‘Together’ at Sundance: Alison Brie and Dave Franco Open Up About “Risky” New Horror Film and Their Late Friend and Collaborator Jeff Baena
Beloved Hollywood couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco have teamed up on the big screen a handful of times already but their new collaboration tests their coupledom in new and horrific ways. And they wouldn’t want it any other way.
“A lot of this film requires close proximity from its two leads to a greater extent than anything I’ve done before,” explains Brie of the film, Together, which will have a world premiere this weekend as part of the Sundance Film Festival. “I don’t know how you could make this movie without a real-life couple because of some of the situations we found ourselves in.”
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To say much more would spoil the experience for festival audiences that have a chance to screen the film as part of Sundance’s Midnight section, so we’ll leave the honors with the official festival description: “With a move to the countryside already testing the limits of a couple’s relationship, a supernatural encounter begins an extreme transformation of their love, their lives and their flesh.”
It’s the work of Melbourne-based filmmaker Michael Shanks, who makes his feature directorial debut on the genre film after turning heads with a well-received short film, Rebooted, and a Blacklist screenplay, Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel. In a candid, careful and compliment-filled joint interview over Zoom — all three talked with intention in order to avoid spoilers — Brie, Franco and Shanks open up on how they came to collaborate on Together, the challenges of a quick and physically demanding shoot Down Under, and why codependency can actually be so scary.
How are you feeling on the eve of your world premiere?
FRANCO Shanks? I’m most curious how you’re feeling …
SHANKS I have the sort of disposition where things that are coming up in the future don’t become real to me until I’m just on the cusp of it. Now that I’m on the cusp of this, I’ve stopped sleeping and I’m starting to stress. But that’s good because it means that I can still actually feel excitement. I’m really, really looking forward to it, and it’s been lovely from my end of things. I live very far away from the industry and none of my friends work in the industry so the fact that this is happening has sent a buzz through my friend group. Everyone’s excited, so it’s really positive and really nice.
Michael, how are you with the cold? I hope you’ve packed some warm clothes.
SHANKS I packed as much warm clothing as possible but I’m not sure I can fully prepare for it because of where I live. I’m just completely unprepared for what winter in Utah is like.
FRANCO All of our producers seem most concerned about what Shanks is going to wear to the festival.
Good producers always think of everything, and I’ll include you on that list since you both produced in addition to starring in this. Michael let’s turn our attention toward Alison and Dave. In your director’s statement, you said you’ll forever be grateful to them for taking a chance on your first feature. You referred to them as “the glue that holds this film together,” which can be taken a couple of different ways after seeing the film. How did you get them to glue themselves to this?
SHANKS I had written this other script [Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel, which made the 2021 Blacklist] that got some eyes on it in the industry. One of my reps [at WME] suggested I meet with Dave because he works with him as well. We met over Zoom and talked about other things. I am a big fan of The Rental, which Dave directed, and that Alison worked on as well. I knew that he likes horror and so do I so we talked a lot about horror. I mentioned that I had written this other horror script and suggested that maybe he look at it and tell me what he thought. Obviously, I was secretly hoping that he’d read it and be like, “Damn, I want to do this.”
The next day, I got a call from my agent saying, “Hey, Dave wants to do the film.” I’m, like, “What are you talking about?” Then he said, “His wife Alison has read it and she likes it, too. How would you feel about both of them coming on board?” I had to bite my fist and say, “Yeah, I’ll think about it. That sounds good.” I then just skipped away off into the day. It was awesome, just amazing. When I first met with Dave, I could see that somebody else was in the house and I wondered if that was Alison. We ended up jumping on a Zoom to have a chat and feel out if we could get on. From there, it felt like it all happened so quickly.
Shanks, writer-director of Together.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Louie McNamara
FRANCO I had seen a short film that Shanks wrote and directed called Rebooted, one of the most beautifully made short films I’ve ever seen. Going into this general meeting, I was already a fan. When he sent me the script for Together, which had a lot of [visual effects] elements that needed to be pulled off in such a difficult and nuanced way, I had faith in him because of how competently he made that short film. I remember reading the [Together] script and immediately turning to Alison to say, “I think we should act in this one together,” because the characters had been together for over a decade. I figured that our real-life relationship could lend itself well to that dynamic.
