'It's What's Inside' Director Greg Jardin and stars Brittany O'Grady, Gavin Leatherwood, Reina Hardesty, James Morosini and Devon Terrell stop by The Hollywood Reporter's Park City studio during the Sundance film festival to chat all about their new film and bringing the complicated script to life.
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00:00 I also think it's one of those things where you've been to that party where you're like,
00:03 "I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm kind of down for the ride."
00:06 Even for when we read the script for the first time, it was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa."
00:09 I've been pitching it as a sci-fi thriller with jokes, with a sort of unique heightened tone.
00:20 The whole impetus was like, "What if eight people got together in a house for a party?"
00:27 And what if this guy that no one had seen shows up with this suitcase,
00:32 and then what's in the suitcase? And then stuff gets kind of crazy.
00:35 And then I made a lookbook that had a bunch of references, tonal references, visual references.
00:41 Argento Suspiria was a huge visual reference. And just tried to articulate what the tone was.
00:50 Not sure if I did it properly or not, but I tried.
00:54 I was so confused when I read the script. I didn't know what the hell it was.
00:59 I actually heard that James Corden, I called you and I was like, "Can you make heads or tails?"
01:05 We just talked to Greg. And then once we sat down, I was like, "Oh, this guy knows what he's doing."
01:11 And you need that.
01:13 Yeah, I tried to really act like I did when we met.
01:17 That reminds me that another question I wanted to ask was,
01:20 did anyone have a burning question that they had for Greg during the first meeting or sit-down or conversation?
01:28 Yes, but we wouldn't be able to answer given the restraints we've been placed on him.
01:34 I can kind of say almost every single person, except for one actor, all asked basically,
01:40 essentially, "How are you going to make this script make sense?"
01:43 Essentially, is the question that I was asked.
01:46 And the one thing that was so clear when speaking to Greg, I think in my process,
01:51 I don't know if you guys felt the same way, but when I was speaking with you,
01:54 I felt like you created a heightened experience with all the senses.
02:00 Even just showing me the music and showing me who you kind of envisioned for each character,
02:04 I felt like I could see it come to life.
02:07 And that was something that made me want to jump on that train with you.
02:12 You have this really special and unique way of creating, I guess, a very sensual experience for an audience member
02:17 and for the actors being in the story.
02:20 And that's very unique.
02:21 Yeah.
02:22 I imagine no one here has experienced anything akin to what is in the movie,
02:30 but has anyone been on a really crazy friend trip, people in a house situation?
02:36 I mean, I guess one thing that's...
02:38 It's not that crazy, but one thing that is relevant to the movie is
02:41 the first time I played the game Werewolf, which actually was an inspiration on the movie.
02:44 The game Werewolf is you get a group of people,
02:48 one person is the werewolf and they're slowly killing everyone and everyone has to suss out who it is.
02:53 I played that game with a bunch of friends a few years ago and it got so intense.
02:58 Because people have to lie.
03:01 Some people still aren't talking to each other after that night.
03:04 So I guess that's what kind of came to mind when you said that.
03:09 But there were no drugs involved.
03:10 No.
03:11 To my knowledge.
03:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]