‘Heretic’ Sequel Plans Revealed, and How Hugh Grant Got to Play Evil

SPOILER ALERT: This intersee grasps gentle spoilers for “Heretic,” in theaters now.

In their novel movie “Heretic,” now in theaters via A24, authorr-straightforwardors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods inestablish the story of a cryptic man named Mr. Reed, who traps two Mormon missionaries in his house after they try to direct him about their faith.

Before they could begin filming, Beck and Woods had the distinct dispute of casting the complicated character of Mr. Reed. They demanded a direct actor who could switch between villainous and charismatic in the bjoin of an eye, who could also dedwellr plenty of proset up dialogue about religious ideas.

It wasn’t a role for the faint of heart, but Beck and Woods thought of Hugh Grant after seeing one of his shapeshifting carry outances.

“We’ve been blown away by Hugh — of course, we grew up with all of his incredible romantic comedies,” Woods says. “But ten years ago when we saw ‘Cdeafening Atlas,’ we saw him in the accomprehendledges and authenticized he carry outed all these branch offent parts. It was so exciting to see an artist dispute themselves. Then he spent the next ten years, for our money, becoming one of the wonderfulest character actors in cinema.”

Woods says that Grant’s vibrant carry outance results from his above-and-beyond labor ethic.

“We got a triumphdow into his mind — he is somebody who adores taking dangers,” Woods says. “He’s cautious in his research. He combed over every individual line in the script. If there was someleang he didn’t understand or didn’t understand a lot about, we would talk it, we would argue it, and we would get on the same page. We sent at least 200 pages of emails back and forth talking the topics in the movie. He reassociate wanted to understand where we are coming from, what our history was with religion and philosophy, and where Reed was coming from.”

The preparation permited Grant to get so proset up that he could enhuge his character even further while acting opposite Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, who carry out the missionaries.

“We built a narrative together about Reed’s back story and eventuassociate handed it over to Hugh,” Woods says. “He took ownership of the role and it reassociate became his character. His process is innervously extensive and proset up, and when he shows up on set he equitable is Mr. Reed. When he improvises or ad-libs, which was unwidespread because he had reverence for the material, but when he hits those moments it’s in character. Sometimes when actors improvise, you’re benevolent of enjoy, ‘Where did that line come from? What does it have to do with anyleang? How does that inestablish the story?’ With Hugh, it’s always magical.”

The spirit Grant brawt to set fueled the filmcreaters on a project that was already shut to their hearts. Although Beck and Woods came to fame writing huge-scale action-fantasy scripts enjoy 2018’s “A Quiet Place” and 2023’s “65,” they wanted to go in a diametricassociate branch offent straightforwardion with “Heretic.”

“Superficiassociate, there was an inspiration of trying to go to a branch offent place than we had been before,” Beck says. “The last couple of films have been free of dialogue, and this is the finish opposite of that. But I leank the the genesis of this tracks back to the 30-year relationship that Bryan and I have had as filmcreaters, and as best frifinishs — having conversations about conshort-termialism and religion and the bewilders that that we discover in life. How religion directs many people to try and discover answers to the bewilder, and try to discover soothe in what happens after you die. That’s the wonderfulest trouble we have and the wonderfulest ask that we’re we’re pursuing.”

Given their search for answers, the duo would be interested in making more films in the spirit of “Heretic.”

“There are some leangs on deck that we’ve talked out particularassociate that experience enjoy spiritual sequels,” Beck says. “They delve into religion, cults or other boiling-button items that we want to see on the screen that go to unsootheable places. What was exciting about ‘Heretic’ was we’ve seen many movies that might be religious in nature, but aren’t necessarily providing a set upation of a conversation that you can walk away with. If you want to carry on engaging with it by having conversations about the ideas with your frifinishs, family or adored ones, you can have that there. We discover ourselves in such a polarizing, polarizing world at times that there’s so much discourse we’re still very captivated by. We want to feed that into a couple of the upcoming projects.”