd be in a, like, a blue Adidas tracksuit. And he was like, "I don't think that's gonna be me, "I think it needs to be purple velour." And we're like, "Okay, Jack," thinking he was being silly, and then we tried it and it was amazing. So that's why he's clad out in that way. And also it's great 'cause he sticks out in terms of texture, in terms of color, from the rest of the Jimmies, which is really cool. ...this is a fight to the death. No quarter. Yes, Sir Jimmy. And this, where we're shooting is like this leisure center that shut down, I think, during the pandemic. But when you go in there, it feels like it... it felt like it had been shut down for, like, 28 years. So it was just, like, the perfect place. And I wanted to do this scene in a place that was a bit whimsical and childlike, but also completely rotted on the inside, because that's what this gang is, this cult is. It's, you Know, someone, Jimmy Crystal, who uses these childlike and... you know, childlike imagery, and this stuff from childhood, like the Teletubbies and other different kinds of kids shows from the time, and perverts them. So I thought having this scene in a place for kids, but seeing something horrific happening would be a good way to set up who they are and what they do.

Unlucky, pal.

So, there are a bunch of whip pans in this movie, which I don't usually do. But we have this rig, basically like a modified Trinity, that was really fun. And Simon Wood, our Trinity operator, who's amazing, he also does Steadicam, he does B-camera sometimes. But he basically changed the rig up because I'd asked for some different specifications and we ended up being able to do this really cool whip pan that sort of slams to a stop really directly on either side of the whip. So we thought, "Let's use that for the Jimmies," 'cause that's very much their vibe. Just madness and whip pans.

kid.

Take it. Pick it up! Too slow, pal. We had to re-record dear Connor's dialog a couple of times because of his Glaswegian accent, which I, you know, understand just enough. But I think for the average American audience, they were a bit confused. Shit! It was really fun to do that stab. I really like special effects, especially when they have to do with, like, cuts or blood or gore, I think it's really fun. And so this is... And I wanted also much of the blood to be practical. I really hate VFX blood 'cause it looks so fake. And so in this scene, we have mostly real blood, but then VFX to either clean up or to match certain things. But everything we do is like a rig. So when you see the blood spraying out, it's always or almost always real... well, not real blood, but like real red fluid coming out of a pump. And then right off-screen, there's, like, SFX artists, like, pumping away at this can full of, you know, fake blood. Sir.

Shit! Jesus Christ. Jesus! Oh, God. Christ, God! So brutal. All this blood, it's so ridiculous.

This is also the only 28 film thus far that does not begin with a set piece surrounded by the infected. And for me, that was really important because it shows, you know, we're sort of shifting what we're saying about this world, which is that the infected, at this point, are just part of the flora and fauna. The real danger comes from people who know better, but don't do better, like the Jimmies. And so we start with a really chaotic, disturbing scene with this.

Okay, that was, like, one of my favorite parts of the movie. That sound effect when he, like, sends his soul up to whatever. I'd asked Jack, I was like, "Jack, can you do something when he dies? "Like, you take his soul and put it somewhere, "you know, you're, like, giving his soul a rest." And so he did that, which is hilarious. And then when we turned around on Mo, they looked up to where Jimmy had been putting his soul or whatever, and I thought it was, like, the funniest thing ever. So I was really excited to see that little note I gave turn into something really, really fun in the final product. Howzat? - Howzat.

So here you can see a bit, 'cause of the way Jimmima was moving just then in that scene, that the shutter angle is changed. It's not sort of a standard angle. And that's something that Danny did in the first film. Whenever the infected were attacking, the shutter angle would change, the image would appear more choppy to the human eye. And... Sean Bobbitt, my DP, and I, we really wanted to use that, in a way. It was really the only visual reference from the other films that we took. But because, again, we're starting this film with the Jimmies as the real mortal threat, we thought the Jimmies and the infected should have the shutter angle change when violence happens. And this is the first infected of the film coming up, which, again, wasn't written in, but we added, 'cause we were like, "We need infected." And I like infected scenes and things like that, so, yeah.

And I love this shot, just, like, showing the... the... the overgrowth and the destruction of the world on one part of the frame. And then in the distance, you see the smoke from Kelson's fire. And then this awesome handwritten title by Matt Curtis, who does all of our... well, all of my titles, really. He also did the first and 28 Years Later. So I really wanted to, like, show a change between the craziness and the madness of the world of the Jimmies and this sort of bucolic beauty and steadiness of Kelson's world. Which is why we go from all of that madness to these, those two wide shots, this one being the one that slowly shows us the woods. this one being the one that slowly shows us the woods. And we're like, "Wow, how peaceful." And then, of course, it's about to get not so peaceful.

This deer did not want to be there. It was kind of hilarious. I was rooting for him or her. This was a fun scene to shoot.

So, in my film, I really wanted the infected, if they were naked, to actually be naked, because I didn't want to have to shoot around modesty garments or do VFX and... And because Danny and I shot our film so differently, the way the infected look also had to be changed because I couldn't get away with some of the things that he was able to get away with, just because of the style, you know, shooting on iPhones, all that stuff, so... So, in my film, you see infected that are... more of them are clothed. And my reasoning for this basically was that you could say that, one, we're getting closer to civilization maybe, where we are in this part of the film or whatever civilization is left. And two, that one of these towns has just had, like, a big overtaking by the infected. So, you know, a town has fallen essentially and lost a bunch of people, and that was, in my head, why the infected in this movie have more clothes, mixed with some of the ones who are, you know, naked and skinny. Okay, So you just met Samson, who is great, love him, love his whole journey in this film. And then you meet his best friend, Kelson, his soon-to-be best friend, played by Ralph Fiennes, who is an icon of our times and a national treasure. So, that shot before was the real woman, and this is a dummy, obviously, 'cause we can't just be throwing women off of cliffs anymore.

The first bit of Duran Duran, which is a huge part of his sort of cultural life and how he stays tethered to hope, I think.

Dear God. There's so much gross stuff in this film, there's so much gore. The most disgusting part of the film for me is watching him... Seeing all that brain in his beard is truly... I can't look at it. Which I think tells you a lot about me and my stomach for gore, 'cause everything else, I'm like, "That's fine." But that is... It gets to me.

Cause the crowd all love Pulling Dolly

This was a fun scene to shoot. This is day one of the shoot, actually. I think we shot this part in the morning, and then the next scene we shot in the afternoon. And, yeah, it was our first time just, like, getting into this world together, which was really fun, and... This scene is super important because it's when Kelson realizes that there's a sense of... there's, like, thinking happening. Like, everyone knows that the Alphas are smarter than the other infected, but he realizes the extent to which they appear to be, or at least this infected Alpha appears to be... thinking. And so, this music is another way that we get into the Alpha's head, like, "What are they seeing? What are they, in a way, thinking?"

This is strange.

So, we had... This is really fun. We had some really great prosthetics in this film. And some of them you're seeing here as he takes those arrows out of his torso. And then we cut to a close-up, which is a completely fake chest plate that has blood pumping out of it, which is fun. So, that was all real. Which means...

Just kidding. I'm NHS. No charge. I love that line. Poor Kelson, if he'd seen what was happening to the NHS today, he'd be quite upset. But I love that little line 'cause it's like a nice insight into his character, like, who he was, you know, he was an NHS doctor. He was also obviously incredibly curious. This face is distressing, isn't it? We also had a shot of a wolf eating Erik's hand in the train, and then we thought, "Do we need that?"

