Q&A: Director George Ratliff on Filming in Italy and Working with Aaron Paul and Emily Ratajkowski for New Thriller WELCOME HOME

When you rent a home for the weekend while on vacation in a distant land, you never truly know what has happened in the house... or what might happen next. A couple (Aaron Paul and Emily Ratajkowski) travel to Italy to mend their relationship, but instead find themselves fighting for their lives in Welcome Home, and with the new thriller out now from Vertical Entertainment in theaters and on VOD platforms, we caught up with director George Ratliff to discuss working with his talented cast, filming in Italy, and one production assistant's grim discovery while digging a fake grave on set.

Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for us, and congratulations on your latest film, Welcome Home. What attracted you to David Levinson’s screenplay and made you want to bring this story to life on screen?

George Ratliff: I love the mythical power of horror, but the movies that actually scare me the most are naturalistic thrillers—stories which could actually happen to me. So I’m always on the lookout for great, suspenseful scripts that uncover the terrors of the everyday—the horror within the banal. David’s script explored a worst-case scenario in our newfangled share economy (like Uber and Airbnb) and being someone who uses this shared economy all the time, I found the script very scary and extremely cinematic.

The gorgeous Italian countryside is a character unto itself in this movie. Where did filming take place, and what was your shooting schedule for Welcome Home?

George Ratliff: We shot Welcome Home in Todi, Italy—the script was originally set in the South of France, but we moved it to Tuscany because Italy is an easier place for Americans to shoot a movie. We ended up shooting in Todi, which is not in Tuscany but in Umbria, because it is closer to Rome (a production center) and it was just fantastically beautiful—perfect for the film, really. I actually found the house not through our location scout, but by searching on my phone for rental properties on a house-sharing website. We shot the film in 22 days, which is an extremely short schedule, but I had a good amount of prep time with key crew members—good prep is the only way you can shoot a movie well on a short schedule.

Working in Italy, did you and the cast and crew have time to enjoy your historic and beautiful surroundings?

George Ratliff: The cast and crew seemed to go on Italian road trips to fabulous places every weekend! I, however, stayed back in Todi or Rome for the entire three-and-a-half months I was in Italy, but my god, I enjoyed it. Especially the food and wine.

You once again work with an amazing cast on this film, including Aaron Paul, Emily Ratajkowski, and Riccardo Scamarcio. What was it like to collaborate with them to tell this story?

George Ratliff: It is an amazing cast, and they are all excellent in Welcome Home. They were truly in the moment almost all of the time we were shooting. The biggest surprise to me was Emily—I loved her for the role, but her acting chops exceeded my expectations, not to mention that she is super production friendly, whip smart, and hilarious on set.

How important was it for you to make Bryan and Cassie’s relationship just as engrossing and impactful as the film’s suspenseful moments?

George Ratliff: The suspense and the drama feed on each other of course—they are inextricable. They are thematically linked, too—the movie is essentially about trust—this couple is trying to mend a broken trust in their relationship, while they are trusting (as we all are trusting) in a shared economy: staying in houses that we have almost no idea of their history, their owner, or who or what might also be living there.

Do you have any favorite vacation-gone-wrong movies or psychosexual thrillers that inspired you while making Welcome Home?

George Ratliff: I thought a lot about the excellent French thriller With A Friend Like Harry—it’s about a family going to their extreme fixer-upper country house for vacation, and the father, who is struggling in every way with two small children, not enough money, overbearing parents, and a frustrated wife, meets Harry, a man he went to high school with, whom he doesn’t remember, but who is and has always been obsessed with him. He is rich and as it turns out, psychotic, but really really wants to help.

Looking back at your time on set, is there a favorite or funny moment that stands out?

George Ratliff: The darkest moment that is funny in retrospect is when our PA [production assistant] was digging a “grave” for a scene in the movie on the main set, which is actually a 13th-century monastery. The PA dug where I had asked him to for the shot, and he came across an actual grave: some very old human remains, likely a 13th-century monk. This rightfully freaked the poor PA out. From then on out, Gregorian chants were often played from deep within the house and the sound creepily wafted throughout the set on breaks, but everyone on the crew played as if the PA was the only one who could hear them.

What do you hope viewers take away from Welcome Home?

George Ratliff: It’s not safe to leave home.

With Welcome Home now in theaters and on VOD platforms, do you have any other upcoming projects that you’re excited about?

George Ratliff: I do have a few exciting projects in different states, but it’s really too early to talk about them.