The Theological Horror That Could: How A24’s ‘Heretic’ Followed Its Final Girls to Unlikely Success
It’s easier to imagine selling A24 on a complex theological discussion masquerading as a horror-comedy about two missing Mormons — but it’s not that much easier.
Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (“A Quiet Place”), “Heretic” hit theaters on November 8 after premiering to mostly positive reviews at TIFF. A dialogue-heavy indie about society’s failing faith in God, the surprisingly heady abduction thriller found unlikely success in an eclectic month for genre. That was true even against the back half of major October titles such as “Terrifier 3” and “Smile 2.”
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The dense script is a tough sell. A villainous Hugh Grant is cast against type — delivering what may be cinema’s all-time best Jar Jar Binks joke — doesn’t come with a built-in crwods Beck and Woods’ mid-budget genre experiment follows odd-couple missionaries, Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher), into the serpentine lair of the fanatical and pop culture-obsessed Mr. Reed (Grant).
The young women have plans to teach the charming stranger about their faith, but now he’s the one keen on a kind of twisted conversion therapy. At once lighter and looser than that setup sounds, “Heretic” crossed a critical threshold in its third weekend to become a decisive financial success for A24. Its starring actresses, both raised Mormon, spoke with IndieWire about the film’s commitment to clarity and authenticity ahead of their movie’s surprising release.
The following interview has been condensed for length and clarity.
IndieWire: This is such an extraordinary script. What was your reaction reading it the first time?
Chloe East: Initially, when I got the audition, I just read the two-sentence logline, and it was A24 with sister missionaries, and it was thriller/horror. That was kind of all I got, and I was like, “Damn, I can’t do this movie because it’s just going to be a one-sided movie about religion, and it’s going to hit you over the head with all of this stuff.” But I was still really intrigued by it, and I wanted to give it my best shot. So I read the script, and I was so pleased by the kind of open discussion that it ultimately is. And I loved that these characters were real characters — they weren’t Mormon stereotypes — and that they were sisters because we only ever see elders. And it was a play too!
Sophie Thatcher: I remember immediately showing it off to my mom and my boyfriend. I felt really restless and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. That’s rare because you get to read a lot of scripts and this was something that I just couldn’t stop thinking about. For me, it felt almost like because I’d been away from the church for a while it could be this perfect full-circle moment, dissecting that in such a heightened and classy way. There was immediate trust there with the studio and I knew, immediately, “I have to do this. I need to find a way to get this role.”
Talk to me about working with Scott Beck and Bryan Woods as co-writers and directors. How did their familiarity — not just with the material but with each other — impact your creative process?
Thatcher: They visited me on set for this movie “Boogeyman,” which they wrote. So I knew their dynamic from that and knew that it was a very interconnected, brotherly relationship where they often felt similarly. But their team dynamic also expanded the perspective of “Heretic” as a movie because there were always two different voices guiding the room. We were able to try different options and have a lot of different takes. It was nice to have that perspective, although most of the time, they were always on the same page and very direct. That’s something you really appreciate as an actor because sometimes you get directors who talk around the point.
Plus, I think them knowing Mormonism and being close to it made me feel really safe. We were approaching it in a very sensitive way and we had rehearsals where we were able to really talk to them. They had us write backstories. Personally, I always do that, but I’d never had a director specifically ask me to in depth. Then, we sent that to them and it felt like this inviting collaboration right at the start.
East: Scott and Bryan are really another breed of human. I’ve never seen two people be so in sync and so calm. Whenever there was something going on, they really were almost always on the same page. They were childhood friends from kindergarten — basically brothers, fully attached with that twin connect but they’re not twins. Sophie is a twin!
Thatcher: Yeah, I’m a twin, so I get it. [Laughter.]
East: It’s really fascinating how they do it. Another thing that was fascinating to me is that they were always talking about the decisions we would make in scenes from the audience perspective. They’re just so aware of the audience perspective and how they’re going to see the movie with the sound design, with the cinematography and the music. They’re very aware of the whole thing, and I think that is a real talent not everybody has so naturally. With a lot of directors, they’re not thinking about it, and they have a mess when they edit. They edited the movie while we were shooting. They knew what they wanted. I wanted to ask them so many questions just about the way their brains work.