This is more of Kelson's world. You know, we see a bit of it in the first movie. But then in this film, you know, the movie, The Bone Temple, we really see his home, the Bone Temple, and how he survives in it, what it means, and... We thought it was good to get a bit of a montage of what his days would be like. You know, he collects a body, he maybe encounters an infected like Samson. He chops the body up and he puts it in that boiler thing, and then he adds to his art collection. That moth was just there. And Ralph said, "Yes, and?" to that moth. I actually think Ralph put the moth into the scene, is what happened, which is nice 'cause, again, moths, to me, just made me think of, like, death and renewal. So, it was a nice thematic little guy in there. And now, this was really fun to do, like, this is our first time seeing Kelson's home. And so it was really fun that we got to originate this and create this for this movie in particular.

And I love this scene a lot that's coming up, And I love this scene a lot that's coming up, because we see him in the first movie and he seems like this whimsical sort of kook who's like, "I'm gonna kill your mom." And in this movie, we get more of who he is and what he believes in, which I find really beautiful, and also, like, who he was. Like, in those pictures or the music he listens to. I love this hand-cranked power thing he's jerry-rigged. So, you see, there's, like, poppies... dried poppies in the background, and there are poppies growing outside. So, we kind of were like, "Is that how he's still creating these darts "and being able to sedate the infected when he needs to?"

I love this bit, too, where he's just dancing, getting completely naked. Ralph and I... So, Ralph and I talked about this moment where we just thought him being completely naked and alone and vulnerable, it just shows how... sad it all is. This is all he has, and he's just a man.

And since he's so lonely, he's like, "Let me go talk to that one guy that I met," which I love for him. But I think the reason why that scene before is so important, and a little montage about Kelson is, like, you ask yourself, "Why is this man risking everything to... "to be curious about this infected? "What is he doing?" 'Cause we've seen this guy, Samson, rip heads off, eat brains. But I think, like, the need for human connection is so strong that... he's willing to risk it.

One of several shots where we're like, "Let's just crop out the penis." Dear God. It's a bit much, isn't it?

This is Chi Lewis-Parry, who did such a phenomenal job as Samson, embodying him not just when he's at his most rageful and infected, but also, like, the really delicate progression that he takes throughout the film. Which is a huge sort of distance, and he only has a couple of lines in the film. So, the work he did, I thought was so stunning and wonderful, and it really made this really tricky storyline and really tricky character work.

I love this Latin line, "quid pro quo." ... I'm not entirely sure you understand Latin.

There's always so much stuff in his beard. I find it really distressing. You do.

We're using the Cinefade on this shot, which is why the background looks like it's melting a bit. Basically keeping the frame the same size, we changed, like, the depth of field essentially while the shot goes on.

That's crazy, him touching Samson.

But that was something that Ralph did at the end of the take. I like to keep running 'cause I know he likes to do stuff. And so, so much of what you see between them in the film that's action or them interacting is a lot of what we did after, you know, the scene ended and we just kept the camera running.

I love this scene a lot 'cause, again, like, this place is peaceful. Kelson's found a separate peace for himself. You have those little dandelion fluffs flying through the river, the green grass, the red poppy flowers, and these two pals hanging out, and...

And this is the first time we hear the theme, or the second time we hear the theme, that Hildur Gudénadottir, our composer, wrote, which I absolutely love. ...clouding it, not replacing it. This is the beginning of a slight shift in Samson's look, which we do throughout the film.

And this interrogation, I find really beautiful as well. The yearning, the curiosity, and truly the need that Kelson has for this person to... exist inside of him.

Love this shot a lot, and the next shot I love so much. It's just... I think we added it, like, kind of late into the edit maybe, 'cause I was like, we really need a shot of Samson and just... He needs to become more of a person to us now and less of a monster. And this shot, I find, just makes me sad when I watch... Yeah.

I love the colors in this shot. The green of the grass, the orange of the skin, the blue of his eye.

This is funny. Again, just leave it running for Ralph, man. He'll do something fun. So, his little dance moves that he starts doing... We were just like, "Go off, Ralph. Get it, girl." Samson. Yeah, the only songs I really knew were Hungry Like the Wolf and Girls On Film, which I love. But otherwise, I wasn't really familiar, frankly, with their work. But this song, I think, is amazing, and now I love it so much and sing it all the time.

This was a fun Ralph addition. He was like, "I want to see him shaving his head. "I want to see him putting on iodine." So, we put it into this scene, which I find hilarious, 'cause then Samson shows up. He's like, "I got a treat for you." And the wave that Ralph just did on the day, which we all fell out laughing, I thought was so funny. But again, we're keeping this, like, visual language of, like, static or measured frames, just, like, beautiful framing of the Bone Temple. It's peaceful, it's steady. Everything's secure and solid because we're in this world with Kelson, and... So that moment where he turns his hand to feel the rain, I just thought it was really important to try to find a place for it. Just thought that would be really interesting, just like that initial sensory experience that someone might have when they're coming into consciousness.

And then these are really great time-lapse shots that we had done at the Bone Temple that I love a lot. And we used them throughout the film to kind of mark time.

I love this shot. Love how tiny they end up being before you get the full context for the size. So, this is the first time you meet Cathy, pregnant Cathy there, and her family, or her, kind of, found family in the apocalypse. So, the guy in the back, they're not related. He's just one of the guys. And then the younger one, played by Louis Ashbourne Serkis, this little guy here... Well, he's not little, but that guy plays her brother, Tom.

And they're really excited about all these mushrooms they're finding. So this scene, we're like, "What do people do in this... Like, how do they find food? "How do they move through the world?" And I thought it was really important to show, like, a group of people, like, silently moving through the world, and... And then, of course, danger coming because it is incredibly dangerous. Jonno.

Jonno. Jonno, don"t...

It's always fun to do the sounds of the infected. Like, what is up with their vocal chords, bro? So, I love this scene because she's just, like, "Gotta go." Like, she just knows, like, there's no point in trying to save him because they'll all die. She has responsibility to her child, to her brother, like, they gotta get out of here.

Help! This, we had a really fun rig on Gordon... Wait! ...In this scene, who plays Jonno. And we have the best stunt performers in this scene. They were just, like, so game to throw themselves around, to get tugged around.

And again, the blood. So, this is our first turning in the film, which I was really excited to do 'cause I love the... It's so gross, like the vomiting and the... But it was so fun to shoot, and distressing.

Okay. So again, we're building up the world more, right? Like, in the first movie, you see Holy Island and the way they keep themselves safe. But now we're meeting more people. We're seeing how other people keep themselves safe in this world, how they survive, how they keep going.

And this is their little compound, their little farm. The barn that will have terrors to come. The barn that will have terrors to come.

You see the gate around the property. And this is a scene that I had asked Alex to write actually, because I wanted to spend more time, and actually the scene before, 'cause I wanted to spend more time with this family before we meet them in the barn. And I also wanted more infected. So that was... I know I mentioned it in the press before, that was the scene before, it was one of the scenes I'd asked for, 'cause I wanted someone to turn, I wanted more infected, and also to meet this family and see how intimidating this group is.

So that's her husband, the guy at the... Tinky-Winky decided to come back. And then this is when we discover he's fully in the group. ...not only lost

Jane Ji. In every movie, I have a character named Jane Ji, named after one of my best friends. And poor Spike is there, like, confused and lost, and... They're glorious.

