#2053 - Danny & Michael Philippou
2023-10-27 02:10:55
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
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What's up?
Hello, hello, hello.
Pleasure to meet you guys.
Nice to meet you too.
Oh my god, we're live. Ladies and gentlemen.
Introduce yourself to everybody.
I'm Danny Filippo, it's my clone, Michael.
And not clones.
Oh, well.
Yeah, there's a big difference, isn't there? Danny acts like we look, well, we're identical. twins. Mirror image twins.
Yeah. Michael's the dumb twin.
The unreliable twin. Danny's the arrogant twin. I wouldn't say that.
But, ladies and gentlemen, we're here on the Joe Rogan Experience. I'm so, like, yeah. It's very surreal.
I'm fanboying, yeah.
We've got young Jamie over there. We might pull some things up. And we're going to talk about DMT and elk meat.
Did you guys prepare for this? No.
Yeah, we were writing last night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know, yeah. Michael's like, we're going to be at the Joe Rogan podcast. And all of your guests are really smart.
I feel like people will be dumb if they're listening to us.
There's a lot of dumb ones, too. Don't worry about it.
Okay.
That'll be the playlist we're in.
So, tell me about you guys, the background. First of all, how did it come that you made that movie?
Well, we've always wanted to make films, ever since we were little kids.
Is that your first, like, real film?
That was our first proper production.
The fucking movie was awesome.
It was so weird that you posted about it. How did you hear about it?
I was just flipping through, I think I was just flipping through, like, the current movies on Apple, on Apple TV. Yeah. And I saw, my daughter loves horror movies. And so we would like to watch horror movies together. And I was like, let's try this one.
And we watched a preview, and she was like, oh, it's good. And then I watched it. I was like, that is a really good original movie.
Fuck yeah.
It's fucking scary as shit. Oh, man, it's crazy. And it wasn't like any other movie. It wasn't like, oh, this is like 28 Days Later, or this is like The Exorcist. No, it's like very original.
Yeah, it's something we've been, like, building towards, making a movie for forever. And we've been writing scripts forever as well. We had a YouTube channel. So we started off, like, making stuff as little kids. We've been obsessed since we were seven years old with, like, making stuff.
Even before filming, we'd just draw movie covers and shit like that and pretend we're – We'd, like, play, act through a movie and look at the time and, like, act for 90 minutes and then draw the cover.
Like, we were loser kids.
Loser kids, creative. Yeah.
I remember, even in primary school, they had to bring my mum in. They're like, we're really concerned about Danny, because I would draw the most violent, fucked up, you know, movie covers. Or just, like, someone getting split in half trying to figure out different ways that I could kill these stick figures. or, you know. Yeah.
Like, it was like – And then, like, we had a group of friends around the same age, like 12, 15 kids, same age in the neighborhood. Yeah. And we'd do two things together. We'd beat the shit out of each other, like backyard wrestling, and then we'd do – make movies. And, like, that's what – if our friends wanted to hang out with us, they had to do it.
Like, I feel bad for them. And then, like, they'd come together and we'd just fuck each other up, and then we'd, like, film movies and stuff.
So you've always been interested in some kind of filming and something. And so you started off with a YouTube channel?
Yeah.
Well, initially we were just making stuff with friends. And then a TV show.
It was called Temuffy, 96 episodes.
And where was that?
That was just –.
It always says it's a TV show.
It was never on TV. It was on our TV. Yeah, it was on our TV.
We would play it for our friend's older sister, Nellie, and we would just premiere it for her. And as we got older, all of our friends were growing out of it and were like, why are you still doing this? It's really immature. Everyone was growing up, getting jobs, getting girlfriends, and we were still trying to make movies.
Yeah, we'd organize, like, a big weekend with everyone. But everyone was 18.. Like, in Australia, you could go out when you're 18.. And we're like, look, guys, we've organized this weekend filming, like trying to organize all these people. And they're like, ah, no, I'm fucking going out.
What the fuck are you doing this shit? And then, like, yeah, we had to – we were doing a media course, like, after high school. We didn't know what – like, oh, let's just pursue this thing. Even though film industry – film isn't a thing in Australia. So we're just filming stuff.