BRIE Dave and I are pretty selective about the things that we want to act in together. Obviously, we love it and we’re always trying to work together on projects, but there are always factors to consider: Will it be too distracting? Does it just get annoying after a certain point?
FRANCO We don’t want to burn people out.
BRIE As any good producer, Dave sent me the whole package by forwarding me the script and the short film, Rebooted. And, of course, it had been me lurking in the shadows during Shanks’ Zoom with Dave, so I basically audited that meeting and already heard what Shanks was like. I also got to hear them talking about horror and other things. When I read the script, I was just so taken by it. It was so clever how the set pieces tied into the story, nothing felt arbitrary. To Dave’s point, this is a film that I felt would be aided by the fact that people know we’ve been in a relationship for a long time.
Not just that, but on a practical level, we have been in a relationship for a long time. Both of us have done intimate scenes with other actors, of course, but without giving too much away, a lot of this film requires close proximity from its two leads to a greater extent than anything I’ve done before. I think we pretty much finished every day of shooting and said to one another, “I don’t know how you could make this movie without a real-life couple because of some of the situations we found ourselves in.”
Brie and Franco on the set of their last collaboration, Somebody I Used to Know. They’ve also worked together on The Rental, The Disaster Artist and The Little Hours.
Courtesy of Amazon
Michael, there’s a line from your director’s statement that really jumped out: This is a film about the potential horror of sharing a life with someone. Dave, you said something similar while promoting The Rental in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, so I assume you bonded over that same theme. Michael, can you share a bit more about what you mean by that?
SHANKS Absolutely. I would like to clarify that I love being in a relationship. I love being in love. But as you’re going through that first long-term relationship in your life, I think you sometimes do reach that crossroads where you stop and think to yourself that you’re really sharing a life with someone. Once you move in together, you breathe the same air, eat the same meals, have the same friends. This is something I confronted a few years back, and I also come from a tight-knit group of friends in which everyone is in a long-term monogamous relationship, oftentimes the same one since high school. Sometimes there can be a great fear that people are more used to each other than they are still in love.
I’m happy to report I’m very much still in love, but there came a point when I had to really commit to the fact that I was sharing a life. In my own experience, my partner Louie and I have been together since we were 18. I’ve never been an adult without her in my life. She’s never been an adult without me in hers. At a certain point, you wonder to yourself, do I even know who I am without her? That’s kind of a scary thought. That was really the jumping off point or my way into this premise.
Dave, can you continue that thought?
FRANCO Whenever I’m telling friends about this film, I start by saying it’s about a codependent couple and they kind of roll their eyes and say something like, “Oh, something difficult for you to understand.” [Laughs] The movie explores codependency and it’s something that we don’t necessarily think is a good or bad thing; there are levels to it. Because we are married, and we work together constantly, I think we definitely could be defined as codependent. But we try to maintain a healthy relationship. Also, because of the fact that certain jobs take us away from each other for long periods of time, we are forced to also be more independent.
BRIE I was going to say that, too. That is probably part of the reason why we are so discerning when thinking about projects to work on together. We’ve fallen into a nice pattern of working together and then working apart. As Dave was saying, most of the time our job lends itself towards independence. We spend months apart, sometimes in different countries if we happen to be shooting different jobs at the same time. There’s no way to visit one another because of schedules. I think we are good in the codependency department.
This movie explores the darker side of codependency. It is a universal theme in terms of maintaining independence in a relationship, and like any good genre film, we are going to push the idea to its wildest conclusion. Like Shanks was saying, we’re exploring the idea of what happens if a couple is in a rut, or they get to a point when they sort of can’t remember if they love each other still or what they loved about one another in the first place. Then it becomes more about the fear — fear of the unknown, of not wanting to leave a relationship out of fear. That’s what we’re exploiting in this movie. Because of how intense the relationship is in the film, we went into the whole experience knowing that it would all end in divorce for us or we would be more codependent than ever. Luckily, it’s the latter.
Franco and Brie at the Vanity Fair Oscar party on March 12, 2023.
(Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
You’re sitting here together, so that’s a great thing. Let’s talk about the shoot. How many days? Where did you shoot? How did it go?
