How Bring Her Back Made Sally Hawkins ‘Terrifying’

It’s challenging to imagine being scared of Sally Hawkins. This is an actor so sultry and open, she’s been an on-screen mum to both Paddington and Willy Wonka; who melted hearts when she fell in love with a fish-man in The Shape Of Water. But with Bring Her Back, she’s plunging into all-out horror. The follow-up film from Talk To Me directors Danny and Michael Philippou casts Hawkins as Laura, a foster mother who tragically lost her own daughter Cathy, and who has less-than-wholesome motivations in bringinb teenager Andy (Billy Barratt) and his younger sister Piper (Sora Wong) into her home. ‘Paddington Down Under’, this is not.

“She’s terrifying in the movie,” Michael Philippou tells Empire. The pair were thrilled to work with an actor who they respected so much – and who brought all the intensity the role required into the film’s darkest scenes. “When she’s in that zone, playing a horror thing, even the crew was scared to approach her,” laughs Danny. In part, the film is an exploration of what happens when that maternal love Hawkins so beautifully portrayed in Paddington and Wonka ends up twisted. “She’s dealing with [grief] in the wrong way,” explains Michael. “If she couldn’t let go, what does that mean?”

For Danny, co-wrote the film with his writing partner Bill Hinzman, beyond all the gore and the god-that-looks-painful shocks, Bring Her Back offered a chance to go deep on intimate character work. “We’re so obsessed with In Treatment,” he says of HBO’s therapy-session drama. “The characters are so real that someone throwing a cup of water on someone else feels like an explosion going off. I love going into our writing, like, ‘Let’s make those characters feel so real that if someone threw a glass of water on someone, it would be a big deal.’” Trust us: the explosions in Bring Her Back are more than just a glass of water.

Read Empire’s full interview with Danny and Michael Philippou – on Bring Her Back, Talk To Me, deathmatch wrestling and more – in The Fantastic Four: First Steps issue, on sale Thursday 5 June. Pre-order a copy online here. Bring Her Back comes to UK cinemas on 1 August.