It's a thing, but it's not –.
no one looks at it.
Like, there's no entertainment scene. It's not like LA.
It's not like LA where you go – first time we went to LA, and everyone's talking about scripts. You're like, holy fuck, it's like a real –.
it feels like a different world, almost. Or an impossible job. Yeah. Because at school, if you're like, oh, I want to be a filmmaker, teachers are like, what? You need to be an electrician.
I remember that was one of our teachers. Like, you, should be an electrician, or you've got to pick a trade.
Because it just seems – it seems impossible.
You know, as a kid, it seems impossible to – yeah.
But it was, like, pre-YouTube sort of stuff.
And then, like, we were doing – like, I was doing, like,
just, like, work, experience, jobs on movies, just to get experience. Like, because no one will turn – no one will ever turn away, like, a free pair of hands. And I'd always be like, oh, come on, set for free. Just let me – I just want to, like – I want to see everything, how things work. So I worked with all different departments.
And a lot of people that we worked with we used on our movie. Because I remember, like, the ones that were, like, there for a reason. Like, they're, like, excited to be there. Versus the ones that were, like, you know, like, depressed and, like, don't really want to be there. It's just, like, a paycheck thing.
So, like, I remember, like, certain people – like, there was grips, all from different departments. And I was like, I'm going to use these people.
when we do our movies.
Cultivate the good ones. Yeah, yeah.
Because, like, on a film set, like, when it's – like, the crew morale is so big. Like, if you have, like, everyone, clashing and working against each other.
That being said, I think we did piss off crew a whole bunch of times. Maybe.
Because it was supposed to be an eight-week shoot. It turned into a five. But, anyway, you're skipping ahead, man.
Boy, I'm just saying. But, yeah. So we went to – Wait, before that. So we finished this series that we did, and no one wanted to do it anymore. Everyone had grown out of it.
So we started just finding different ways to express ourselves. We could never get a normal job. So my only paid job I ever did was, yeah, medical trials, checking into hospitals and testing out drugs that weren't on the market yet. Whoa. Yeah.
You did that?
Yeah, I did that for two years.
Would they test out on you?
I stopped listening.
You know, I was like –.
You just let them try it?
Yeah, yeah. They would tell me that, like, oh, this could happen, or this could happen. And I was like, just give me whatever. I don't give a fuck. Just give me some money.
Danny would have crazy.
side effects. It was like yellow once. Yeah, it's like yellow now. Yeah, yeah. He was like – Once he was like, well, we have ADHD.
We're always shaking. But Danny was like, once. he was like this, I went to visit him and he was doing, like, shaking. And I was like, you're right. I was like, yeah, it's a side effect of the drug.
Anyway, it was like muscle tremors all up through my arms, so I just couldn't physically –.
What was that drug? I literally –.
Dude, I did not listen to her. They would tell me they would send all these big pamphlets and we'd have to sign a bunch of shit, but I would never listen. I would never know what I was there for.
Did you have any concern about doing that? No.
I was more excited to get some cash.
How old were you at the time?
18..
Yeah, that's the problem.
Yeah, yeah.
You shouldn't let 18-year-olds make that decision.
Yeah.
18 to 20 is when I did it. Well, it was a way.
for you to, like,
ride and meet, like, people. Because there's a lot of interesting people that go through there. But I just hate injections, so I don't know.
I also didn't try and get over my fear for injection, because once they, like, administer the drug, they have to, like, get your blood every 15 minutes. So, like, they'd put the cannulas in your arm and they'd just keep taking out blood, taking out blood and just testing whether or not things would go wrong.
What was the worst side effect you got?
He grew a third eye. Oh, fuck off. No, I didn't.
I remember they were administering it with, like, a cannula. It was a drip. They were dripping the drug in and it was really fucking hurting. And usually it doesn't hurt. Usually I just, like, take it or they would administer it and I didn't really feel anything.
but it was painful. It was hurting. It was hurting.
I was like, oh, God.
