READ MORE ABOUT WEAPONS / READ MORE ABOUT BARBARIANS
Q: Is there a moment you can trace where the idea that would become Weapons began?
ZACH CREGGER: One of my best friends unexpectedly died. I think there are times when screenwriters can write from a place of ambition, and that’s maybe not the most creatively healthy way to go about it. But I was in such a severe, painful place that I was able to write just out of pure need, without any idea of what it was going to be.
When I’m writing, I have a rule for myself—I don’t want to know what’s going to happen at all. I always just start. So, I sat down to write what would become this movie, and the first thing I type is this little girl telling a story and these kids who go running out of the house. And I’m thinking as I’m writing, “This is cool. I hope I figure this out.” And I didn’t really figure it out until it was time in the script to answer that question. Basically, I’m writing on a tightrope, hoping that it is revealed to me. Luckily, in this case, it was.
But I was just writing to get this feeling out, and it ended up turning into Weapons. I think when I wrote Barbarian, it was kind of a similar thing. I sat down and started writing for the fun of it, without any idea of what it was going to be. I was able to have that exact same process for this, where I didn’t know what the movie was going to be until I typed “the end.” Now, in all honesty, I wrote a first draft that was really bad. Then, Barbarian came out. And then, I took that first draft and got it into healthy enough shape that it could be a movie.
Q: Barbarian is a really tough act to follow.
ZACH CREGGER: Well, after Barbarian, I really wanted the next thing to be something that would challenge me to be bigger, be better. I wanted to make something that felt a lot more ambitious—not just in terms of size and scale, but a lot more moving parts and a much more challenging structure. I wanted it to be riskier, but just as crazy. Sometimes, when the film is bigger, you might want to play it safe, but I wanted to really go the other way and get as weird as I could be. So, I’m very proud to say that this is a bigger movie and a weirder movie than Barbarian is, and that’s kind of what I was thinking when I started writing it.
Q: What did you bring with you as a filmmaker from that film?
ZACH CREGGER: I think primarily, I got a lot more confident. During the whole process, I was like, “Do I know what I’m doing? Am I up to the task of making and directing a movie?” And I feel with Barbarian, I proved to myself, “Yes, I can do this.” So, I definitely went in with a bit more confidence. The biggest lesson was for me to try to tune out the noise around me and focus in on that small creative voice that is so easy to ignore. It’s so quiet and so small. And with the chaos of production, that little voice will nag with, “Hey, start over. This is not right and maybe we should pivot.” I think during Barbarian I would sometimes override that voice, because of the pressure, the money, the time at stake. But shooting Weapons, I was able to say, “Everybody, pause. This isn’t right. But I know what we need to do.” I think that was a valuable thing, and I doubt I would have been able to do that had I not made Barbarian.
Q: So, what really is Weapons?
ZACH CREGGER: The central question that this movie asks on page one is, “Why? Why did one classroom of kids decide, on the same night at 2:17 in the morning, to get out of bed, walk downstairs, open the front door, and walk out into the dark and never come back? What is it about this classroom? Why not the other third grade classroom? Was it a plan? Is it some sort of alien mind control? Is it a government thing? Is it a prank? What could be doing this?” Not knowing the answer to that question when I started writing, I thought that was pretty compelling. It was easy for me to lock-in to the mindset of a parent who is demanding answers or the teacher who has no idea. Or does she? I don’t know. I’m not going to say. But there was just already all of these juicy perspectives of people who are tasked with solving this case or who have a lot of stakes in getting this thing solved. So, it was easy to hit the ground running with that question.
This is a movie that starts weird and I think it ends way weirder, but it also stays both feet on the ground as much as it can. It’s a movie that obeys the rules of its own universe so it’s not going to spiral into some bizarre, hallucinogenic nightmare or anything like that. But it is a twisty, turn-y movie. I mean, it’s a movie that reinvents itself about every 20 minutes while still staying true to the central engine. But it’s also a fun movie. It’s funny, it’s scary, it’s inviting. It’s not a big, grim, morose slog, and yet, the story it tells is really f***ed up.
