You are listening to The Next Best Picture podcast, and this is Dan Baers interview with two of the stars from the film companion, Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid.

I only have

I know it's going to sound cheesy, but...

The moment we locked eyes... There was just a...

Hi. Hi, this is Dan Bayer from Next Best of the Center.

You're talking with Sophie Thatcher and Jack Clayton, the stars of companion.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Very excited to talk with you both because this film is such a wild ride to watch. First question is that

I'm curious if it also felt that way when you read the screenplay for the first time. Oh, absolutely.

I couldn't put it down. I felt immediately immersed into Iris's world. And I feel like there was such a

specific tone that drew immediately nailed. And I feel like there was such a specific tone that

Drew immediately nailed. And sometimes when you're reading scripts, you don't know what the tone

is going to be. But yeah, I knew immediately that I had to do it. I think Drew wrote such a fantastic

script. Yeah, no, I felt the same way. I couldn't put it down. I then, you know, the part was not mine yet. I had to, you know, I was, it was one of those like, should you respond to the material? I know. We'll set a meeting and I'm like, okay. And I read it and I was like, I have to be part of this thing. part of this thing I also saw on the email that it was the same team who did Barbarian, which was my favorite movie of 2022. So I was very, very excited about it. And I think I came off very desperate in my first meeting with Drew. I was like, I would love to be, if you want me, I'm yours. I'm Jack, by the way. Would you like a coffee? And it was, no, but I'm just so happy it all worked out, because it really was, like, the tone he created, the world he created. I'm so excited, this is his feature debut. Which is insane. Insane. I'm so excited to see what he does next. Yeah. Such a fan of our guy. I love him.

Yeah, it was pretty incredible.

And, you know, like, everyone in this, the whole ensemble really feels like they have great chemistry.

It feels like an actual friend group like you would see in real life.

And I wanted to know if you all had time to meet up beforehand

or have any rehearsal time before,

or if that dynamic just came about naturally.

...