She's like, are you alright? I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's okay, it's okay. You can keep, yeah. And I was like, oh, fuck,
that really drills. It felt like someone.
was punching my arm.
Did they miss the vein? No, no.
It was like, whatever happened was my whole arm went paralysed. And I was like, dude, I can't feel my hand. I can't move my hand. She's like, alright, well, just squeeze my finger. She put her finger there until we try and squeeze it and I'm like, oh, I literally can't do it.
So she said, alright, quickly, take the drug out. and they took the drug out and I was just sort of sitting there with a paralysed arm and I probably sat there for like an hour and once the drug had worn off, I got my feeling back.
And you don't remember what that drug was?
Fuck, I'm so sorry. I really, I could dig it off my ear while I was probably, but, yeah.
How many different drugs did they try on you?
Well, I did it for two,
three years,
so over ten drugs, I'd say, different things. I tried. It was like,
you go in there for like, like group, like patches of like, four, see, I was doing the work experience on set, but also mine was free, so Danny would do the stuff that got the money for that. Whatever, that was. The longest time.
I was in hospital for, it could range from three days in hospital to two months. So, oh yeah, one time I was in there for two months. For what?
For the drugs.
So you just stayed in the hospital for two months while they administered drugs?
Yeah, yeah.
And then they pretty much.
just wait to see what the side effects are going to be.
And you have to sleep in the hospital and stay there?
Yeah, you just stay there overnight.
How much do they pay for something like that?
$150 a day, $120 a day.
An Australian, so what is that? $100 or something like that?
Less than that, yeah, $90 USD a day.
For months? Yeah, once,
two months.
Wait, wait, wait, no, it is crazy. Like, there was that famous case, I don't know if it was in, where it was, but the, the patients, because they do it like, you know, they'll test one person and then, half an hour later, test another, then another, right? And then, people started dying off, and like, then YouTube was like,
going down the line,
because, like, someone, died half an hour later.
and they died. That was like a freaking,
imagine being the last guy and they go in and they go, look, look.
Yeah, you're about to fucking die. Yeah, look, no, there's this side effect.
How many people died?
What? Okay, I don't know, I don't know what story specifically this guy is talking about, but the trials that I was checking into, no one died. The worst one I heard of was they test it on mice before they test it on the humans, and they had to bring everyone back into the trial and say,
hey guys,
and I heard this from a friend that recommended the trials to me, he's like, guys, we don't want anyone to worry, but some of the mice have gone blind, and yeah, so everyone was sort of waiting to see if someone was going to fuck up their site, but everyone was-.
And this was after you'd already gotten the drug?
Yeah, well,
this is a friend's experience. Yeah, they'd had the drug and they brought everyone back in like a week later and they said some of the mice had gone blind.
Jesus.
Yeah, yeah. But, you know,
what was the best part? The best part was when- The blindness was the best part. No, no, the best part.
is when the drug goes wrong and then you get to leave early. Because you don't have to stay for the two months, like, this, drug's too dangerous, we're not going to test it. And then you get paid for the full amount.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. That makes no sense. The drug goes wrong.
Yeah.
So like that one, when they administered it and my whole arm went paralyzed, they realized they couldn't administer that drug to everyone else,
so the trial got called off.
But you got paid.
for the full month.
No long-term side effects?
No.
Oh, look at him.
I don't know. I've never really questioned it. until you're looking at me like I'm crazy. Come on, man. It's just a drug trial.
Well, if you pay attention to drug trials, how many drugs get approved and then pulled. I mean, that's just after approval. Yeah. And you're way before approval. Yeah, yeah.
You're a guinea pig.
Yeah, I was a guinea pig.
He was the guinea pig after the guinea pigs.
Yeah.
It's a little bit of a safety net to be like, oh, it's tried on hamsters before.
But yeah, it was pretty dodgy, but it was the only way that I could make money.
No, you could get a normal job. No, I don't. Yeah, you could have.
got a normal job.
No, I'm telling you, Joe, I could not get a normal job.
Our minds would never let us do that. Like, I could never...
I don't know, like... Focus.