SHANKS We shot down here in Melbourne, Australia. It was a quick shoot considering the ambition. It was about 21 days, but for my money at least, I had a blast. People have asked me if it was stressful, and of course it was in some ways, but coming from a kind of run-and-gun guerilla filmmaking background, it was one of the least stressful jobs I’ve ever done. We were working with such high-level people both in front of and behind the camera. Whilst we might’ve had access to less money or less gear than other films of this ambition, I felt like a kid in a candy shop. I couldn’t believe the access to people, equipment and [production tools] we had on our side. Every day felt like a dream. It was busy but the vibe, I hope, was positive. There was no time to rest but we were having fun throughout. It wasn’t a shouty set.
BRIE It was literally a mad dash. I remember we were sprinting back to our marks because we didn’t want to waste any time. We had the most amazing crew that was willing to do that as well — sprinting with gear so that we could milk every second of the day and get it all on camera. The spirit of that was really fulfilling.
FRANCO One of our secret weapons was the fact that Alison and I lived together, so we could rehearse as much as we wanted.
BRIE Going to bed at night, running lines together.
FRANCO Knowing that we were only going to get one to three takes for every setup.
BRIE Three is generous.
FRANCO I remember one specific moment when Shanks came up to me at the end of the day and said, “OK, we have one take to get you having a full mental breakdown. We can do this!”
BRIE “We have two and a half minutes.”
Are you good under pressure like that, Dave?
FRANCO In that specific moment knowing that I only had one take brought enough real anxiety for me that I was able to have the breakdown.
SHANKS It’s the right emotion to play for that situation.
BRIE I love it, honestly, because both Dave and I have worked on every size of film and we always come back to independent films. We love the speed and pace of independent film. I love not having time to overthink. And because we’re producers on this film, we’ve been collaborating with Shanks on dialogue and tinkering with the script and stuff for a year prior to shooting. We knew the characters really well. We knew the dialogue. Dave and I could talk about our characters any second that we were at home in our Airbnb in Melbourne. We came to the set very prepared, so the speed of it did lend itself to the emotions of the characters. What happens comes on quite quickly and surprisingly, and there’s not much time for them to think about it either.
FRANCO That said, almost every day on this film included either heavy prosthetics or very intense physical stunt sequences or …
BRIE Lots of emotions …
FRANCO Yes. I remember showing up on some days at 6 a.m., and on the first take my energy had to be at 100 and stay there for an entire day, which is obviously very physically and emotionally exhausting. But it was also really exciting because we were proud of the work that we were doing, and it definitely made it so that there was never a dull moment on set.
SHANKS Can I just add that the spirit totally got out and infected the rest of the crew. One of the reasons for that is because even on the days when we were doing the more meat and potatoes-type scenes — like a dinner table scene, an argument, that kind of thing — there would be some sort of crazy prosthetic or puppet or big technical element. But Dave and Alison’s energy never went down. I don’t want to embarrass you guys, but we had crew members on this film who have been working for 50 years in the industry and they would always come up to me and say, “I’ve never seen actors as good as these two.” Or “I’ve never seen actors more committed and nicer than these guys.” And it’s true. At the beginning of a shoot, regardless of the length or scale, people are always trying to feel out what it’s going to be like. I don’t want to say it’s suspicion, but people wonder if it will be enjoyable or worth it. Within one day, everybody was like, “OK, this shit’s pretty fun. This is going to be good.” It felt like theater camp. Everybody really got into it.
FRANCO I do want to quickly throw a compliment back at Shanks. Yes, he’s technically a first-time feature director, but he has been writing and directing since he was a kid on short films and web series etc. Because of that, he’s the most confident first-time director ever where he knows exactly what he wants and he knows how to communicate it. Most impressively, I never saw Shanks rattled about anything. There were points when we felt like we were losing our minds setting up another sequence, but you look over at Shanks and he would be laughing with some crew member. In general, he just comes in with this almost childlike enthusiasm that really spread across the whole team. It really made everyone want to step up and do everything they could to help him achieve his vision.
BRIE While we’re complimenting people, I want to bring up Germain McMicking, our cinematographer. I would say the same things about him. He’s the calmest, most even-keeled person I’ve ever worked with setting up shots. When it felt like we had 30 seconds left to get something, he’d be like, “Yep, one sec.” Never rattled. Such a warm, creative, collaborative spirit. That just goes so far. He and Shanks were in such great lockstep together and it’s why the film looks incredible and really gave us a lot of bang for our buck.
