Companion is a genre-bending wild ride of a movie that is best experienced going in cold. It stars the incredibly talented Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher, who play a young couple, Josh and Iris. When they go away for the weekend with two other couples, it doesn’t take long before something unimaginable happens, setting them on course for a couple of days they will never forget.
Drew Hancock both writes and directs Companion. He has a background in comedy, having worked on sitcoms such as Suburgatory and Blue Mountain State. Because of this, he is able to perfectly blend comedy into this thriller to come up with something unique and entertaining. Companion comes exclusively to theaters on January 31.
ScreenRant interviewed Drew Hancock about his new film Companion. He details the struggles of marketing a film like this, because of its many surprises. Hancock also praises both Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher, while explaining how difficult it was to cast the Iris role. He reveals that, surprisingly, the first draft of Companion had no comedy in it whatsoever.
Cutting Trailers For Companion Was A Big Collaboration Between Drew Hancock & The Marketing Team
“What is the least amount of information you can give without making people go, I don’t know what this is.”
ScreenRant: With a movie like Companion, that is filled with twists and turns, how do you collaborate with the marketing team to make sure they don’t reveal the biggest surprises?
Drew Hancock: Welcome to my life for the last five months. I mean, that’s just a push and pull. There’s two sides. You want to have this experience that’s fresh, and you want everyone to go in not knowing anything about it. But this is also a movie that’s getting a wide release. It’s an IMAX movie, you need to sell tickets. You can’t just, it’s not a word of mouth movie. You can’t rely on the slow build. So I understand where they’re coming from, you know?
It’s that push and pull of experimenting. There were, many, many, many, many trailers that we were like, “Okay, well, what is the least amount of information you can give without making people go, I don’t know what this is.” You can’t make movies these days, or marketing that’s like, “Trust us, you’re going to like this movie,” because there’s Netflix. You can stay at home and watch a billion movies. And there’s so much noise, so you have to cut through the noise. That was a tough needle to thread, and I think we, I think they, nailed it.
ScreenRant: This is definitely one you need to see in a theater with an audience that doesn’t know what is coming next.
Drew Hancock: Yeah, people are really good at that. I think that there are so many. I’ve just ᴀssumed that everyone’s going to get spoiled somehow. But I’ve been finding a lot of people are really good at tuning out the noise.
ScreenRant: I’ve told everyone to go into this one as blind as you can.
Drew Hancock: Yeah, stay off Instagram. Just don’t look at the poster. Don’t look at the billboard near your apartment. Close your eyes and just go.
The Role Of Iris Was Harder To Cast Than Drew Hancock Ever Imagined
“I didn’t really realize at the time that it’s two characters in one.”
ScreenRant: Sophie Thatcher is incredible in this movie. What is it about her that made her the perfect Iris?
Drew Hancock: That is a great question. I feel so blessed that she did this movie because I can’t imagine anyone else in that role. But when we were in casting, I truthfully thought Iris was going to be the easy one and Josh was going to be the hard one. I thought it’d be really hard to get a young male actor to play such a toxic person. But the irony is that Jack came in, immediately he read the material, and he just was like, “I want to do this,” and he’s charismatic, and he sold it, and did such a great job.
But then the exact opposite with Iris, because I didn’t really realize at the time that it’s two characters in one. The first half Iris is docile and pᴀssive, and you need to buy that she would just be in this relationship, and she’s not going to stand up for herself. And then there’s, a moment halfway through the movie, where she’s activated, literally, and then the second half, she’s now this other character, where she’s standing up for herself. You buy her as an action star, a badᴀss, someone that is standing up to Josh.
There were so many actors that nailed the first half, but they couldn’t nail the second half. And then there were so many actors that could nail the second half, but then you’re a badᴀss, you’re so good, but then you put them in the scene with them against Josh, and just, I don’t buy you as pᴀssive. Your badᴀssness is just coming through in everything you’re doing.
So when Sophie came along, we did a chemistry read over zoom, which is not a way that you should ever do a chemistry read, because it’s a little box on the screen. But we had to, because he was in London, Sophie was in LA, and I was in New York. Wow. Their chemistry just over Zoom was apparent. She nailed the first, we did three scenes. We did a scene in the beginning, a scene in the middle, and in the scene in the end. She nails the first one. She nailed the second one. She nails the third one. No one had done that up to that point. It just became obvious, there’s one option, and it’s Sophie.
And because I’m so negative and so pessimistic, I’m like, “Well, we’re gonna screw it up. I’ve fallen in love with this actor in this role, and we’re not, obviously, it’s not gonna work out.” But luckily I’m sitting here talking about how amazing she is.