Yeah, focus. Like, you're always just seeing life through, like, as a movie scene or something like that. The one job I had, I had two jobs. One was recycling, like, bottles. And then the other one was, I was...
It was in between the years of the media course, and I was like... I got, like, a job illegally,
like, rolling dirt. You know, like, before they build a house,
they, like, roll dirt.
with, like...
Yeah, like, flattened earth. And I was in that machine on this hill, flattening earth. And then I was like... In my... I was like...
To make time go by, I was like, in my own, like, imagination world, or, like, in a movie scene, like, you know. And I was just, like, playing a movie in my head, and I was going closer and closer to the edge. And they started ringing...
Like, they were talking to me on the radio. Dude!
Stop!
You're going too far past the... You know, you're going to go off the edge. And I rolled the fucking machine.
Oh, Jesus.
And then I...
But to me, it was, like, exciting. I was like, oh, something happened. I feel like that's more.
dangerous than my drug trials. No, because...
You're rolling fucking... No, no, no, no,
because if you pay attention, like, if you pay attention in your drug trial, you've still got to go blind, maybe.
Yeah, well, no, no. It was... You know what I mean?
It was like,
inattention. It's like, that's way safer. Yeah, but I actually want.
to check back into a trial now, just to try and get some writing done. Because you can't...
You want to do it again?
I do want to do it again, yeah, yeah. You just meet interesting people in there. Like, who are these people that are in there?
They're dumb people that are getting injected with experimental drugs.
Don't do that.
Don't do that again.
I think it's like,
you can't go anywhere. There's no distractions. You're just in a hospital bed with your laptop, so you have to get some writing done.
Can't you just check yourself into a hotel?
It doesn't work,
because you could just walk out.
You can't leave this trial. Yes, you can. You'll get fucking shot. No, you won't really, but yeah.
Look, man,
if Joe Rogan tells you not to do it, don't do it. Write it down. Don't do it.
Don't do it.
It's advice from Joe Rogan.
Are you guys both left-handed?
No, I'm right-handed. We're mirror-image. twins. We're mirror-image.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, wait.
I'm left-handed. Yeah, well, I'm right-handed.
Yeah.
But yeah, the left-handed is your... We're split.
We're split,
because we're mirror-image, but I guess I'm more physical.
Yeah, I'm like the nerd twin.
Danny's more like the brains. I'll get hit by cars for videos, and Danny will record it.
And tell him to go faster.
And every time we did a car hit, we'd have to step it up a little bit. There was one nasty one we did, and I was like... because I was like, I know that if it does half-assed, Danny will go, do it again. So I'm like, oh, let's just do a good... And usually, I have stunt performers for car hits, because usually, before you hit someone in a car, you brake a little bit to dip the bonnet down.
And this guy wasn't a stunt driver, and I was like, just do it. And then he hit me, and I was like,
whoo!
It's an interesting thing for car hits,
where it's like... because you lose where you are for a flash second, you know?
It's called getting a concussion. Yeah. Did you...
Wait, do you have the video of it? Yeah, it was extreme.
It was a pretty brutal car hit.
It was a brutal one.
How many times have you been hit by cars?
Um...
I don't know, two dozen, something like that.
What the fuck, dude?
But it's like a stuntman. Michael's a...
I'm a certified... In Australia,
you have to get certification to get a stunt license. In America, you can just say, I'm a stunt guy, and then... I guess, if you're bad, they just want to call you back or something.
So was getting hit 24 times. part of that... Ha ha! ...accreditation?
Some of the stuff was like, martial arts for six months, body control, stunt reel, being on set for ten days, a letter of recommendation from an assistant stunt coordinator and a stunt coordinator, you have to get set on fire, you have to do high falls, you have to get your bronze medallion, swimming, so there's like a big... There's like five categories you have to do. It takes a few years, but I was driving... I was production running for a TV show, and I met a stunt guy, Jod Wild, and we just got along. I was interested in stunts.
We've been doing stunts since we were little kids, and I showed him some of our old videos, like pre-YouTube, and then he's like,
dude, you should get accredited.