Michael, out of curiosity, was there a moment you were secretly very stressed?
SHANKS There was one. Probably my worst day on the shoot is a day that I’ll speak about kind of obliquely because it’s a bit of a spoiler. Dave, it was during your final scene in the cave.
FRANCO Yep, I was going to say that I knew what day it was. That was my worst day too.
SHANKS That was stressful for so many reasons, but partially because there was a technical prosthetic build that was going on and it was taking hours. The moment that the person on whom the prosthetic was applied arrived on set, somebody whispered in my ear, “Hey, they’re really uncomfortable. You need to wrap this up right now.” We were about to do our first shot. What worried me is that someone might be in physical discomfort and that can’t happen. We can’t shoot for hours while this person is breaking their back or something. So, I went up to them and asked how they were doing. They said, “I’m absolutely fine.” They were so cool about it but it sent me for the rest of the day. Alison, you were next to me in spirit the whole day. You really were what I call my lifesaver as I was bobbing and drowning in the ocean there.
BRIE It did feel like this triangle of collaboration between Dave, Shanks and I that really just worked on set every day. It was so fun. Without giving too much away, one of my proudest shots came during a practical effect. We were thinking what we needed to do to get the shot, and I laid on the ground and put my hand under Dave’s shirt, like, “What does this look like?” Everyone said it worked. We’ll see if audience members can spot my hand in that moment.
Dave and Alison, both of you have done physically demanding jobs. What was the most challenging scene in this film?
BRIE I will say that Dave’s body was covered in bruises by the end of this shoot. We have an amazing collage of photos. He was keeping a bruised photo journal over the course of it.
FRANCO Sadly, I feel like I have a collage like that after most films these days. Either I’m going too hard, or I just have a very delicate constitution. But I think the stunt that hurt the most was one of the simpler moments climbing up a rope. But it was a very thin rope.
BRIE He’s really climbing it, lifting his full weight.
FRANCO With my bare hands, which got shredded. My palms were absolutely gushing blood and blisters for the next two weeks where I had literally eight band-aids on each hand. Without giving anything away, there’s a shower sequence that definitely hurt a lot, too, because of how my body is thrown against walls without bracing myself in any way.
BRIE This movie required physical performances in a different way than either of us have done before because of [the supernatural elements]. It is us acting as our own push and pull in fighting our bodies. The intensity required for every take was unique.
FRANCO We moved our bodies in very unnatural ways where we would wake up very sore in areas that we’ve never felt sore before.
BRIE We also take ownership over our enthusiasm. Dave and I are gluttons for punishment, saying, “No, don’t bring the double.” I bruised my nose smashing into glass even though there was a stunt double there. I was like, “She’s not bashing hard enough. Lemme try this.” It was like, oh right, it might be dangerous to go any harder? Makeup helped cover little bruises for a few days, but again, we wanted everything to really feel visceral. It was so worth it. If we weren’t putting ourselves in any actual danger, it was gratifying to have our little marks of glory.
FRANCO Being physical and doing these stunts is one of our favorite parts of the job. As much as we would love to complain about how bruised we are, it’s the badges of honor and we were begging, “We want more.”
I can’t wait to see how Sundance audiences respond to the movie, especially since it’s a Midnight selection. I imagine it’s going to play through the roof. Michael, can you speak to what your influences were or what inspired you to make a movie like this right now?
SHANKS I love body horror. I adore David Cronenberg. The Thing from [John Carpenter] is maybe my favorite movie of all time. To me, it always comes down to a hooky premise with an emotional truth. Once I find that emotional place to begin with, you can find the characters and then a crazy premise. Where I kind of start as a writer is trying to juice a premise for all that it’s worth with an extremity of where we can go. You can only really do a premise once, I think, so therefore let’s explore it from all angles. Maybe it’s coming from a YouTube background where you need to get everybody’s attention to stay on our video instead of scrolling onto something else, I really have a driving force of keeping the audience in mind when creating something. I never take their attention for granted, [and I try to focus] on things that are fun, propulsive entertainment that nobody will find boring or have their attention wane. Those are my guiding principles when I start and finish a project.
