Real-life couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco had days on the set of their new body horror Together, where they were “literally attached to each other with a prosthetic,” Franco shared. The reciprocating saw scene you may have noticed in the trailer involved “ten hours of not being able to leave each other’s side,” he added. “And it was terrifying!” Brie joked, before sincerely adding, “I would say it was a full immersion in what the effects of something like that would feel like. And honestly, I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else.”
The duo has collaborated multiple times in the past, including working together as co-writers, and on opposite sides of the camera as actor and director, but they both agree this is their most intense collaboration to date. As Franco put it, “I don’t think we will ever top this.”
And he’s not just referring to the fact that they spend part of the movie with parts of their bodies literally fused together. “Truly in every way, because obviously physically this movie is incredibly intimate and there were so many new challenges physically and also emotionally, and also just schedule-wise.” Brie elaborated. Brie and Franco are in almost every scene together, meaning they were together “All day, every day. Going home together at night, we truly didn’t spend a second apart.”
While reflecting on the complete immersion of the process, Franco attempted to think of any other scenario that could reach this level of… togetherness. “I don’t know. I’m trying to think of how we could do something where we were more enmeshed with each other, and I don’t think it’s physically possible.”
The full immersion body horror element of what they’re referring to is brought to life with some incredible FX work, manifesting as a physical representation of the unseen emotional issues unfolding on the screen. It gets pretty gooey, and when it comes to their all time favorite body horror scenes in cinematic history, they both chose some very wet and goopy legends.
“I like in The Fly when he's not full fly yet at the end.” Franco shared. “But when he's still Goldblum with so much gnarly, wet shit happening.”
A Carpenter classic gets Brie’s vote: “The scene in The Thing where they're doing the test on everybody to see who's going to be the monster. When it finally is, it's so shocking and disgusting. That's a really good one.”
In this co-dependency horror story, the onscreen couple is in the process of dealing (or not dealing) with some pretty messy relationship stuff. Franco pointed out that they were able to do this because it doesn’t at all mirror their real-life relationship. “The couple in the film is going through some pretty hard times, and we like to believe we're in a pretty healthy relationship.”
“I think that we would never have signed on to do the movie if we didn't feel like our relationship was at a good place,” Brie agreed. “And we'd vetted the whole working situation.”
While their onscreen counterparts are clearly not aligned with who they are and how they operate in the real world, Franco does ponder on the potential for the blurring of lines and has a question for his co-star and real life partner, “Were there moments when we were fighting in character that you walked away and you were like, ‘I don't like you?’ Did you ever feel that?”
Brie takes a moment to reflect before answering, “I don’t think so.”
“I don't think so either. It's acting!” Franco agreed. Before adding, “I think in general, we were just so excited about all the footage we were getting, and it just really felt like we were getting away with something. We were able to make this movie that felt so subversive, and weird, and unique, and that just gave us the energy to get through it all.”
Catch the weird and unique Together in theaters July 30th, read more about Together in the lastest issue of FANGORIA and read our full Together review right here. Watch our full interview with Alison Brie and Dave Franco below.