And then he helped me get my accreditation. I was doing some editing for him, some stuff, and then for our videos, we would get him and we'd create... We were introduced to the stunt world through Jod, and we've worked with over 100 performers now and special effects guys, and we'd create different... Like our videos on YouTube,
we'd always go with a new...
Like, oh, how do we do a sinking set where we can fight and the set's sinking and filling with water? Or how do we do this rig, this stunt rig? And we'd innovate and create different things. So we're looking forward to doing an action movie because we have a cool team.
We're attached right now to the Street Fighter movie. Yeah, for the Capcom video game.
Hold on. Do you have video of you getting hit by a car? Yeah.
Let me see this. Wait, because the thing...
It's called... No, no, no, no. This is a bad one.
No, no, no. Let me see this one.
This one's fine. You can tell me a better one after this.
Let's see this one.
This is not him. The next one will be him.
Yeah, so this is... We have a stunt performer seeing who could get hit faster.
It's not faster.
Oh, shit!
This whole window is fucking coming through.
Oh, Jesus.
Yeah, way down. Dude.
If you go to... I might have to send you a link.
What the fuck?
That was a...
Wait, if there's... It's called Extreme Desk.
Can I send you a link? Extreme what?
I've got one that's unlisted.
I can send you a link. If you have it on your phone, you can send it to me.
Send the link. This is the most brutal one. It's a really good one. You will love this one. He goes flying.
If you like car hits, man,
but there's a...
The way that I do car hits is different to stunt guys.
because stunt guys...
Like, you kind of... Get the damn link. You lean back and you kind of let the...
You should be able to airdrop it to my computer.
Shut the fuck up and get the link.
Get the fucking link, man. Alright, I'm gonna get the link.
I don't know what's dumber, the car accidents or the injections.
Okay, but stunt performers, you know, in films...
You guys are fucking out of control. But, you know,
stunt performers in films, you know, get run over by cars all the time.
Yeah, that's not good either.
Yeah, no. You don't like the practical elements of filmmaking?
The practical elements. Is that what you're gonna call it?
You know, there's CG fight scenes.
or like a practical fight scene, where they're actually, you know, going hard.
That's a profession.
Yeah, right.
You don't want it to be...
You can always tell...
Okay, I've got a link. What do I do?
You can airdrop it to my MacBook Pro, I think. Possibly.
Get it up, Michael.
I copy the link.
and then I... And then, when you go to share, you should be able to airdrop share.
Okay. Share. I keep talking about how dumb we are.
No, well, I just think that.
we always respect.
when you see things done practically in terms of stunts. Whenever it turns to CG, there's a disconnect. Right. Yeah, and so stunt performers that really, really innovate their craft or really put their bodies on the line or build up to a really big stunt are just... For our film, for stunt, for Street Fighter, we know we want to do a whole bunch of practical stunts.
Yeah, yeah.
And we've started designing.
the fight scenes already and figuring them out in our heads. So we're so excited to do what we do in the backyard, but with a proper budget.
and a proper team.
you guys are doing all this fucking around and having a good time and creating all these things. How does it get to talk to me?
So, we always wanted to... Oh, shit. We always wanted to get into filmmaking and make films. The YouTube stuff was a really good way for us to...
Yeah, build up as filmmakers.
It was an accident that it was all like YouTube. We just posted because we were doing these fake fail videos, like pretending things went wrong when they didn't. Like sticking a knife into a toaster. Things like that, and just putting them on Facebook. And they were going really viral, but no one knew where they were coming from.
So we created... Our friend said, you should do a YouTube channel.
just to show.
who's making the stuff. And we didn't expect anything from it. Like we were working on short films and things like that. And then, one... Inside a year, the channel got...
How many... Yeah, a million subscribers.
A million subscribers. And then we were like, we're not even putting that much effort into these videos. What if we actually focus on it? And then we went down the rabbit hole of YouTube forever. But the end goal was always film and television.
We never set out.
to be YouTubers.
But the world's so fun, you know. And it's instant gratification. You see growth, comments, likes, you know. Right. And cool opportunities to like, go to cool countries and do like awesome things.
