Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid and the rest of the cast recently shared what it’s like to star in Companion, Warner Bros.’ fun, shocking and campy sci-fi/horror film that is surely headed for cult status.

Thatcher’s character, Iris, seems like a regular girl in a relationship with her boyfriend, Josh. However, as revealed in the film’s trailer, Iris is a robot who begins learning more about herself as the story unfolds.

Thatcher told Blavity’s Shadow and Act managing editor Trey Mangum during our recent cast interview that her character required a lot of “mapping out” since she is constantly learning new things about herself and her environment.

“I think it’s a lot of mapping out the arc and mapping out where she’s at in her self-discovery,” Thatcher said. “Because I think the end, I mean, even when the credits are rolling, I think she’s found it. She’s finally free, and it’s just about mapping it out so it feels earned and it feels rewarded, and you know, you really feel for her. I think it was just about the prep beforehand and being cautious of everything.”

Quaid said it was fun for him to play Josh, a villain who doesn’t even realize he is one. This contrasts with Richie, his character in the 2022 Scream reboot, whom the audience clearly knows is a villain.

“It’s really fun playing the bad guy. The two characters, they are similar in ways, like Richie in Scream and Josh in this, but I feel what was so cool about Josh was that he’s the antagonist of the movie very early on,” he said. “In Scream, for most of the movie, I’m trying to keep the audience like, ‘I’m just—I’m like, don’t look at me. Don’t look at me, I’m just a whatever. I’m just this nice guy over here. It’s fine.’ That character… is like a fanboy. He wants to be a Scream killer, so he wants to be like this campy dude with the knife, and that’s his dream. But Josh is the antagonist of this movie, and what I love about that is that he doesn’t know that he’s the antagonist. He thinks he’s the hero. Even up until [the end].”

Watch the full interview with the cast and writer-director Drew Hanock above.

Companion, also starring Harvey Guillén, Megan Suri, Lukas Gage and Rupert Friend, is currently in theaters.

Sophie Thatcher

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