Heart Eyes with Josh Ruben and Zelda Williams (Ep. 534)

The Director’s Cut - A DGA Podcast

Directors Guild of America

Tv & Film

4.6 • 806 Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Director Josh Ruben discusses his new film, Heart Eyes, with fellow Director Zelda Williams in a Q&A at the DGA theater in Los Angeles. In the conversation, he discusses balancing the tone of romantic comedy and horror while not trying to betray them, the behind the scenes of special effects work that went into the kills, and the creation and influences of the killer’s look. The film follows Ally, a cynical ad executive, and her hopelessly romantic colleague, Jay. After a meeting-turned-date, they accidentally become the next target of “Heart Eyes,” a masked maniac with glowing, red eyes who returns every Valentine’s Day to slaughter unsuspecting couples, and must fight for their survival. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://dga.org/Events/2025/April2025/HeartEyes_QnA_0325

Transcript

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0:00.0	We always kind of came back to, you know, legitimately Nora Ephron and legitimately West Craven.
0:07.3	Let's not shortchange either genre.
0:10.6	So how can we treat these two as legitimately Hanks and Ryan as the killer, a legitimate
0:19.4	threat and never play terror for real and never get caught trying to be funny.
0:46.2	Music Hello and welcome back to the director's cut, brought to by the Directors Guild of America.
0:55.4	In this episode, Valentine's Day takes a horrifying turn after a pair of coworkers are targeted by a serial killer and director Josh Rubin's horror comedy, Hard Eyes.
0:58.0	The film follows Allie, a cynical ad executive, and her hopelessly romantic colleague, Jay.
1:04.4	After a meeting turned date, they accidentally become the next target of Hard Eyes, a masked
1:09.2	maniac with glowing red eyes who returns every
1:11.7	Valentine's Day to slaughter unsuspecting couples and must fight for their survival.
1:17.9	In addition to Hard Eyes, Rubin's other directorial credits include the feature films
1:22.6	Werewolves Within and Scare Me, the television special Death to 2021, and episodes of Die Heart, Adam Ruins
1:31.0	Everything, Step 9, That Couple You Know, Dropout, Remix the Movies, and Hardly Working.
1:39.6	Following a screening of the film at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles, Ruben spoke with director Zelda Williams about filming hard eyes.
1:48.1	Listen on for their spoiler-filled conversation.
1:58.4	Hello, everyone.
1:59.5	Hi.
2:01.2	Um, what'd you all think? Yeah. Hi. What did you all think?
2:03.2	Yeah.
2:04.6	Okay.
2:05.6	Awesome.
2:06.8	Did Tom McLaughlin make it?
	...

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