The Dipsy dance. This is one of the things that our movement coordinator and choreographer, Shelley Maxwell, helped develop, along with some of the other dancing in the film later. I love this scene. I just think... I think this woman is a complete kook. She's very unwell. But Emma Laird, who plays her, just, like, embodied her with such a vulnerability, but also, like, scary spontaneity and whimsicality that I find really exciting. You know, the Dipsy dance is just, like, absolutely absurd. That's never happened in the Teletubbies. So again, we're seeing just, like, how Jimmy creates this world, this reality out of, like, memories, perverted memories he has from being a child before everything went to shit. Hello.

hungry and tired,

I love the shot of Mirren Mack, who plays Cathy, who's so good in this movie.

This cracks me up, her little... Dipsy dance reprise.

Oh, no.

the wrong foot.

Fingers... -

Jimmy. I like that moment with the hand slam on the table a lot, because it gives you a real glimpse into, like, how scared they are of him, in a small way, 'cause they're all violent and horrifying, but obviously, he's their leader, and... I think it's just important in those little moments to always show how he intimidates them. Especially the

on the end who's just so excited to kill people. He looked the most scared.

Yes.

Go!

Oh, my God, Emma Laird screaming, I just thought it was hilarious, as is this interaction. And also just showing the two of them, like, again, in these small ways, like, they have this connection that runs pretty deep. Which is also why, as we see in the film, she kind of sees him more than the rest of them, and is also why she begins to doubt him.

Yes, Sir Jimmy. Every time I watch Ghazi run, it makes me laugh. Offer charity.

I'm missing charity?

And the baby stuff, it's so sad, a little crib, the knitting and the crocheting.

Course I fucking saw it coming.

So you have the shutter angles changed. And then we see poor old Jonno, who's, honestly, being put out of his misery. I don't know if I'd want to live as an infected.

So that was a mix of VFX blood and, like, rigged, like, real fake blood that comes out of this, like, sort of tube around his neck, which is really cool. And then you see, little little on the bottom right, Jimmy Ink walking towards the Bone Temple.

This is why Kelson wanted a friend. He was like, "I want to get high and dance and sing at you." Which I guess is all of us, isn't it? We all just want an audience for whatever we're doing. I loved reading this scene in the script. I was just like, "Alex, what are you talking about, babe?" But this is what he was talking about, and it's really fun to see in a movie like this, something so strange happening that has nothing to do with violence. It's just like this is the other side of the human experience. It's like this is how far we're gonna go on this side, just... loopy and dancing. And then what we're doing with the sound here is, like, the ghost of the actual song with the beat and everything kind of comes into it. And does that belong to Kelson? Or is that also Samson having moments of memory from his own past? So, this bit where Kelson and Samson start literally dancing together and Kelson is like, "What's going on?" was another great ad-lib from Ralph and Chi that I think is so important to kind of connect where we end up going, not just with how the Jimmies and... Jimmy Ink in this moment sees them, but also where Kelson goes as a character.

Love this shot. I just like how the shot just sets up, "Here are the Jimmies, here's the cult," and then, "This is what they get up to. "Cool, cool, cool, great." Like, this is the extent of it. It gets much worse, obviously. But... Howzat. Howzat. You know, this whole sequence was, at once, fun to shoot and also, like, harrowing. Starts in the day, it goes to night, it took us, I think, several days. See the hook at the top of frame, a little foreshadowing. And then poor Cathy who, of course, didn't want to run away completely from her family, thought maybe she can hide out, help them, but now she's kind of stuck. "...

And for this, "

your crown." So this is the first time we get the full sort of ethos and sort of dogma of the Jimmies... which obviously is terrifying. Because it doesn't make any sense and it requires violence and torture, which I think this family is starting to understand. ...

charity. "Charity." Everyone's like, "What's charity?" Unfortunately, we find out pretty soon.

Yeah, developing this with the prosthetics was super fun. But the first time I saw... The first person they showed me was LA, who plays Jane Ji. And Gareth and Carson, who are the amazing production designer and costume designers, they also were super inside of, like, those sorts of looks, like anything that was full-body like that in terms of prosthetics, they were really inside of that process creatively. And they called me in to see LA in her skinned look, and LA was, like, had tears in her eyes and she was performing, basically. And I was like, "Oh, my God." It was so disturbing. I was like, "This is very distressing," and I'm looking at it and I know it's not real, but it just felt so real. And that's just like a testament to the amazing work that the prosthetics team, John Nolan and his team, do on this film. That's real. Well, not... Obviously, it's not his skin, but that's, like, prosthetics. That's all in-camera. With a little bit of help from VFX to clean up anything.

So much oatmeal water we used as vomit in this film. And then, you know, Jimmy Ink just leaves the gate open. You know, she doesn't care about her life. Or anyone else's, for that matter. Jimmy? Please, I can't...

So, look how long this child's legs are in this scene. Like, the way that Alfie Williams, who plays Spike, was growing throughout Danny's film and this film is so funny. And there's so many ways in which I was like, "We have to make him feel smaller because he's supposed to be." I mean, in the script, he was 10. And then aged him up because Alfie was the right person, and I think he's meant to be 12, but when we shot this, he went from ages 13 to 14. And his dad is, like, 1,000 feet tall, and he's gonna be 1,000 feet tall. So it was just a really funny problem to have, trying to figure out how to make this teenager look two years younger and sort of pre-puberty. So now we're going back to the peace of the Bone Temple. The theme comes back in.

Burrito Ralph. Samson... my friend.

This scene in the script was revelatory for me. I think it was when I was like, "Oh, no, I have to direct this film," how the scene ends.

is morphine. So what I also like about this speech at the beginning is that we have Kelson... again, worldbuilding. You know, he's explaining how he's... what he does. He's a forager, you know, he's been looking 70-mile radius. He's been, over the past 28 years, been doing that and that's how he has all his supplies. That's why he has so many multiples of things. He's become a little bit of a hoarder. But he's explaining, you know, what's at stake for him and Samson and how things will change because, unfortunately, he's running out of morphine. And that doesn't mean just for Samson, but it also means for him and how he protects himself, which is with his darts.

And then, once again, we have yet another change in the way Samson looks 'cause he's, for us, for me, it was like visually showing what's happening on the inside before we fully understand it. And again, using sound, which we do more with Samson and his, what I like to call, coming to. And in this scene, we start hearing what I hope people understand, or start to think, is the sound of a train whenever he looks at the moon.

Good friends.

I really love the way Sean Bobbitt, the DP, does moonlight, and it really speaks to me as someone who loves mercury vapor lighting. I just think it's really beautiful. So, you have this mix of this, like, greeny light and this orange firelight, which I think is really beautiful. Here's the sound of the train over the moon.

The jokey way to look at the scene is that Kelson is just, like, suggesting euthanasia to everyone he meets. He meets someone, he likes them, he's like, "Have you thought about dying?" But I think what is actually happening is there's a mercy that he understands. Oh, here it comes. Moon. My jaw dropped when I read that in the script. I was like, "Alex Garland, he did it again." Samson... you spoke. Yeah, I love this scene so much and the way it's performed and the way they... the connection between these two, the chemistry. Moon.

I mean, on a personal level, this is huge. But also, just think about the implications to the world, which I don't think Kelson is really thinking about, actually. He's just thinking about his friend and the fact that his friend, there's a life that he can have, perhaps.

Yeah, this sequence, the barn sequence, is very tough and rough to get through. But to me, it was very important to find a good balance between the torture and the brutality of this and, like, showing it and also not shying away from it, 'cause you'd... Oh, goodness. So, yeah, that's LA in her skinned look. And...

Poor Cathy. Still there.

Listen! Louis is So good in this scene. This whole sequence, I think, he's amazing in. But again, we're getting more of, like, the way this world works. We're like, "This is what was happening in the first scene. "This is how they get fingers. This is why." You know, it's... "This person, "Jimmy Crystal, does not care about any of these kids. "Like, he's there for his entertainment. "He's there, and everyone's replaceable to him." ...and I call you Jimmy.