But you end up just like you're chasing trends and you're just following the algorithm and you're not really expressing yourself towards the end.
Oh, we were towards the end. Don't even lie.
It was more like... Yeah, like... It was like. our videos are like crazy, like action comedy, but stunts, stunt stuff that we don't... Like, the movies that we saw, like watching, is very different to the stuff we were making.
So if we couldn't... Couldn't do like.
a deep, serious thing on our channel, like... Because people just click off straight away, you know. You have to be like... Someone has to jump through a window like within three seconds.
Could never express myself personally. Like I wanted to have scenes where two characters can sit down and have a conversation. But with our YouTube channel we weren't able to do that.
But hold on, you say weren't able to. You just didn't want to because you didn't think you'd get as much engagement.
Well, I think that the audience that we built would be like what the fuck is this?
Well, how do you know?
We posted some like longer stuff.
Yeah, yeah. But you know what?
It's actually true.
We never did like a... We never went for it in that way and tried to do it. But we just saw once we had like a minute intro.
like a slow intro.
and then you see the attention rate, and it's just... People that stay past the first minute. watch the whole thing.
But you were captured by that. Like, so that... The attention span was what motivated you to either do or not do something.
Yeah, because it affects.
your reach. Even though you're chasing the algorithm.
But we would never...
Like YouTube, would always tell us things to... We'd never listen to them.
Like if you do this.
you'll get more and get...
What do you mean? me, you two? Like someone, contacted you and tried to coach you on how to do it? Well, the first thing.
we didn't put ads on our videos at first. YouTube was like at first. like dude, put ads on your stuff. We're like no, we're not doing this for money. We want to just...
We're artists. We're just artists.
dude. We're artists.
We're artists.
who get hit by cars and we practice medicine. Can I see you get hit by a car? The good one?
I don't... I didn't see it in here, unless I missed it.
It's the very beginning of it.
What link did you send, Michael?
I sent the wrong one.
I sent that scene. He's the unreliable dude.
He's so stupid. Hey, man.
What kind of ADD drugs do they give you over in Australia? Because you guys are on some shit.
Yeah, well, we haven't on any medication.
but we need to be.
I don't think you need to be. No, no, no. You don't. No, what you have is a superpower.
But it's too sporadic. Yeah, but that's okay. That's okay.
That's okay. Because that creates creativity.
Right. And it also does this on podcasts.
Yeah, it's okay.
That's alright. When was the last fist fight? you were in, Joe? Fist fight? Yeah, when was the last brawl you were in?
I'm not really a brawl person.
But you have void fights.
Wait, I want to know.
I want to hear about his last fight.
I have void fights. I haven't been in a fight since I was in high school other than like an organized fight.
Oh, right.
So it was in high school.
was your last fist fight?
Yeah.
What were you fighting about?
Like a fist fight with another kid? Yeah.
What happened? Why'd you do it?
Oh, I don't remember. Just some bullshit.
Did you win?
The last one. I did.
But the one before that you got beaten?
I definitely lost a bunch of them. That's how I got into martial arts. Getting my ass kicked.
And why'd you get your ass kicked? What was the...
I was just getting bullied. You know, some kids would find you and beat you up, or try to beat you up, or things along those lines. Nothing serious.
It's like a thing in high school. Hey, like you're automatically tested.
and weird. That's junior high school too. Okay, so this is you right here?
Oh, God. This is supposed.
to be like... Yeah, okay. Shut the fuck up and play it. Let's go.
Bro, I dated them in front of that car. Are you serious?
Bro, do it. It's a dare.
It's a dare.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Oh, my God, dude.
No helmet. No padding.
I did a kidnap that kid there. This is like a parody.
of...
It's a parody.
of like... Kids at home,
don't try this.
No, yeah, it was parodying that stuff. Do people get mad at you.
because people are trying to imitate what you guys are doing, getting hit by cars and saying that it's irresponsible?
No, because our stuff was always like... That. one was paying out YouTube, like trends like that, like the tripod challenge and things like that. That was like paying.
that out.