The First Draft Of Companion Had No Comedy In It At All
“It felt like a Black Mirror episode, but like a bad Black Mirror episode.”
ScreenRant: One thing I really, really love about this movie, is it’s funny too. It’s kind of a thriller-horror, but then it’s funny. Can you talk about finding that perfect blend, that perfect balance?
Drew Hancock: Yeah, so I come from a comedy background, so I wish that I had the comedy in the first draft. I wish I could say that that was inherently in the story. But, I think, with a lot of comedy writers, because it’s just naturally where my brain goes, I think that, because it’s easy, I shouldn’t. I feel like maybe it’s a crutch sometimes. So the very first draft of Companion had no humor in it, like zero, and it did not work. It felt like a Black Mirror episode, but like a bad Black Mirror episode.
I would send the draft to friends, and would get that response like, “Yeah, it’s good.” But, like, “Your voice went up a little bit.” It wasn’t until I was reading it, like, “You’re kind of denying your voice. Let’s see how it would be if you started inserting your sense of humor.” I don’t really write jokes, jokes, which made it hard to cut the trailer, because the jokes are very specific to the circumstances, and you have to understand the context for them to be funny.
But yeah, once you have that, and it’s a very absurd world and a situation with a robot breaking up with its owner, it’s right for comedy. So, yeah, it was fun to go back and give myself permission to be like, yes, you can have fun with this. You can make it a little funny.
ScreenRant: Where did this inspiration come from?
Drew Hancock: Every story is different. Every project is different. This one, it felt like I have never had an idea come to me so fully baked before. The first day, that it popped in my head, I had three couples go to a cabin in the middle of the woods. One of them finds out they’re a robot. And then the sh** hits the fan. And people get picked off one at a time. My instinct was to make her the antagonist in the very first version of it.
I was like, well, she’s the robot. No one’s going to relate to the robot. She’s got to be the bad guy and we see the story from the point of view of Josh. And then as I’m writing it, I’m just finding myself relating to her more and more and more. Then it became like, “Oh, could I tell a story where the robot is the most relatable character? Can I tell a story where you empathize with the robot?” And that’s when I really started to love the idea.
Drew Hancock Believes The Director Should Do Eighty Percent & Have Everyone Else Fill In The Other Twenty
“The fun of filmmaking is the collaborative nature.”
ScreenRant: You both write and direct this. Because you wrote it, do you find it harder to make adjustments on the day of shooting sometimes?
Drew Hancock: I’ve been in the business long enough to know that there’s limitations to how my brain works. And the fun of filmmaking is the collaborative nature. I want to have 80% of it and then have everyone else fill out the other 20% because I think, as a director’s job, it’s not just to be like, “Yes, it’s this.” It’s not that Alfred Hitchcock. He made the movie in his head, and then it just was, like, “We’re making that movie.”
That’s not fun. There’s a reason why he didn’t enjoy the shooting, because you’re just taking out the fun and the discovery and the collaborative. Actors will bring in ideas that never even occur to you, or makeup, or hair, or wardrobe. Open your ears to any idea, because the best idea wins out. And just strip away the ego alet’s just make a movie, as long as it’s filtered through the story.
Drew Hancock Details The Most Challenging Scene To Pull Off
“I think when I yelled cut for the last sH๏τ, it was right as the sun disappeared across the horizon.”
ScreenRant: Is there one scene that was the most challenging to nail down, filming-wise?
Drew Hancock: I mean, yeah, there’s always going to be that one scene that you didn’t see coming. This one I knew was going to be tough was the Officer Hendrick thing. We only had eight hours to shoot that and there were three stunts within that scene. And then also, Sophie doesn’t speak German, so she had to nail her German. And if she’s stumbling and the sun’s going down, and you still have these other stunts you have to shoot, you’re screwed.
And luckily, I think when I yelled cut for the last sH๏τ, it was right as the sun disappeared across the horizon. So we barely got through by the skin of our teeth. That was a very stressful day.
ScreenRant: If there was an app that could change your appearance or personality, what setting would you mess with?
Drew Hancock: Everything. I would make myself taller. I would give myself a gorgeous head of hair, and confidence, and yeah, too many. There would be too many things I would want to change.
More About Companion (2025)
New Line Cinema—the studio that brought you “The Notebook”—and the unhinged creators of “Barbarian” cordially invite you to experience a new kind of love story…
Check out our other Companion interviews here:
- Harvey Guillèn, Lukas Gage & Megan Suri
- Sophie Thatcher & Jack Quaid
Companion comes exclusively to theaters on January 31.
Source: Screen Rant Plus