These poor guys, I mean... Chi as well. Like, it's nighttime. They're shirtless, like, Chi is just naked. I mean, he has, like, sort of prosthetics covering his, like, actual genitals, and then everything you see is fake. He's literally wearing, like, these shorts that are acting as his thighs and, you know, his junk. But it's freezing, like we're shooting at night. Night shoots in the fall in northern England, it's cold. You can see everyone's breath here. None of that's added, that's all... that's all just 'cause it's cold as hell. I love the way he delivers this line. Her.

I choose her. His little tear. Also, something I forgot to mention that I like about the beginning of this scene is that... I also love how she performs this. She's like, "Oh, no, I love it. "Do I love it?" You know, we're all over the map here.

So at the beginning of the scene, you see all the Jimmies, like, in the aftereffects of what they've done and one of them is throwing up. The other one is, like, sort of in another space. And to me, it kind of showed, like, maybe this isn't in their actual natures, but they've been conditioned by Jimmy to behave in this way. And it's survival for them because this is the person who takes care of them, and so similar to, like, when you join any cult, it's like your nature completely changes because of... because of who leads it, who's leading you and...

And so, to me, it adds a bit of texture to them and makes it a bit sadder as well. 'Cause you think, "Okay, who would they have been "if not for this world and for this man who's found them?" ... fight.

So this fight scene was really fun to shoot.

So, Louis, I told Louis... So Tom was always supposed to be shirtless in this scene, but I was like, "Louis's muscles are too big, "and that might be distracting." 'Cause I also have this thing about... men in movies now all look like Superheroes. But what am I supposed to do? You know, I hope the girls love it on the Internet, make some memes. But I was like, "This is too much. Where's his gym?" Too fucking easy.

So I love the scene for Jimmima as well, 'cause she really gets to shine. And I think kind of all these scenes with these characters, you get, like, this... you can really project what their life was and how they ended up in this space. And I think this scene, when it ends, you kind of hear Jimmima and the way she treats him at the end. Like, you're kind of like, "I think I know what happened to you."

Useless bellend. So it's another scene where, because it's about violence and the Jimmies, we have the different shutter angle. Well, we used to have a close-up of that kidney stab, but then we thought, "Maybe we don't need that." It's already brutal enough. Beautifully done, Jimmima.

Old Nick says... "Charity." Choose your act.

I love the way she delivers that line.

The hook of destiny.

To be fair, I don't Know what I would do either if I were Cathy. Like, how am I gonna fight them all? Yeah, so this whole thing where she's, like, grinding on him basically, and then she's like, "You thought, you know, you think... "thought I was weaker?" Clearly, something happened to her.

It's given her a bit of a hate boner for people who underestimate her.

So in the background, you can hear, like, the rope loosening the hook. And I love this shot. It's a bit longer than in reality, anyone would need to realize what's happened to her. But I just love this progression so much. My cat... Like the blood seeping into her eyes, blood coming out of her nose. Sometimes in film, it's nice to just have these moments outside of time. Cloud space! Cloud... Cloud...

I love everyone in this scene. Jack especially in this scene is great! There! Up there!

Get her! Go! Go! Go! He's just so ridiculous. Also, he grabs that shovel or that... thingy, that giant fork thing. What do you call that? I don't know. I'm not in agriculture. But he really... He asked me in between takes, he's like, "Can I throw this?" And I was like, "No, that's not... "that's not safe." But he really wanted to. Fucking show yourself!

This was so fun to shoot. This... Our amazing stunt performer, who we lit on fire, I think, three times. And the crazy thing about this, which I didn't know, is basically he gets covered... His body... Like, underneath the costume, he gets covered in something that protects him from fire. And then he gets... puts on the costume, puts on a gel that was supposed to light up. And then he wears a mask over his face so that he doesn't, you know, his face doesn't burn off, obviously, and... But he has to hold his breath for the entire time that he's on fire, which I didn't think about. But obviously, you wouldn't want to be inhaling and burning your lungs to shit. So I was so impressed. And I always am with everyone I work with, but especially him being lit on fire three times, I think, on that night, and then three times on this night, to do the shot that's about to come.

I love this so much. I think that might have been their actual reaction 'cause I shot them reacting to it the first time they saw it. Put him out! So, Mirren Mack was very proud of herself for doing this stunt, not that one. Please...

Yeah, this one where she jumps off the thing.

She was so jazzed. I was very proud of her as well. What can I say? Kid! Catch her!

Jack was really adamant that he held on to his tiara through this fire. So we, you know, ashed it up a bit, broke it, so we could hold on to it, and it would be plausible.

Please.

Now, of course, 'cause you love Spike, you're like, "Just take him with you." And maybe you think she might, for a moment.

But she's just being very smart here. She's like, "I need to open that gate. How can I incapacitate him?"

And that's the last we see of Cathy for this movie, but she will return.

And so we shot that and this at the same time, 'cause we wanted to... The building is actually burning, and so we would only be able to do so much shooting with it burning in the background. So we just... And this is the last night of our shoot. SO we... Yeah, we just had to keep going. And that's a really great VFX fire at the top there. That's all real fire in there. Again, it's like a good mix, like, I think, I'm not against VFX at all. I love VFX. But I think having a good mix of practical effects and visual effects is the way that you keep everyone invested in the story and engaged and not have their eye picking up all the stuff that's fake. And I thought the special effects and the VFX departments worked so well in this film.

You did... - The woman who crushed Jimmima"s skull

I love these two in this scene so much.

With an arrow. Where's her body?

It was dark.

So now is a good time for me to mention that, because Alfie was a mi... is a minor still, but when we were shooting, definitely was a minor, we could only shoot with him at night for, like, three hours or something crazy, so he had this amazing double named Jess. And so she is... Every time we see the back of his head in this scene, it's Jess. And obviously, the front of him is Alfie. So Jack, amazingly, has to do his side of the scene in this setup with Jess, who's amazing. But you know, it's a really different thing. And also, you know, this crying that's happening that Jack really needled out of Alfie, like, it was just so great to watch, Jack's so great with them, with the scene partners. And so I really wish we could have had Alfie on the other side for Jack. But he really stepped up and gave us a great performance.

Also Mo, I'm obsessed with Mo. Mo plays Jimmy Jones. And they are just...

Every time you see them in the scene, they are doing exactly what they need to be doing. And they're so committed and, like... And they're usually screaming, which I really enjoy as well.

Yes. We should.

in person.

This is another great little moment where you just see, when he needs to, he can be really imposing and intimidating, and, like, the way they react to him in those moments. Like, when he screams or slams his, you know, hand on a table or gets too close to them, you can see, you're like, "Right, this isn't a gang of pals. "This is a brutal cult with a clear hierarchy." ...

And he had this great building... And here, we reprised the barn score. The daytime barn score. As we're... Now we're talking about... So that wasn't supposed to happen then. Anyway, yeah, the whole thing was supposed to collapse in a very specific shot. It didn't. And then they were like, "Well, it's going to collapse when it collapses." Because again, the building was really burning, and it collapsed in the middle of that shot. And thankfully, my amazing camera operator was like, "I got it." I think that was Sean, actually. And then Fran, who... who pulls focus for him, was like, "I got it." So it was just really... It was all really great. Now we have some Radiohead, which I love, and some more of this wonderful time-lapse footage that we have throughout the film.