Dave and Alison, how do you feel about where this movie goes as it plays out?
FRANCO I remember feeling on certain days that we were so lucky to be making something so bold and risky. It felt like we were really getting away with something.
Any favorite Sundance memories?
BRIE For me, it was the premiere of my film Horse Girl. It was the first time that I had ever worked on as a writer. I co-wrote it with our good friend, Jeff Baena, and seeing that work that was so personal to me premiere for the first time at the festival. My sister was there with me, and when the movie finished, I was crying. She turned to me and said, “You, as the filmmaker, can’t be the one who is crying the most in this room.” I just felt so proud, and the audience was so receptive. It was really sweet. Again, because of the personal nature of the film, to finish a screening and have people come up afterward and describe to me how they were affected by it and how it resonated meant a lot to me.
FRANCO I had a really great time last year with Love Lies Bleeding. My character suffers the worst death I will ever experience in any film and there are flashbacks to that scene in other moments. Every time it flashed back, there were a thousand people groaning in disgust. I was the only one cackling with laughter in my seat. That was a fun memory.
Baena and Brie at the Horse Girl premiere at the Ray on Jan. 27, 2020.
Rich Fury/Getty Images
Dave Franco, Kristen Stewart, Anna Baryshnikov, Rose Glass, Katy O’Brian, Jena Malone and Ed Harris at the Love Lies Bleeding premiere on Jan. 20, 2024.
(Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
I was one of the thousand seated inside the Eccles groaning in my seat during that world premiere last year. That was brutal.
FRANCO I’m such a massive fan of [Love Lies Bleeding filmmaker] Rose Glass. To have played even a small part of that movie was a dream come true.
My instinct is to ask a follow-up question, Alison, about Jeff Baena though I can only imagine how difficult and painful it must be for you both right now in the wake of his passing. What do you want people to know about him because he was such a brilliant filmmaker and friend?
BRIE Jeff was a true artist. He really had such incredible artistic integrity, and the idea was everything. The four films I worked on with him were so fun and I learned about how far we could push our own imaginations and explore that creativity. I’m so grateful that he was my first writing partner and that I could learn a lot from him in terms of pushing the limits of my own creativity. He also was a person who brought a lot of people together. He was known for hosting poker nights and game nights, and his film sets were just an extension of that. He was all about bringing different groups of people together, letting everybody be their kookiest selves. He loved people. He had an amazing group of friends, and he loved bringing those people together and highlighting others and it was really a beautiful thing.
Dave, I see you nodding your head. You worked with him as well. What can you say about Jeff?
FRANCO Obviously, he wanted to do great work, but the experience itself was just as important to him. He really went out of his way to make sure everyone had an incredible time during the production of his films.
Jon Gabrus, Dave Franco, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Jeff Baena, Molly Shannon, Alison Brie, Jemima Kirke, Kate Micucci, Lauren Weedman, Adam Pally and Trevor Groth attend The Little Hours premiere at Sundance on Jan. 19, 2017.
(Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Sundance Film Festival)
Thank you for that, and I’m sorry. Dave, you’ll be at Sundance this year with another film as well, Bubble & Squeak. Like Together, that’s another film with a fascinating storyline …
FRANCO That one is also about a couple going through somewhat of a difficult time. I play a guy who becomes a kind of wrench in their relationship. I really bond with one of them more than the other, and my presence helps bring some of their simmering issues to the surface. I worked with another first-time director, Evan Twohy, and he was also incredible and had such a specific unique vision for this one that he pulled off beautifully. It was one of those scripts that I don’t think anyone other than him could’ve pulled it off. It has one of the most unique tones and rhythms that I’ve ever seen in a movie. I say that as the highest compliment and I’m very proud to be a part of it.
Michael, last question. I imagine for your first time at Sundance you’ll want to see as many movies as possible and see Dave’s other film. What’s your plan?
SHANKS My Sundance plan is to see as much as possible, but I think my schedule is going to be preventative of that. It’s such a trip to even be going. I hate to be such a rube and say, “I’m at Sundance!” when I’m sure there are many people who are jaded about it. But it really is a dream come true moment. I’ve watched the Entourage Sundance episode to prepare so I feel very well on top of things.
FRANCO What was your biggest takeaway from the episode?
SHANKS That I don’t think I really like Entourage.
