EXCLUSIVE: Billy Barratt, star of Danny and Michael Philippou’s grippingly intense, dark and twisted Bring Her Back, was able to get into the mood for horror by being locked alone in a room, he reveals.
Brit actor Barratt, 17, who also plays Casper Morrow, one of the few humans able to communicate with the alien invaders in the Apple TV+ drama Invasion, tells Deadline: “There were moments where Danny would basically lock me in a room by myself, and he goes, ‘Just try and get in character.’ He shut the door, I’m not allowed to leave. I ended up just sitting there with no phone, no nothing — which is great, by the way. I just sat there for ages, and then when I came back outside of that door, back into the scene … you just feel like you are there are in it.”
It was funny at first, but then he found it freaky and scary. However, he adds, being shut away for half-hour stretches at a time was useful. “Seeing the effect it had actually helped me so much, not just in the script but in future projects as well. So thank you, Danny,” he says with gratitude.
Bring Her Back is a horror film underpinned by a solid tale involving siblings Andy and Piper, who is vision-impaired, played by Barratt and Sora Wong, respectively. Following the death of their father, they’re fostered by Laura, a seemingly — at first glance, at least — kindly, grieving mother whose daughter has died, played by two-time Oscar nominee Sally Hawkins.
Sally Hawkins in ‘Bring Her Back’ (A24)
“It’s more emotion than just jump scares and gory things,” Barratt says with a dramatic shiver.
This isn’t a spoiler, because it’s in all the trailers, but Hawkins scares the living daylights out of those kids – and the audience.
There’s a third kid involved in the story called Oliver, played with macabre relish by Jonah Wren Phillips.
I saw the A24 picture on a recent morning at a screening kindly set up by Sony at its HQ in Paddington, London, and it left me shaken for the rest of the day — and night.
Hawkins fully immerses herself in her role. Barratt recalls chatting to her at the wrap party. “She said to me, ‘We should meet up in London because I haven’t actually got to meet you as me yet properly.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, OK. Cool. Right. So you were really Laura in that!’”
He makes clear that the actress wasn’t “terrifying” the whole time.
“It only clicked for me when she said that. And I was like, ‘Oh, so you were fully immersed the whole time?’”
It can be “quite handy” to stay in character all day, he says, and go the full Daniel Day-Lewis.
There were three weeks of pre-production in Adelaide, Australia, the Philippous’ home state, which he says, “actors at my level aren’t usually involved in.”
Ordinarily, “you just sort of show up on the first day, they’ve done their pre-production, and then you just start. Here, everyone felt so involved. Me especially. It actually helped me and Sora to have that sort of brother-sister relationship, which is hard to get until you actually hang out with them. Those first three weeks of pre-production were fun for sure, because it felt like the whole thing was a great big icebreaker.”
Barratt studied acting and music at Sylvia Young’s drama school in London, and he was cast in several TV shows, films and one musical. That was with Kelsey Grammer in the musical Big Fish, which I happened to have caught.
His breakthrough came when he was 12 in director Nick Holt and writer Sean Buckley’s Responsible Child , the 2019 Kudos and BBC TV drama that won him the International Emmy for Best Actor, followed by two seasons of Invasion. He’s already filmed a third season, possibly coming to screens later this year.
There’s a genuine brother-and-sister warmth between the Andy and Piper characters in Bring Her Back — and plenty of sibling bickering too. He’s always holding her hand, and the relationship doesn’t seem at all feigned.
Sora Wong and Billy Barratt in ‘Bring Her Back’ (A24)
“And also the fact that I’m not sure how much she could see,” Barratt tells me, because like Piper, Sora is partially blind, though she could see more than her character.
“Anywhere we’d go,” he gently adds, “we’d end up just sort of linking arms. And so I explained to her what I could see, what was going on, and just sort of paint an image for her. Andy’s whole thing is he wants to make the world look like a better place for his little sister.“
Hawkins’ Laura does a bunch of things that I can’t spoil here, though as we discuss them, the word that Barratt and I kept repeating was “weird.”
I’d go so far to say, wonderfully weird. Maybe terrifyingly weird is more appropriate.
And as Barratt points out, “Piper cannot see what’s going on.”
It’s a whole mind game and such great writing from Danny Philippou and Michael Hinzman, who wrote Talk to Me.
Barrett didn’t meet with any psychologists or social workers whilst preparing for the film, but he tells me that he was introduced to Miranda Harcourt, the distinguished dramaturg and acting coach who often works with the likes of Nicole Kidman.
“She helped me and Sora … and also just how to approach certain scenes and just gave options and different exercises to do before a scene to get you real wound up,” he explains.
He says that the crew “were also my therapy.”
How so, I ask. “Because anytime that it was like a sad scene or a really happy scene or whatever, they would match the vibe on set all day. And it was just so a ‘We are one’ sort of thing.””
For instance, if he had to do a really sad scene, ”everyone would be really quiet for the whole day.”
Reviewing Barratt’s performances from Responsible Child, through two seasons of Invasion and now Bring Her Back, there is a discernible deeper progression in his acting. I mean, he’s growing up. He’s not a little kid anymore; he’s gained confidence in front of the camera as he’s gotten older.
It’s not something that he’s noticed himself, though he notes that there’s “definitely a feeling of being more comfortable on set” that first day when you don’t know anyone. “It’s nerve-wracking, and all you can really think about is the scene, but then at the same time, are they going to like it? Am I doing the right thing? There’s still time to pull me out of the movie. But that’s just what goes through my mind, at least.”