So, this is when Samson discovers this piece of cloth. And then in this scene, we realize he's turned it into clothing. Now, I really wanted to... Again, this whole movie is about this person going away from an infected and towards, like, uninfected humanity. And so... it was really important for me to have visual cues for that because, again, he can't speak. And this, to me, was a really great one, just showing him cleaning his hand on a piece of fabric. I think in the script, he's naked the entire time, but I really wanted... I just really wanted to have something clear. And also it's so biblical, you know. Like, his name is Samson, and also Adam and Eve realizing they're naked, and then wanting to cover themselves. I just thought that was a nice moment to include. Naloxone. And then we have our Dr. Kelson extraordinaire... trying to figure this thing out. Something's changed in his pal. Is there more he can do? There's something I love with actors where they're just... they have to do scenes like this where I'm not, like, directing everything they're doing. They're just... I'm just like, "Just write some stuff, "and maybe look at that book or whatever." But they're just, like, pretending, you know. Those moments when you just watch an actor purely pretend and it's not like they're pretending while they say a line or whatever, it's just real invention. I really like those kinds of scenes.

Shit.

So, Jem Morton, my amazing key grip, he figured out how we could shoot, 'cause I wanted to shoot in front of them, but we were literally off of a cliff. So there was no way to, like, stand someone up in front of them to get a shot. So what he did was he built this amazing deck and he got the crane out there, like, as you can see, it's a drop-off there. So he got the crane out and had the arm out, and he gave us just a lot of flexibility here, which was great. So we're shooting a lot of these frontal shots off the crane. But that's like the least of what Jem Morton can do. He's just phenomenal. So I think this is our third film together, which is great. Aye, it

is? - Yep.

Unholy fucking shit. Nice one, Jimmy.

You were leading us here all along? I love how stressed he is here.

It's a Surprise. But...

So this is like... Also, Spike is like, "Oh, no, it's Kelson, my pal. "And these people are horrific. "So what's gonna happen "when they find out he is, in fact, not the devil?"

No! This is when I think... that shot, Spike looks like such a little baby.

Be back soon. So in the movie, I really want to have moments where you see Jimmy Crystal looking like he idiot that he is, because that's how I feel about these kinds of leaders, like... Usually, like, with a cult leader or, you know, or a garbage, like, president or prime minister, whatever, the way that they get people to follow them isn't necessarily that they're intelligent in any way, shape or form. It's, like, the charisma, but also it's power. And I think... when you look at those people outside of that context, you also see how silly they are. And so there are moments in the movie where, even though he has a lot of power over these kids, I also wanted to show that he's a silly, ridiculous human being as well. So there are moments in here where you see a bit of that slip, and, also, he's funny, so you can laugh at him and with him a bit. So that was really important to me. But this is even more important. This... This, we did in the edit, which is having this moment where Samson's brain is rearranging. I mean, I think what Alex wrote was, like, "Samson's brain is rearranging," and we were like, "Okay, what's that gonna be?" And Jake Roberts, who's my amazing editor, and I, found this way of... showing that. And I love this scene. This was something that we... I did this in one way initially and during the shoot, which again made... Jack, as Jimmy Crystal, look a bit silly and ridiculous. However, my producer, Peter Rice, he was like, "I really feel like we should... "we need to see him in the temple, actually." And I was like, "You're absolutely right." So, we shot this, which I really love.

And you really understand how he could think, "Oh, my God, this is... this might be my dad. "This might be... Old Nick." But, also, now you're seeing him scared for the first time. Well, since the barn, but, like, in the context of this relationship you're seeing. He's vulnerable. He has... He has this belief system might be real to him as well, not just a way to get these kids to follow him.

And poor Kelson has no idea what's coming.

Hello. He's so uncertain. It's... And again, like, framing him, his whole body, just seeing his ridiculous outfit... It's important to show, again, like, this is like a power play here. They're both like, "Who is this person? What's gonna happen?" And what I like in this shot before, you see Kelson kind of go for his... his pipe, but isn't sure and decides against using it. SO...

Yes. No.

I also love how, you know, this is the first time these characters are meeting, and we kind of know in the first half of the film, like, that this is gonna happen inevitably. But we don't know what will happen. And I really love what this... this scene and the one after it or the one at the riverside give us, which is real insight into Jimmy's character. And also Kelson's sort of empathy meeting his logical brain.

You... My skin color and... the bones.

I'm not Satan. I am Dr. lan Kelson. Doctor?

Your patients?

I love the way Alex wrote the scene as well, because I think, for him, it was really important that this scene and the one that they share after, it's like a doctor talking to a patient in a consult, or a doctor talking to a delusional person and not judging them, but just trying to understand, like, what they believe, what they're thinking, what their reality is, and then... you know, a doctor's case, how to help them. But in this case, how to survive.

I love this line. Rather than? -

So we should talk about the teeth. So Flora Moody's our hair and makeup designer, and she was great. I mean, it was so fun to, like, just turn everything up to 11 with her. But the teeth... She... This is the first time I used these, actually. Pretty much everyone in the movie, except for Ralph, has these little plastic, like, trays that go over their actual teeth to create the looks that you're seeing. So whether it's, like, they're browner, it's, like, slightly browner, or in the case of Jimmy Crystal, they're as rotted as his insides are. It's a very simple Invisalign, essentially, that goes in. Heart was pounding out my fucking chest.

Yep. The way Ralph does that line is so funny. But... And this part, this is the beginning of being like, "Who's the human inside of Jimmy Crystal?" Fuck it.

Like, to even admit that is crazy for him 'cause he uses that so much with the Jimmies.

Again, it feels like a doctor talking to a patient, like, "Tell me more." Gentle, just leading him slowly. And so again, you know, we have these two visual worlds. You have the Jimmies, which is chaotic and movement, a lot of cutting and a lot of cameras. Then you have this world, Kelson's world, that Jimmy is now entering. And so we keep the stillness and the static framing because what's happening is that Kelson is bringing Jimmy to his level. And, of course, that will turn itself on its head when the Jimmies return to the temple together at the end of the film. This is worse. Stomach. Neck. So that's K for Kellie, as we'll understand later at the end of the film.

Yeah. So this was really fun. We were just like, "Can we whip-pan between these two, between the knives?" And so we had Ali, who pulls focus for... for Simon Wood, our Trinity operator, trying to, like, hold focus between the knives and the whip pans. And we're all on comms, like, saying, "Whip now, whip now," like... It was really fun. But I liked... One of my favorite things to do on set would be to watch Alli while he was trying to keep focus and the panic in his face. Because he was always doing such a great job, but he clearly was stressed out. No. So this scene's great, too, because you get to see her sense of belief, like, what she thinks is going on. So she believes more or less in what Jimmy is saying. But she just doesn't believe who Jimmy is. So it's sort of like she's Martin Luther... putting her papers on the Catholic Church. Strange...

And this is when she really... pulls. I mean, she always had a fondness for Spike, like, in the first scene. She's impressed with him beating Jimmy Shite outside the barn. She sees the young person she once was, you know, when she first got into this whole thing, and then here's when she's like... "Okay, I'm gonna trust him a bit with what I'm thinking."

And Spike's like, "I'm just gonna go along with this," even though he knows exactly what's going on with Kelson. He's just a man. That's bollocks.

And then Jimmy Fox, he's like, "What are those two talking about?" He's still mad about his friend being murdered, so... So, again, bucolic, peaceful, the river, the fire. I remember details. Events and people.

shops and fridges. So this is fun 'cause it's... Everyone else, like, all the other Jimmies, like, Jimmy Crystal can't talk to them about what these two are talking about, remembering before, 'cause they're all too young. They're all in their early 20s, late teens. Actually, I think, technically, in the story, they're all in their teens, so... this is like a really special moment for him. And because of this, I think, is why we get to see a bit more of his character and learn more about him.

