Joe Rogan Experience #2053 - Danny & Michael Philippou
Danny Philippou (guest), Narrator, Joe Rogan (host), Michael Philippou (guest), Narrator, Narrator
In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Danny Philippou and Narrator, Joe Rogan Experience #2053 - Danny & Michael Philippou explores youTube Daredevils Turn Horror Auteurs With Breakout Film ‘Talk To Me’ Joe Rogan interviews Australian twin filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou, exploring their journey from chaotic backyard stunts and viral YouTube videos to directing the acclaimed horror film Talk To Me. They detail their obsessive childhood love of movies, Danny’s extreme medical drug trial gigs, and Michael’s stunt work and brutal car hits. The conversation dives into the creative and production process of Talk To Me, including script development, horror influences, practical effects, music struggles, Sundance buzz, and their deal with A24. They also discuss death‑match wrestling, future projects like a Talk To Me sequel and a Street Fighter film, mental health, sleep issues, and the line between risk, creativity, and self‑destruction.
YouTube Daredevils Turn Horror Auteurs With Breakout Film ‘Talk To Me’
Joe Rogan interviews Australian twin filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou, exploring their journey from chaotic backyard stunts and viral YouTube videos to directing the acclaimed horror film Talk To Me. They detail their obsessive childhood love of movies, Danny’s extreme medical drug trial gigs, and Michael’s stunt work and brutal car hits. The conversation dives into the creative and production process of Talk To Me, including script development, horror influences, practical effects, music struggles, Sundance buzz, and their deal with A24. They also discuss death‑match wrestling, future projects like a Talk To Me sequel and a Street Fighter film, mental health, sleep issues, and the line between risk, creativity, and self‑destruction.
Key Takeaways
Leverage unconventional paths to build real skills.
The Philippou brothers treated years of chaotic YouTube stunt videos as a self‑funded film school, learning practical effects, camera work, and pacing that later translated directly into their first feature film.
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Protect creative control even at the cost of money and security.
They walked away from Hollywood deals that demanded formulaic changes and final cut, chose a smaller independent budget, and even reinvested their own fees to keep Talk To Me aligned with their original vision.
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Practical, in‑camera effects still emotionally outperform heavy CGI.
From contact lenses and full prosthetic faces to real stunt hits and on‑set blood rigs, they argue that audiences instinctively feel the authenticity of physical effects, especially when used sparingly and cut fast.
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Audience testing can reveal hidden pacing and clarity problems.
By screening rough cuts for non‑industry viewers of different ages and watching their body language and confusion points, they identified where the film sagged or needed tightening despite being too close to see it themselves.
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Deep personal fears and experiences make horror more resonant.
Talk To Me’s themes—possession as drug culture, reckless youth, family suicide, grief, and mental illness—are drawn from their own family history, traumatic memories, and friends’ stories, grounding the supernatural in real emotion.
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Momentum and morale on set are critical production tools.
On a brutally short shoot, they used music, two cameras, improvisation, and YouTube‑honed speed to capture an entire party montage in two hours—proving energy management can be as important as scheduling math.
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Early hype can be as destabilizing as failure without perspective.
Sundance buzz, agent frenzies, and studio attention left them overwhelmed and convinced their premiere was bombing; only external validation from filmmakers they admired and offers from A24 reset their perception.
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Notable Quotes
“We walked away from a studio deal, lost half the budget, and then lost another million because we cast an unknown… but she was the best actor.”
— Danny Philippou
“I did drug trials for two years. I was basically a guinea pig of the guinea pigs.”
— Danny Philippou
“Our YouTube stuff was like a self‑funded film school. We were figuring out stunts, practical effects, and how to hold attention before we ever made a movie.”
— Michael Philippou
“Everything in our lives we see like a movie scene. That’s why we can’t hold normal jobs.”
— Michael Philippou
“You don’t have to be a stereotypical movie‑making human being to make a great movie, obviously.”
— Joe Rogan
Questions Answered in This Episode
How different do you think Talk To Me would have been if you’d accepted the original studio notes and given up final cut?
Joe Rogan interviews Australian twin filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou, exploring their journey from chaotic backyard stunts and viral YouTube videos to directing the acclaimed horror film Talk To Me. ...
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Where is the line for you between creative risk (like stunts and death‑match wrestling) and self‑destruction, and has that line shifted after your success?
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How will you keep your work personal and weird while operating inside bigger franchises like Street Fighter and under more studio scrutiny?
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Would you ever release your full ‘mythology bible’ for Talk To Me so fans can see the unseen lore and spirit rules you wrote?
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Given your experiences with sleep issues, mental health in your family, and writing from dark places, how do you protect your own wellbeing while creating horror that demands you live in that headspace?
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Transcript Preview
(drum music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) What's up?
Hello, hello, hello.
What's going on? Pleasure to meet you guys.
Nice to meet you too. Oh my God, we're live.
Int- ladies and gentlemen. Introduce yourselves to everybody.
(clears throat) Uh, I'm Danny Philippou. That's my clone, Michael. Uh-
You guys are not clones.
Oh, well, no. Yeah, there's a big difference, isn't there? Is there? Danny acts like we look s- well, we're identical twins, mirror image twins. Uh- yeah. Michael's the dumb twin, the unreliable twin. Uh- Danny's the arrogant twin. I wouldn't say, uh- Uh, but ladies and gentlemen, we're here on the Joe Rogan Experience. I'm so, uh, like, yeah, like, uh- It's very surreal. (laughs) ... I'm fanboying, yeah.
(laughs)
We got Young Jamie over there. We might pull some things up and we're gonna talk about DMT and elk meat.
(splurts water)
(laughs)
Did you guys prepare for this?
No. (laughs)
(laughs)
Yeah, we were writing last night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. (laughs) I don't know, yeah. Michael was like, "We're gonna be at the Joe Rogan podcast." And all of your guests are really, um, smart. I feel like people would be dumb about listening to us.
There's a lot of dumb ones too. Don't worry about it.
Okay. (laughs)
(laughs)
That'll- that'll be the playlist we're in. We-
So, h- how- tell me about you guys, the- the background. First of all, how did it come that you made that movie?
Well, uh, we've always wanted to make films, uh, ever since we were, like, little kids.
Is that your first, like, real film?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was our first proper production, yeah. We have- we have-
That fucking movie was awesome.
Uh, it was so weird that you posted about it. How did you hear about it?
I was just flipping through, uh, I think I was just flipping through, like, the current movies on Apple.
Okay.
On Apple TV.
Yeah.
And I saw... My daughter loves horror movies and so we will- we like to watch horror movies together. And- and I was like, "Let's try this one." And we watched a preview and she was like, "Oh, it's good." And then I watched it, I'm like, "That is a really good original movie."
Fuck, yeah. Yeah.
It's fucking scary as shit.
(laughs) Oh, man, it's crazy.
And it wasn't like any other movie. Uh, uh, it wasn't like, oh, this is, like, 28 Days Later or, oh, this is like The Exorcist. No, it's, like, very original.
Yeah. Uh, uh, it's something we've been, like, building towards making a movie for forever. Like, uh, and we've been writing scripts forever as well. Uh, we had a YouTube channel. So we started off, like, uh, making stuff as little kids. We were- we've been obsessed since we were seven years old with, like, making stuff. Even before filming, we'd just wr- draw movie covers and shit like that and pretend we're... We'd- (laughs) we'd, like, play, act through a movie and look at the time and, like, act for 90 minutes and then draw the cover for the... Like, we were loser kids, yeah.
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