Nia DaCosta: Why is Real Life Scarier Than Horror Films?
The Sam Sanders Show
KCRW & Sam Sanders
4.9 • 709 Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2026
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Director Nia DaCosta has done it all. Horror, period drama, and even a Marvel blockbuster. Through it all, Nia is always asking: What does it mean to be human? Her latest films Hedda and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple are no different.
She tells Sam about how horror themes mirror the real world, how she found her voice as one of the few Black women directors in the business, and why she’s not interested in teaching white people about race through her films.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey y'all, Sam Sanders here. |
| 0:07.0 | Thank you so much for checking out my show. |
| 0:09.1 | My guest this week is Nia Dicosta. |
| 0:11.3 | She's a film director who has done a little bit of everything. |
| 0:14.9 | Horror, period drama, big Marvel blockbuster, so many genres. |
| 0:20.5 | But with all of her work, Nia is getting at these really |
| 0:23.3 | big existential questions about what it means to be human, to be alive. I think it's human beings, |
| 0:29.9 | obviously like we are on a rock flinging itself through space in a universe that is mostly nothing. |
| 0:37.8 | And I think the meaninglessness that that can insight in a person has led to a lot of beautiful |
| 0:43.0 | things like art and family and whatever, but also two really terrible things. |
| 0:48.5 | Nia's latest film is The Bone Temple. |
| 0:50.9 | It's part of the 28 Days Later film franchise. |
| 0:58.0 | I've been developing an idea about the nature of the infection. When the infected attack, what do they see? |
| 1:08.0 | This movie has Ray Fines as a doctor studying killer zombies. |
| 1:13.6 | There's also a cult and some devil worship and a lot of gore. |
| 1:18.6 | The entire film is asking its viewers some big questions. |
| 1:21.6 | What is evil? |
| 1:23.6 | Is it innate in some people and not others? |
| 1:25.6 | Or is it always just a choice? |
| 1:29.3 | Nia da Costa went all in on those big questions in our conversation. |
| 1:33.6 | She also told me what it was like to direct Ray Fines dancing with fire to Iron Maiden in the middle of a bone temple. |
| 1:41.9 | I love this chat so much. |
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