But the foundations...

And again, very still framing, and just letting the actors act because this is really the only chance we get, especially with Jimmy Crystal to, like, try to see into the soul of the person.

And what I love about the way this is written versus what we see in 28 Years Later, the first film, is that you're seeing how he remembers what happened, how he has come to understand and what his memory has done over the past 28 years, with the memory of seeing his... his family murdered, his father turned. And you can see, "This is where "his belief system and his dogma came from."

Leading the demons on the charge." What are we talking about, biv?

Yeah.

I love that line. "And then I saw you," 'cause he was like, "I thought you were my dad." Basically, this whole scene, to me, is like that children's book, Are You My Mother? Where the baby bird's, like, talking to all these inanimate objects and other animals, looking for his mom. My peeps.

I see. When I watch this scene, I just think about Sean Bobbitt, my cinematographer, really intensely focusing on the grass and, like, wanting, like, singular blades of grass to be removed or added to the foreground, which I really enjoyed.

Thank you. So, do you think there's an arrangement to be made here, lan?

Kelson always keeping his humor.

So now we're coming into the last sort of third, I want to say, of the film, and everyone's... The collision course has happened. Everyone sort of met each other. Well, almost everyone. Samson's still out on these streets somewhere. But... Now it's a big "what if" or "what's next?" Like, "What's gonna happen now when they fully collide?" ...

Howzat. Howzat.

His favored son and heir. So he's talking directly to Ink because he knows that she's up to her... He knows she's doubting him. Again, they've been together for a long time. He knows that she's causing some drama. Also, this really made me laugh a bit when we were shooting this. This also, we shot this so quickly, this scene. But, Jack, his little white socks, and for a few of the takes, he kept, like... being like, "Good night," turning over and then, like, putting the sleeping bag over himself, which was hilarious. But then we were like, "Is that too much... "too much activity and humor for that moment?" And then just now you saw little Spike playing with his dad's whistle as Kelson talks about him. "Memento mori,' I told the boy." And what I like about this progression, again, what I'm doing with how we see Samson, initially you see him, he's wavering and, like, on the ground, and then he's in the Bone Temple, and now he's on a stool. So you get to see his physical progression, not just what he looks like, but how he carries himself and how he starts to operate in a more human way. ...events have conspired, so...

Hemorrhage and uncontrolled cell growth.

sensory component,

psychiatric component too?

This is... I like this line of thinking and questioning in the film. And I like how where Alex is, like, continuing to explore the infection and what it means. Because for me, the fact that it's a rage virus, the fact that they're not literally zombies who just want to eat brains, the fact that it's, like, what any infected person does in the film is what any of us could do, who are uninfected. It's just that they have no inhibitions and they're rageful. They're full of rage. And also it connects, to me, to the beginning of 28 Days Later, where the doctor says, "In order to cure, we must first understand," and what they're trying to cure is rage. They're trying to cure violence, trying to cure, like, what the world is. Like, how we treat each other. And so, I think, even though, yes, this is in the category of quote-unquote "zombie films", the way that's framed really makes this, what happens in this film, possible in a way that I really love, because at the end of the day, like, yes, every zombie movie or show Is like, "Who's really the villain, the zombies or the humans?" However, I think what this sets up is that the infected are actually just humans, operating inside of the space that a human can operate in. And what Kelson's asking is, "Is there, like, a psychiatric reasoning behind that "that can be dispelled or lifted?" So now Spike, bless his heart, once again, is trying to escape. This is his second attempt that we've seen at least. And... Honestly, I get why he's staying. It would be very difficult to... You start walking away and then six people come chasing after you in the woods who are all very good at fighting and murdering things, like, I might try to find a better out as well. But I think this is a good point for him. He's just desperate because he's... What the hell is gonna happen when Kelson and these guys meet? Can he warn... Like, I think, for me, he's, like, leaving to try and warn him, but... Who's following him? This guy was such a good infected.

So, again, like... Obviously, it's self-defense, but he is butchering this guy.

Shush.

And so, again, it's like these little moments where, like, you're like, "Right. "They're friends." Like, you know, where you see, like, the Jimmies are more than just, like, a group of... murderers. They're also people who feel things and are trying to get through this life just like the rest of us. Do they make bad choices? Yes. Could they have made better ones? Yes. Well, he can't anymore 'cause he's dead. But, again... I just really like this relationship, the way it develops.

It's not. And again, that really explains the world, why these people are with him, why they sacrifice who they are, to feel safe. I also love this wig. Put the wig back on, babe. And again, you see, like, she's talking, but she's also scared. I love what her face does in this next shot, where she is, like, twitching, like, almost as if she can't help it.

Sir.

There was a take where, which I think is in the bloopers, actually, where a spider was crawling in Erin's hair. And Erin Kellyman, first of all, is amazing, I love her as Jimmy Ink. But she is not for the outdoors. She's not for these plants. She's not for flora. She's not for fauna. And so, I'm actually amazed how long it took me to realize that, 'cause she's just so professional. But I found it very funny. I love this shot. It's very beautiful. I love the red of the poppies in the foreground.

Were you lost...

So this is another thing we did in post, just, like, creating this journey for Samson as his brain is rearranging itself. And so, something that I really wanted to see is him, like, washing his hands. Just... These little human things we don't think about, like wanting to be clean. And that's when he starts to hear... 'Cause, again, his brain is, like, rearranging itself. Things are changing.

I love this. I think that close-up in particular. And that was... that was Nic Lawson, our B-camera operator, who shot this on, like, a little splinter second unit pickup that we did at the end of the shoot.

This, too. All this... this beautiful stuff with the trees. You know, I just really wanted to show at once the beauty and also the confusion and the fear of... yeah, having your memories come back, in a way. But also, you know, he's now changing. So the other infected are like, "What the hell is that thing?" Like, "It feels like Alpha. It feels like Dad. "But is that not? "Is that food? Is that prey?" And then he goes back to the train.

The train, for me, is like the mall in Dawn of the Dead, where everyone's just like, "Where do I go? Back to the thing that I have the strongest memory of?" And, obviously, in Dawn of the Dead, it's like consumerist commentary. But this is... He looks up. That's where he took Erik's whole life, and Ted. And now that he's here, the sounds of this, what we're gonna see soon, a flashback to the day he was infected, begins to... It becomes more and more frequent.

That's where that baby was born.

And again, you see his makeup, how it's changed from the first scene we saw him in, now he looks like... a guy. ... welcome on board this service to Edinburgh. And so now you see little baby Samson and his parents.

And maybe why he associates the moon... ...with the sound of the train. I'm in this movie for some reason, on the left there. I really wanted a Britney Spears song in there, but I also knew we would never be able to afford it. And then in the background, you see an infected. And he notices. And some of them, I don't even notice when I'm watching the film, even though I literally put it there. But I wanted to have, again, a little nod that, "Oh, this is the day that he became infected." And I also wanted to see Samson as an adult clean-shaven as himself just to give him, again, a bit of that humanity that we can connect him to, of this image of what he thinks he might have looked like... that he created, in the way that you do create with dreams.

I love that line so much. They're all waiting there like, "Okay, what is this thing?" And then he speaks and they're like, "You're gonna have to die now "because you don't seem like one of us." But he's still, you know, he's still Alpha. He's still brutal.

This guy. This guy is like a contortionist. I was very grossed out by him. I think he just stays like that for the rest of the scene, which I thought was pretty amazing. Couldn't be me.

