Exclusive Interview with COMPANION Writer / Director Drew Hancock

Companion is a grounded slice of science fiction. For writer-director Drew Hancock, it’s a relationship film first, a horror sci-fi film second. Hancock wanted to paint a bloody, unpretty picture of a bad relationship between Josh (Jack Quaid) and his companion, Iris (Sophie Thatcher), during a weekend getaway gone wrong – or, depending on which audience member you ask, gone right.

Hancock clearly has his fun with crowdgoers’ expectations, delivering a story which – as the director has noted in the past – takes a few cues from the works of the Coen Brothers. In other words, keep people guessing with bloodshed and laughs. The Zach Cregger-produced film aims to please with elements of surprise.

Recently, Hancock spoke with Daily Dead about crafting the story, how Iris evolves over the course of the film, and why a Goo Goo Dolls’ song carries a lot of weight in his feature directorial debut.

With all the twists and turns in Companion, how’d you initially approach nailing the structure of the movie?

Drew Hancock: I usually outline. I've been in a position outlining something, and you get it turned into this fine-tuned, well-oiled machine, and then you're writing it halfway through, and you're like, “Oh my God, the ending shouldn't be this. It should be this other thing.” I've learned that lesson enough times that I want to outline the first half – I need to know where I'm going – and then it just gets less specific as the outline goes on.

The first half of Companion was really finely tuned. I started writing it, and then I got halfway through and said, “No, you have to stop now. Close your Final Draft file.” And then I outlined the second half. I outlined it in two parts, and I'm glad I did because I personally hate outlining. I understand it's necessary for set pieces and plot, but you don't know what your characters' voices are until they start talking. That really helped me get about halfway through, understand who these characters are, what their arcs were, and then stop, reassess, and figure out, Okay, I have these pieces. What's going to be the best ending for these pieces?

During that process of finding who these characters are, how did Iris evolve?

Drew Hancock: Iris actually didn't change that much. The most interesting evolution she took was at the very beginning before I even started writing. When I'd come up with the idea, this rarely happens, it kind of came to me fully baked. I had the logline for the movie on day one. It just popped into my head. This never happens to me. Whereas I have a journal entry that says: Three couples go to a cabin in the middle of the woods. One of 'em finds out they're a robot. Shit hits the fan, and characters die one after the other.

But with that idea, I was assuming that Iris was going to be the antagonist. You're like, “Oh, the robot's malfunctioning. She's going to be the bad guy. We'll see it from Josh's point of view as his friends get picked off one at a time.” As I'm outlining it, as I'm thinking about each moment of the story, I get to the moment that's in the movie where she's outside the house, really nervous, and she’s like, Your friends and everyone are going to hate me. It was tapping into this very familiar feeling when I would meet a partner’s friends and family – that alienation, wanting to be on your best behavior, being worried about screwing up.

I was relating to her so much in that moment that I stopped and thought, “Oh, wait, this whole movie could be from her perspective, and she could be the protagonist.” And as soon as I had that, that's when it really started to sing. That's when I was like, “Okay, this is going to be exciting.”

Writing is tough. A cup of coffee isn't enough to excite you in the morning. You need something that makes you think, Oh, I need to tell this story. So once I had that, and I started thinking about her emotional journey, everything started clicking.

I was thinking about how, being a robot, she's been programmed to love someone. I've been in bad relationships, and it metaphorically feels like you've been programmed. You look back at these relationships and feel brainwashed, wondering, How did I actually think I liked this person? And that became very interesting for someone who was put in a position where they were literally programmed to be with someone. The journey became about Iris, through self-discovery, finding empowerment and the strength to break up with him. That came very early, that whole arc of hers.

You don’t portray AI as scary – people who use AI are scary. Was that important for you?

Drew Hancock: That is intentional. There's the AI component, but there's also the companion robot component, which is a real thing. People have those, and we're going to have to live in a world where people have companion robots, that's just the future.

With the companion robot, it was very important to me that I didn’t come from a place of judgment. You go online, and there are these YouTube videos where everyone is making fun of this guy who loves his robot. I never wanted to tell the story through that lens. Josh’s story, yeah, he’s objectifying objects. He’s objectifying Iris because she’s a literal object.