Thatcher: I also feel like because they know so much about movies, there was trust because they’re real cinephiles. It’s just nice to work with directors that know their genre inside and out. They’re so clever within their editing and within their writing and how that accounting for the audience perspective opens everything up. A lot of the time, it’s more inwards when you’re thinking about your specific character, and that can be a selfish way of approaching the work — but they really helped stay open.
Your characters represent this duality in faith without ever becoming too black-and-white. What steps did you take to ensure you didn’t fall into a cliched dynamic or caricatured performance?
Thatcher: At first, I auditioned for Paxton and that felt like a strange stretch for me. When I got the callback for Barnes, I was like, “OK, this makes a little bit more sense.” And I remember reading it feeling like I related more to her character based on how I grew up in the church. I had that innate need to ask questions, and I forced myself to think outside the box a lot. I felt connected to Barnes in that way.
Plus, I was thinking about my family in a way. My family is made up of liberal Mormons and they’re very artistic. I wanted to show a different side because there’s such a wide variety of Mormons. There’s so many different Mormons, and not every Mormon is the cookie-cutter. I think it worked in the movie because I knew it so specifically and it was real to me and my family.
East: I mean, I grew up in San Clemente. I didn’t grow up in Utah. I actually have no Utah connections, unlike a lot of my friends who growing up had them and are pretty strong in the church now. I had a really unique experience growing up. I feel like my mom was totally OK with me wearing bikinis and going to dance competitions on Sundays. I had a very different experience than I know a lot of people have — and I’m not saying that version of Mormonism doesn’t exist, it’s just not the version I know.
My Mormon friends, they’re also not “my Mormon friends.” They are “my friends” who happen to be Mormon. I’ve never thought of them like that because they’re real people. Like they wear cute Free People outfits on their missions. When we were having our fittings with costume designer Betsy Heimann, I really wanted to be involved in my character’s outfit because I didn’t want it to read like, “Here’s this dorky Mormon girl who lives in a bubble and has never been to the mall and doesn’t know how to do her hair.” I wanted Sister Paxton to be a real person, so she wears a D?EN top and it’s cute! I was talking to a lot of my friends while we were shooting, asking, “What do you think of this? And how can we make this more authentic to you guys?”
The last two years have seen a deluge of new religious horror movies. Given your background, do you still feel like that subject matter is controversial?
Thatcher: The thing that I was nervous about in regard to this project was staying really respectful and open-minded with my family because I love my family, and I don’t want to offend anyone. That was in the back of my head for a while, but then after reading the script, I felt like the story and topic were handled with such sensitivity and care that I didn’t think about that as much.
Religious horror works so well in general because everybody either grew up with something or has thoughts about the other people who did. It’s all in us, even if you grew up agnostic or atheist — there are still these questions that live in you. That feeling of dreading the unknown brings up such natural anxiety that I think there’s a lot to play around with in horror. There’s so much thematically in all the old stories that is horrifying — so many characters that are horrifying.
Just the thought of Hell being the absolute worst that existence can get really bothered me as a kid. That built-in anxiety is something every audience member feels innately, whether they want to say it or not, and I think that’s why it works so well. It’s just easier to connect.
East: And there’s this large spectrum of religious horror and holy horror across film. I watched Richard Donner’s original “The Omen” last night, but usually I get hesitant with anything that revolves around the satanic. I do think there’s a line — I just don’t know where that line is with cinema. I am all for liberal filmmaking and doing new things so long as it’s done in a thoughtful, methodical, and intentional way.
Speaking of intimidation, let’s talk about Hugh Grant. Tell me about working with him.