She was cool. I love her.

So, yeah, we just... I mean, we just wanted a... like a... like a... fight scene. Like, what is it like when infected fight each other actually?

No. It's brutal, man. It's brutal. And we go back to peaceful Kelson. Very stressed out. Looking through his record collection.

Okay. I love this sequence that's about to come so much. But we'll get there. So, again, worldbuilding, we're seeing, of course, this man has been trolling, you know, the 70-mile radius for the past 28 years. Like, of course, he'll have, like, a bit of gasoline left. Of course, it's all, like, degraded, which is why it's so thin. This is some more time-lapse stuff that we got. We see him decorating. I think he would throw an amazing Christmas party, Kelson, if not for the zombie apocalypse. 'Cause what he does... with, like, a day notice, is pretty amazing. So you see him preparing everything. He's preparing where the music's gonna go. He's putting some speakers up. He's putting his cross in. He's, like... getting his, like, sort of mushroom hallucinogenic powder that he sprays on them. And this is where he gets the idea, seeing the sparks fly for his... what in the real world is called the "sparkle stick." Or "sparkle staff." And then I love this last time-lapse. And we just added in VFX, like, the lights coming on.

So, yeah, pretty much all of this is practical. Like, we... A couple of the candles went out, so we added them in VFX. But just... Again, Gareth and Carson, our production designers and costume designers, did an amazing job with this set and also with saving some of... some things to discover for me so that in this film, the audience wouldn't just be like, "Okay, been there, done that," but would really feel like, "This feels like a new place," or, "I'm seeing more of this place," which is really great.

I also love how... I love how... happy Jimmy Crystal is. Stupid tiara. And he's just, like, really impressed. Again, Kelson'd throw an amazing Christmas party. Look what he's done without a Party City to go to.

Another small detail I forgot to mention is that it's very intentional for all of them to have, like, dirty, patchworked... tracksuits, and for Jimmy Crystal's to be pristine, for him to be clean. And it shows, like, all the resources going to the top, and the dynamic of this, not gang, but cult.

I mean, in my head, Kelson also had a lot of fun putting this together, even though his life's on the line.

Woe to you

So Simon Wood, who I love so much, did such a great job operating on this. And Sean, of course, he's on the wheels, making sure, you know... Anyway, it's a complex system, but... Just the way they performed through the masks, the way Ralph... Shelley Maxwell and Ralph got together, came up with some moves, you know, went through a whole process to develop this entire sequence. Gareth and Carson were so huge, like, with the production then they did. The way Sam and his SFX team executed, it was just amazing. So, in the script, it is this song, and Alex was super specific about, like, "And then this, and then this, and then this." And then, of course, when you shoot it, you just kind of go off and do whatever. But... This was... Honestly, I think everyone read the script, including myself, and was, like... And so I got to the sequence and they were like, "This isn't... How the hell is this gonna work?" God, I love... I love Erin's performance in this scene. It's amazing.

It's so ridiculous. But I love it so much. That's also completely real. We have a little bit of VFX to help connecting the fire, but... But yeah, we all read the scene, I read the scene and I was like, "This is gonna ruin my career," or it will be, like, a defining scene in my career, and I love it so much. I just think it's amazing. We also use the Lensbaby in here, which is fun. It's just a lens that is so inconsistent, and you just get that blurriness that you see there. 666 Of course, everyone in the movie now loves this song. I also love Erin's little frog dancing there. And then, is Samson alive? Who knows? Of course he is. This is a film, after all. And then, this was an image from the script of just him covered head to toe in blood. And his little sarong is gone, you know, in the heat of battle. ['m coming back I will return Man, I love Jack dancing in this scene. And Ralph is just so amazing. He was just so down for all of this. Like, he was... He's just, like, such a... amazing performer, amazing actor, but also just so giving. And so when I was coming to develop this part of it, I told Shelley, I was like, "I want this to feel like "kids moshing at a concert," because also, they're all hearing... projected music like this, or amplified music, for the first time, and they think they're communing with their father, the devil. And so I want it to feel like moshing. And I think that she did a great job of helping us get to that space. Okay, so this... So the performer, his name's Otto, he's Italian. Gareth and Carson found him on Instagram, and they were like, "We want to put this at the end of the sequence," and I was like, "I don't know, is it a bit much?" But, actually, I think Alex in particular was like, "No, this is exactly right, "because these kids are gonna look at this and think, 'This is the devil." And then we, like, did a little fun thing where it seems like he just disappears into the ashes and embers. But, God, it was so fun to do this, and so insane. And I'm so, so proud of how it turned out. I'm so proud of every department coming together to make that sequence work. Like Julian, my... I haven't talked about Julian yet. Julian, our amazing stunt coordinator, like, he was a huge part of making this all work, and making sure Ralph was safe when he was on the... on the spire. Fingers... And then I love this 'cause it's, like, this crazy cool thing, and then you just have, like, this panting, middle-aged man being like, "Oh, my God."

And we can only shoot with Alfie for, like, three hours at night, and this is a night shoot. So for everything where his face is covered, more or less, it's Jess. That's Jess. ...blackens even sunlight.

Kneel.

You must stand. His little smile here. Just amazing performances in this film, and this scene in particular, I just find so... wonderful. Loved shooting it. And also my editor, because we only had Alfie for three hours a night we had to shoot, like, really out of order. SO, like, I think, on the second day we were shooting this, my editor emailed me, and he was like, "Bro, where is the coverage of the scene?" I was like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "We don't have this or this..." And it was really great because he was just like... I was like, "That's because we don't have Alfie. "So we had to wait for Alfie." But also, it was really helpful just to, like, keep us all on the same page and get a good road map for making sure we get everything we need 'cause it's a complicated scene. It's a long scene, and a lot has to happen. And, you know, when you have one of your actors who can't be there the whole time, you know, it just makes it trickier. So, having a shot list, first of all, helps, but also having an editor who is so on top of it and who is so brilliant. Also, any director will say, "This helps bring everything together."

You have a bit of a score coming in here. Hildur Guénadottir and her music editor, Jason Ruder, who's amazing, just knocked it out of the park, I think, with this score. It's weird. It's different. But then also when the theme, which will kick in again in a few minutes, it's like this mix of, like, brutal and disturbing, but also beautiful. And I just love what they did and what we got to with this.

So this is Kelson realizing, like, "Yes, this person "threatened to eviscerate me and make me eat my intestines. "But did I know that he wanted to do that to everyone he met? No." So he's also now thinking about, like, "Okay, I could save my own life potentially, "but at what cost?" And so what I find really interesting, this dichotomy, 'cause something I think about a lot is, like, at whose expense do you enjoy your freedom? And so when you're in a cult like this, it's at the expense of... And you're not Jimmy Crystal. You feel safe and secure 'cause you have this person that's taking care of you, but at the expense of all these people's lives that you end. And then for Kelson, he's like, "Okay, I can get rid of them, "but at whose expense? "These people he's never met?" And then he realizes that Spike is there, and so he's like, "That's not a price I'm willing to pay." And that's why Kelson's a really good person. This is actually hilarious 'cause that's obviously Alfie, and then this is so much of Jess's face. It just makes me laugh. Aw, baby Spike. That's super Jess. That's just a lot of Jess there. Fully not Alfie. Nope. No, Father.

We were like, "Jess, turn away. Turn away from the camera." ... obey me.

Really?

I require...

Of whom? I love this shot of Ralph. He just looks so demented. ...my only son. Yes.

This power play here, like, there's so much happening in this scene. It's like three parts to the scene. And now we're really moving.

to ascend... Moving through... ...