There’s more we can’t spoil, but I don’t want people to think this is an “AI movie” or an “anti-AI movie.” AI is just a technology that exists – it’s a tool. And if it ever fucks with us, if it ever destroys humanity, it will be traced back to something a human did. It’ll be because of humanity using it in the wrong ways.

AI is rapidly growing. Since you started writing the movie and now with it out in the world, how has artificial intelligence and the conversation around it maybe changed how you see the movie?

Drew Hancock: I tried not to think about that stuff, because research-wise, I didn’t want to bog this movie down in technology. I didn’t want to tell a story where people are talking about Turing tests and inside baseball stuff. I wanted to concentrate on the emotions.

Iris isn’t an iPhone Generation One – she’s the 10th-generation iPhone. I wanted to couch this story in a world that was already used to this technology. So, they’re not dismissive of it; it’s just everyday life. It’s something that everyone knows exists.

As far as research goes, I just needed to know that this technology would exist and when it would exist. I found out that around 15 years from now is when everyone says it will start getting to a place where you may not be able to distinguish between a robot and a human being, which is fucking nuts.

As a writer, that’s great, because 15 years isn’t too far in the future. I don’t have to make this a Minority Report future. It could look like a timeless, everyday world now. When incorporating the grander ideas about AI, I preferred everyone to think of Iris as a human being and never approach this movie as a sci-fi movie. So when talking to department heads, I’d say, “No, this is a relationship drama. Let’s treat it like A Marriage Story, not Minority Report. Let’s shoot it like that.” I didn’t want it to have that desaturated, ethereal, smoky look.

When you were casting Iris, what were the key qualities you wanted from an actor? What did you just know made Sophie Thatcher right for the part?

Drew Hancock: She could do it all. Literally the toughest part about finding someone to play this specific role is that it's actually two roles in one. You have a first half Iris, which she's supposed to be docile and passive. And then there's a moment halfway through the movie where she flips a switch and she becomes a different person and stands up to Josh. And then she starts to find empowerment through becoming a badass. You needed to buy that, too. There were so many actors that could do the first half and you're like, “Oh you're great.”And then we would get to the audition part where she would have to do the big speech against Josh. It was like, “Oh, I don't buy this.” 

And then the exact opposite would happen. We'd find actors that nail the second half. You're like, “Yes, you're a badass. You're an action star.” And then you would get to the scene where they're in the car with Josh and you're like, “No, you would immediately punch this guy in the face if he told you to smile and act happy.” I don't buy it. 

With Sophie, we did a chemistry read over Zoom, which is the worst possible environment to find out if two actors have chemistry. Even over Zoom, though, you could feel it immediately. We did three scenes. She nailed the first scene in the car. We did the scene where she discovered she's a robot and nails that. And then, we did the scene where she stands up to Josh and nails that. Everyone left that going,“There's no question here. We found Iris.” Luckily, it worked out, because I honestly don't know how we would have made this movie without her.

Speaking of Iris, excellent use of the Goo Goo Dolls’ song, “Iris.” A huge laugh. How early on did you know you needed that song? 

Drew Hancock: We're a low-budget movie, even though we have a New Line logo at the beginning. I never assumed we would get the rights to a song that big. It is expensive. I always knew that I wanted it in the movie, but I didn't want to fall in love with it. I didn't even want to find a place for that, honestly, so I didn't know where it would go. And then we're editing the movie and we're like, “Put it at the end.” We tried. 

The scene where Iris is delivered to Josh's apartment, there was never supposed to be music there. Everyone was like, “Wait a minute, what if he was listening to ‘Iris’ here?” We put it in, but I made sure just to talk to the producers and be like, “Guys, I know this is an expensive song. We're going to have a test screening. If it just gets a couple laughs, please pay for it.” We played it in front of an audience of 350 people. It got just enough laughs that they were like, okay. 

There are two or three layers to it. One, her name is Iris, and two, it's from City of Angels, which is a Warner Bros. movie with Meg Ryan, who is Jack Quaid’s mom. They wrote that song for the movie. There's great symmetry to it. It's probably my favorite joke in the entire movie, and 5% of the audience laughed at it. Maybe that's generous.

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Companion will be released to theaters on January 31st