Our stuff was always like a filmmaker. Like it was like... It was like stunts.
and things, but it was done.
through like a scene, like a movie scene and stuff. It wasn't like jackass where it's like just go jump in front of it.
You said like 64 times in that one sentence. Like...
What's your problem?
Do I have to like lay you out in front?
of Joe right now? Like...
You can give it a shot.
Would you start commentating if me and Michael started brawling right now?
No, I'd probably separate you.
Oh, that's very nice. It's responsible of you.
He'd probably jump in.
I don't want you to break any wires.
Would you? Would you? You know how? there's the influencer boxing scene?
You know, should they.
do something like that in UFC, where different people that are more behind the scenes fight each other?
No. What?
You versus Bruce Buffer?
No.
Would you watch that?
No, you want to watch people fight that are actual fighters. You don't want to watch people fight yourself.
Dude, I feel like if you were going to fight.
Bruce Buffer, that would sell really well.
Bruce Buffer's, my friend.
I know, but...
It wouldn't hurt Bruce Buffer.
That's an example, but do you know what I mean? People would want to watch that.
Yeah, but that's like a thing where it's like the YouTube stuff is...
Yeah, you guys are thinking too much about likes and engagement.
Yeah. No. Let's switch it up. Let's get back to.
talking to me.
You know, I'm friends with Israel, Adesanya.
You're friends with him? Yeah. I love that dude.
He's the fucking coolest motherfucker.
in the world. He and his brother. Have you met, David, his brother?
I met him when he was with Israel, but not like...
He is the funniest guy ever. Their whole family's like... Oh, they're so cool, man.
Izzy saw...
We met him through Talk To Me, and then we went to his premiere for his documentary and stuff, and then, like...
I used to watch him fight Knees of Fury.
in Adelaide in South Australia.
Oh, wow.
I was a fan of him way back when. I remember him, like just... The first time I saw him fight, he was main event, and he.
was fighting the champ,
and I was like, oh man, this guy's going to get killed to Izzy, but then Izzy just flying knee the dude in the face like first round, and the guy didn't get up for half an hour. Everyone started leaving.
That's crazy. It was so like.
savage, and the way that he moves, and there's like a flow and a rhythm.
The last fight,
we went to the last fight, and it was unfortunate what happened, but when he came out like moonwalking, it was like, oh man, he's got such a fucking vibe about it. He's the best.
stage presence. Coolest guy ever. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so awesome. We want to cast.
him in something. Yeah.
Yeah, it's a good idea.
Because I feel like he could act.
Fuck yeah.
Yeah. And do his own stunts.
So did you guys write? talk to me? How'd the idea come about?
There was these neighbors that we watched grow up, and one of them was experimenting with drugs for the first time, and was having a negative reaction to what he'd taken, and he was on the floor convulsing, and the kids that he was with weren't helping him. They were filming him and laughing at him.
Oh Jesus.
So that was the.
first thing that really stuck into my head that I wanted to put on the page. There was a guy named Daley Pearson, who produces a show called Bluey in.
Australia.
It's like a cartoon kids show. He had a short film that was about kids having fun with possession. It was a comedy, horror, short. There was no hand.
or anything.
There was no hand or anything like that.
kind of concept of using it for fun, possession for fun.
So I did a rewrite of the short film, and then, once I did that, I just couldn't stop writing. So within the first 10 days, 12 days, I had 80 pages for a draft, and I've got a co-writer named Bill Hinsman that I send everything through, and we just collaborate and bounce drafts back and forth. So that happened around 2018, 2019, and then we decided that we're going to move out of Australia, move to Hollywood, said goodbye to all our friends and family, did a big, dramatic goodbye. We're like, we're going to go to LA, and we're going to sell this fucking script.
And it's going to take years to sell it. We went out there.
and everybody said no.
Every studio said no.
We couldn't get meetings anywhere. There's like a low-budget place called Shutter that did low-budget horror films. We couldn't even get a meeting in there.
Being a YouTuber, there's like a stigma attached to it. If you want to break outside of it, there's like a stigma for being a YouTuber. People knew, we can keep an audience's attention for five minutes, but our film was so different. People would go, yeah, you're a YouTuber, not a filmmaker. But then there was one studio that was eventually- But after that,
we reached out to Causeway Films. Michael did some work experience on this horror film called The Bubble Duke.