What everyone's thinking, like, the Jimmies are like, "Okay, this isn't what I was expecting." Jimmy Crystal is like, "This is absolutely not what we spoke about." And Kelson is flying by the seat of his pants. Ink loves it 'cause she's like, "We get to kill this idiot?" She's basically in her head like, "I Knew I was right. "I knew he wasn't really who he said he was." But... I think Kelson here thinks he's, like, gonna get through to Jimmy and in his psychosis, sort of. But Jimmy, you know, self-preservation keeps anyone alive.

They are.

Oh, no. You fiend.

I love that moment.

Again, some great prosthetics. Kelson. Kelson.

Who's the devil? lam, Jimmy. Me.

I love how his hair just seems like it has muscles of its own. It's just, like, flying all over the place. This is sad, you know, killing her friends. But, you know, they would have killed her, so... It's like there's a balance of, like, obviously, they do terrible things, but also, they're people. So... And then, you know, Spike's story through this film and the first film is really this coming-of-age. Not that coming-of-age has to end when you murder or stab someone, but I think it is interesting. The journey he goes on in the first film, like where he ends up, he's like, "I'm leaving home." Like, "I don't like what's going on there." Like, "I can make this on my own." And then this film, he's like, "I definitely can't. "I need people, but not these people." And he starts to find his own sense of community. But to me, it's very much like prodigal son. Prodigal son goes out, sees the world, but eventually, the prodigal son will return. So maybe we'll see some of that in the third film.

I love this part of the scene as well. I love the theme coming in here.

And what Erin does in this scene is so great.

is, like, also my belief system, frankly, and... But what he's saying is... that's beautiful. We have each other, you know,

think that's... He's a humanist, essentially,

think... What he says in the first film, "Memento mori, memento amoris," is just continued here and fleshed out more here. ... you're gonna survive that. I know. And just to say about this theme... We were going. As happened on my first film working with Hildur, you know, I kind of go to her,

say, "This is what I'm thinking."

really... I was thinking of Barry Lyndon and... and the Handel and Schubert themes that are in that film, and...

thought about landscapes and if I want to shoot them and also needing, like, an emotional through line to the film. And so this baroque sort of music, and also like the sort of the idea of, like, a funeral dirge like that was what we were thinking around and of when we... thought about this track and when Hildur was composing it.

Kellie. We get her real name, which is nice.

I love... So, basically, it's like RuPaul's Drag Race, like, she does a wig reveal. So she takes off this wig and reveals another wig. Because Erin has, like, beautiful, long ginger hair. And her little short-hair wig is truly horrific. And she looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid. So I thought, "You take it off when you're far away from camera. "How about that?" And then we have Antichrist on the anti-cross. And, you know, he has a stigmata. He has, like, the Lance. This, you know, the Lance of whoever... I don't know. I haven't read the Bible in a while, guys. But it was nice. We're doing a clear nod, an homage to Jesus on the cross here. And then, similar to Samson in the beginning, like, his head covered by skulls, we see now Kelson with his head covered by... surrounded by skulls.

What's happening here? So this is really fun, and the Atmos really made this particular shot great. Because you're like, "What the hell is that?" Then we go into the Lensbaby, we see his direct point of view. And then we get closer and we're like, "What?" "But that doesn't make sense." So we're still in his head.

And so, basically, we have the circularity where he's talking about Old Nick and all this... Satanist stuff, and then finally Old Nick comes, and then eventually, you know, when we cut to the wide, we realize that it's a delusion that he's having as he nears death. And really, it's just Samson covered in blood, coming to see his friend. And unfortunately, coming upon this scene.

Kelson.

Samson.

Thank you. I mean, Kelson is gonna die, but at least he gets to see what he's done. Memento mori.

So that's his final breath. And, you know, he mentions early in the film, like, he wanted to... to die, and this is where he would rest, like, when he dies. He wanted to die and be here, and he does get that. So it's bittersweet, you know. But he knew what he was getting himself into when he tried to save Spike. And at least he gets to see his friend one last time. And at least he gets to know that, in some small way, he succeeded. So that top shot was really important for me to get, just that circularity, that totality of everything he's done in this entire film.

Father. And I love what John and his team did for the look of the devil here that was really, really strong, really beautiful. And this dum-dum still thinking everyone's his dad.

And that's a callback to the first film, the beginning of the first film, when his father gets turned. Father.

And now we're like, "What's this? Water. How beautiful. Peaceful." "What's that?" Does that look familiar to anyone? We went back to the exact same house that 28 Days Later shot in. We went back to the exact same house that 28 Days Later shot in. Way back in 2001 or 2002. Which was, for me, as a huge 28 Days Later fan and nerd, was so cool. The same people live in the house, the house is exactly the same. The cab is there, as you can see in the corner of frame. And then there are little glimpses of a life here. And if you look, you see the leather jacket on the door that belongs to Selena. And then you see those rocks spell out "Sam." "Is this Sam? Whose voice is that?" You know? Anyway, I just want to build in this sense of, like, coming closer and closer into the reveal of Jim.

Sam, think. Which, for me, obviously is exciting to be able to be the one to bring him back in the first scene in the franchise, but also as a huge Cillian Murphy fan, I was, like, pinching myself. The way I thought about this scene was, 28 Days Later is like a really punk, like, give-no-fucks sort of franchise. You don't think about it as a franchise, even. And so what I didn't want to do with the scene was make it feel like a superhero movie where it's callback central, like this guy came back, and egg it too much. I really wanted it to feel like a scene where a father is teaching her daughter how to live in this world and teaching her about his world, and then in that, we're learning about how he feels about the world he came from and what's important.

that's a laugh.

to the economic landscape... So, for me, this was just... it was just important to not make him feel like a returning hero, but make him feel like the Jim you left at the end of the first film. Someone who was full of hope, someone who had a family.

What? Listen.

Yeah. So, Cillian gave us a great cut point here, with the gun. 'Cause he was like, "Can I do something with the gun when I leave?" And we're like, "What'd you mean?" He's like, "You know, something cool." And then the armorer was like, "You can do..." You know, that thing.

So this is really fun, 'cause, again, I was like, "That's obviously Spike and Ink." But I was like, "We're not in their story anymore. "We're in this story." And this story leads us into the third film. And so everything is done from that point of view. Which is why, of course, you have, in a heartbeat, the theme from 28 Days Later coming back in here, it's Jim's story. Because, again, we're coming back to his story. We're catching up with him in a way that's really exciting and fun. So, yeah, I mean, I love that scene, I love this whole movie. But it was really, for me, so exciting, so exciting. It was just really exciting for me to be able to direct this film, to be able to work with Danny and Alex, and our producers, Peter and Andrew and Bernie, and... and put my stamp on this world that I loved for such a long time. Yeah. Anyway, everyone you can see here... everyone listed here is an absolute genius. And... And it's such a gift to be able to work with my crew, like some of whom I worked with multiple times, like Sean and I, it's our third film, Hildur, our second film, et cetera. And then the new crew, some of the crew that stayed over from Danny's film. Des Hamilton, he's my guy. I love them. It was just great. It was a real privilege. And then this whole ending, the main-on-ends that you're watching now, are done by Matt Curtis. And so this is a fun... Yeah. And again, the cast. I cannot speak more highly of them. Like, there were no duds on the cast. That's what I like to say.

Everyone was wonderful and beautiful. And it was just such a fun shoot despite the darkness of what we were dealing with. So... SO, yeah. Anyway, thanks so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed me talking at you for two hours. Have a good one.