Thatcher: I grew up with “About a Boy” and I’ve seen “Bridget Jones’s Diary” so many times. I just thought of him as like this British lord, this British king, untouchable and very distant and almost like a made-up person. He’s the most celebrity-celebrity I can think of, so it all felt very surreal when I knew that it was him. I felt like I grew up being even intimidated just watching him because he has such a charming demeanor and he’s clearly very smart and very honest about that. But meeting him immediately, I was like, “OK, he’s really trying his best to make us feel like equals.”
To move forward with our script, we really had to all feel like equals. He put in effort to watch me and Chloe in other stuff, and he very complimentary. I was just flattered that he’s still so engaged in movies and watching everything — because I think you can get to a point when you’ve done this for so long that you’re just exhausted by it all. But he made me feel like it was safe to make choices and be collaborative and be present. The fact that we also had these rehearsals, and we got to watch him really think out every move that Mr. Reed made, I have a lot of respect for preparation like that.
East: I knew when I met him that I had to break the ice somehow because I knew otherwise he would live on as this intimidating figure in my head. But I just couldn’t think of anything I could relate to with Hugh. I’m like, “He’s so British and he drinks tea in the morning and he eats Marmite, or whatever it’s called.” But when I initially met him — I know all the film snobs are going to cry about this — but one of my favorite movies is “Paddington 2.” It’s such a good movie.
Thatcher: My mom showed it to me yesterday! She was like, “I can’t believe you haven’t seen it.” [Laughter.]
East: It’s one of the best movies ever made; like, love Tarkovsky but have you seen “Paddington 2”? It’s actually that range. It’s an amazing movie. Anyway, then I also saw him in “Dungeons and Dragons” in the cinemas a couple months before we first met, so I was already on this weird Hugh phase meeting him. What I really appreciated in the end was that Hugh had respect for us. When you’re younger actors working with a huge actor — and maybe this is just my own insecurity — it feels like they don’t respect you or you need to bow down and maintain this head trip of hierarchy that you created on your own. Hugh made me feel really big on a movie that I probably could have felt really small on and that gave us the room to try anything, to talk to him about anything. We talked about being nervous and learning lines in a way that made me feel like we were genuinely in the same situation.
Finally, for each of you, what was your favorite part of your scene partner’s performance?
Thatcher: Chloe is just such a natural instinctual performer, but then she’s also so specific and really thinks out everything and it makes for such a wonderfully layered performance. What’s so special about Chloe’s performance as Paxton is that a lot of the delivery of her lines is really unexpected. The jokes land in such a specific and heartfelt and vulnerable way because she’s such a surprising actor and so specific. You don’t really get that anymore. It’s really hard to find actors like that, who are so uniquely themselves that I think it just makes for such a good arc and one that’s rewarding at the end. I was watching it not last night, but the night before last, and your monologue, Chloe, I looked over and my mom was sobbing. I started crying. It hit me in such a crazy way. Then my sister started crying. It just was so satisfying and beautiful.
East: That’s really nice of you to say, thank you. I have so much respect for Sophie as an actor, and I’ve said it like a broken record, but I really do not think I could have done this without her. I’m so grateful that it was her. I remember when we were shooting, we shot in order, and we were doing the candle-turning scene, and Sophie has this really stunning closeup. We were all kind of sitting around while she was doing that and I remember Brian and Scott were watching over the monitor. Sophie only needed two takes and they were both like, “How do you do that? Do you imagine something… scary?”
Thatcher: [Laughter.] I remember that!
East: Sophie can conjure up these emotions and feelings — well, maybe I shouldn’t use the word “conjure” — but I really do think she has this talent to evoke emotions and feelings in a way that I don’t even really understand. For me, I have to put work into those circumstances and scenes because it isn’t a supernatural state of mind I have. But her last monologue is just incredible. It’s so good and what happens afterwards is so unexpected; you really are just so captivated by every word that Barnes says. Even when we were rehearsing it, we were all blown away that you knew it so well and you delivered it so perfectly every single take. I don’t think you ever stuttered or messed up at all. I felt like it was just coming out of you.
A24’s “Heretic” is still in theaters. No streaming date has been announced.
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