Oh, I love that movie.
Yeah, yeah. So Michael was- I was not- You were work experience.
on The Bubble Duke.
I was production runner. Well, Michael was paid to drive around actors.
And Danny was- You did lighting.
I did lighting. Work experience.
is like an intern.
Right, yeah.
So we reached out.
to Causeway Films and said, we've got this project. We sent it through to them. They were surprisingly interested and surprisingly took a chance on us. They helped us develop the script further. So we did another draft and then, probably after three months of them, we were ready to go.
And by then, our company in Hollywood reached out and we're going to make it. But they started giving us creative notes that were pushing it into a bit more of a typical direction. They weren't bad notes at all, but it was sort of wanting to explore where the hand came from, explore how to beat it, explore who the demons were. And it felt too typical, whereas I really wanted the kids to be in out of their depth.
and over their heads.
and not understand what it is that they're messing with.
That was part of the intrigue of the film. It's like, what is that? Where did they get that? And you don't really explain it that well, which is kind of cool. Yeah, yeah,
which is what we wanted to do as well.
What also seemed typical, like what kids would do if they were partying and someone brought something fucking crazy out, there would be a lot of confusion. Yeah, yeah. Instead of having a clearly defined origin story of it. Or like the scene.
where they go to the library and they dig up the old archive footage. Yeah, yeah.
This was back in the day of the 18th century. Yeah, yeah.
We know what it is, but even the kids, they have an idea of what they think the rules are. But that's not necessarily the rules, that's just what they think they are.
Right, right.
And everybody's body reacts differently to drugs. So one person's experience with weed will be different from another person's experience of weed. And so we wanted to sort of have that sort of vibe with the hand.
Yeah, they've got rules based on like, when I do it,
that's it,
97%. you're good, man. But depending on your mental state or the way your body reacts to it, it's going to be very different. And it's also that thing of like how people, if you see someone drunk, like you're with a friend and they're drunk, like you find it funny, like someone's drunk. But if they're, say, their family's religious, I remember a friend's family who was very religious, they came and he was like drunk in his underwear vomiting, and we thought it was funny.
And then I looked over and his mum was crying because she was like, you know, that's not her perception of it as well. It's like, that's what it sounds like, a devil in the sun or something. Like he was like,
so like fucked up.
And that was like sticking as well. It's like just different interpretations of what's going on. So the kids are having fun with it, but there's that kind of undertone of the reality of it is very different to the way that they're perceiving it.
So when you're creating something like this, like when you're creating the script and the storyline, do you guys disagree with direction? How collaborative is it? Well,
I can't ever write with Michael. We'll just butt heads too much and we'll start fighting. So my co-writer, Bill Hinsman, him and I, will work on stuff together and then, when we've got a draft, we'll present it to Michael. Yeah. And then he just starts fucking tearing into it, saying it's boring and it's shit.
If you like, because when you're like creating, like the story and stuff, if there's no, like set ending, I'll have ideas and Danny will as well.
So it'll kind of be.
in two different directions. Like it could get yanked in two different directions,
but if Danny does like,
because we write scripts separately,
then there's like the outlines. Okay, I know what you're going for and then add notes that way, as opposed to like trying to veer it into a different thing.
And then also writing's so personal, and you're exploring really personal themes, and Michael and I just don't get that deep and personal with each other. Even though our brothers, we'd find that really awkward. or we just don't have that sort of relationship. We have more of a working relationship as opposed to.
And we just, it's like, it's, our whole lives is filming and stuff so that there's,
like we don't go, oh, let's go, hang out.
or whatever. like, you know, we're always traveling together and stuff, but we don't like, oh, let's do this together.
It's always film related.
And so, are you like, at the end of it, before you start filming, do you guys have to get approval on the final script? Is it like,
Yeah, yeah.
Do they have to give you the green light? Like, what is the process between you? come up with the concept, creating a script, them giving you the green light, and then you're like, okay, we're back.
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