Reflecting on Invasion, he points out that he’s been on the set with his castmates since he was 13, “and I’m turning 18 next month.”
Billy Barratt in London (Baz Bamigboye/Deadline)
Shaking his head, he adds, ”It’s just been a mad trip, a mad drive, especially through Covid and everything.”
There were stops and starts during the pandemic, though there was a period where they had to stop shooting “for ages.” But when they resumed ”we’d all grown up by that point and all the growth spurts had happened.”
The plus factor is that he made lifelong friends through his involvement with Invasion.
He took Cassius, his younger brother, to the set while shooting the final episode of Season 2. “He was acting a little bit before this and then stopped. And then when I took him to that set, he was so amazed by all the lights and the lasers. It was a mad thing to see. He was like, ‘I want to start acting again.’
There’s video on YouTube of the 2020 International Emmy ceremony done remotely. Barratt’s at home with his family, and when he’s announced as the winner, he turns to Cassius, now 13, and says, ’Man, I love you,’ rubs his brother’s head affectionately and says, ”That’ll be you next.”
It’s a telling moment. Also in Bring Her Back there are aforementioned moments with Wong, and in certain scenes in Invasion, there’s a sort of inherent caring gene that he has that comes through the screen.
The matter is not something he’s, thought about or is aware of, obviously, but Barratt acknowledges there’s something in what I’m suggesting.
Billy Barratt in ‘Bring Her Back’ (A24)
“I think that’s what freaks me out when I’m watching myself back. Is it too much like me or have I actually got the character down or have I just half-assed that? Because I’m seeing parts of me in there. But then I also think on the flip side of that, I think it’s quite important to have a little bit of you in there because that’s what makes it natural.”
During the Bring Her Back shoot, he says that he saw a lot of his brother in Sora because they’re a similar age “and they have fights and that sort of thing.”
He adds: “It’s just siblings, there’s a real deep love in it. I definitely saw a lot of my brother in Sora’s character.”
We spent a long time chatting, and it’s clear, at least to me, that Barratt’s in it for the long haul.
“I’d love to be involved in every aspect of a film from the moment it started right up to when it comes out,” he says. “I think there’s moments that I miss because as an actor it’s just not your job to be involved in those certain scenarios. And I wish I could be involved in that. And I look at some really big actors who will sit next to the director and have a say in what happens. And I don’t know if that’s because they’re able to produce as well or whatever.
“I am not like, massive. You say to anyone: ‘What’s his name?’ I dunno,” he shrugs.
“I’m definitely new. I’m definitely starting, even though I’ve been doing it for about 11 years now, almost. I’m a new actor, I guess.”
Every actor arrives in some shape or from, I suggest. Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t arrive fully formed, nor did Timothée Chalamet or Tom Cruise.
Taking issue, Barratt argues that “Leonardo DiCaprio did come fully formed. I love him. And I think every single film I’ve seen him in from when he was younger than me in these films like Basketball Diaries or What’s Eating Gilbert Grape he’s just incredible in all of it. I just think there’s just some people that have just got it straight away, and I don’t class myself with one of those people, I’m still learning, for sure. And I think that’s what I mean when I say an ‘actor at my level’ — someone that doesn’t understand a lot of it but really wants to. Wants to be involved in all of it.”
We order French fries, a Coke for him and more piping-hot tea for me.
Making Responsible Child, about a 12-year-old boy accused of helping to kill his abusive stepfather who was tried in court the same as an adult in England and Wales, opened his eyes to the power of film.
After it came out, he realized “how much of an impact” it had had, with changes made in how police and courts handle such cases.
He remembers reading about it and thinking: “Oh, shit! It’s not just sitting down and watching something on Netflix. It can change people’s lives.”
Certainly, Responsible Child hold is one of those films that stay with you.
There are a bunch of movies that have stayed with him too.
Like David Fincher’s Fight Club, Martin Scorsese‘s Shutter Island and Christopher Nolan’s Inception. He’s a big fan of Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation as well. And Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca!
He likes Francis Coppola’s The Godfather, and now — having watched the Paramount+ series The Offer, about producer Albert S. Ruddy’s experience of making The Godfather — he wants to see the whole trilogy.
He’d like to work with the Philippou brothers again and admires what he calls their “genius” way of working.
They’d work a full day in the studio and then home and be up until the early hours editing the footage of the day and “be back at 7 in the morning.”
They shot with the same crew and used the same studio they filmed Talk to Me in. It was once an insane asylum. The Babadook was shot there.
Apparently, he regales, the studio’s haunted on one particular floor. “We went up to have a little look around,” he recalls, “This one room was so scary, and there was a pile of dead bees. A lot of bees bang in the center of the film. And people had told stories of cleaners quitting and a security guard going up there and in his ear he could hear whispering. He left and never came back. I would never come back. That’s terrifying,” he says, pausing to add, “a great place to shoot a horror movie.”
Season 3 of Invasion was shot in Canada, with Barratt’s scenes being shot before and after working on Bring Her Back.
“My hair was really long, and then I went to shoot Invasion, they cut my hair really short. And then I went back out to Canada, and my hair was still short. So then they a wig. But the wig, it just didn’t look like it did before. I don’t blame anyone for that. I just think it just didn’t fit me correctly. It just wasn’t right. I’ve actually watched it back on the cameras, and it looked good. But me actually walking around, it just didn’t work.”
He’s not allowed to give anything away about Season 3 of Invasion, but he does let slip that … Oh, no! I realize that it’s way too much of a spoiler to impart.
Whatever happens to his Casper Morrow in Invasion, Billy Barratt’s in for a long and fruitful career.