Q: This movie truly and constantly surprises. That is a feat in and of itself.
ZACH CREGGER: As someone who’s watched millions of movies over the course of my life and just loves them so deeply, it’s hard to have a story that is surprising and that you’re not going to see coming from the moment you watch the trailer… or at least once you’re 10 minutes in. I feel like I usually know 10 minutes into a movie where it’s going to go. I feel confident in saying that that’s not the case with Weapons and it’s really important that that is preserved for the people who are going to watch it after the first round of audiences. I think it’s really important to protect that. So, I guess this is a way of me saying, “Please don’t spoil this movie for your friends. Don’t go online and be a troll. Let people have their pure experience with it.”
Q: And as with Barbarian, you again kind of shatter the expected structure of the narrative, and have a brilliant cast that makes the most of it…
ZACH CREGGER: Weapons is an interesting movie, because there’s really seven leads of this movie. Everyone gets to be the star of Weapons for their little 12-minute chunk. And so, every person I cast, I’m casting the star of the show.
The two most forward facing ones at the beginning of the movie are Julia Garner and Josh Brolin. I think it’s easy to mistake Julia as a little bit of a delicate person. She’s got a very slight frame and this really wild, blonde shock of hair. And she’s very funny. But she has this really, really powerful core. I think her magic is that she’s able to access both of these parts of herself with a lot of compelling expertise. And so, it’s fun to see someone who you would at first think is kind of a prey animal turn into… not a predator, but into something formidable. And that’s something that’s rare to find, someone who can authentically be both. It’s easy to cast a badass, but could that badass play a compelling third grade teacher whose main problem is that she loves her class so much, but still needs to be able to bring it? It’s a short list of people who can do that, and Julia can. Josh is one of my favorite actors. I mean, he’s been in so many movies that I just adore and he’s just so… He’s so good. He’s so talented. He’s able to do so much with so little. He’s gruff, but he’s incredibly vulnerable and he’s just compelling. He’s a movie star. It’s one of the gifts of my life to be able to have Josh Brolin be in this movie. I don’t know what else to say. It’s obvious how great he is.
Alden Ehrenreich to me is just one of the great actors of our generation, if I may say that. And I think it’s time for people to recognize how spectacular he is. I fell in love with him as an actor when I saw Hail, Caesar! I thought he stole that movie just outright. Sorry, Josh. He did. Josh would agree by the way—Josh would say the same thing. When he’s in the right place at the right time, there’s nothing like it. He’s a total star and he’s so smart. And he’s a writer and a director, too. Talking to him was so easy, because he just understood the code of what we were trying to do in a scene. And he’s never fake. He’s never boring. And he’s mesmerizing. I love him. I really am just smitten with him.
I also am just over the moon with Austin Abrams, who I feel like is just this young actor who has not had his moment yet. But I really want to be part of it when that moment happens, because he’s like Willem Dafoe, John Cazale, Gary Oldman, ready to explode. He’s a character actor who is just weird and compelling always. He’s incapable of a false note. And I fell in love with him. I’ve always kept an eye out for the kid from Brad’s Status. It’s a two-hander, and Austin was probably 17 and he is working not at all. He’s got this totally calm, immovable energy and he’s just owning the movie. And for someone to be able to do that as a teenager is bizarre. And then he did Euphoria and he’s able to kind of chameleon his way into all these different things. And I was like, “I got to work with this kid.” And so yeah, when it was time to cast this movie and I needed a junkie who was in their 20s, I was like, “I know exactly who the f*** we’re getting for this movie.” I mean, he is just so committed. He’s so giving.
Benedict Wong was someone I wasn’t really familiar with prior to this movie. And I had a lot of ideas about what I needed out of this character. I knew I needed a gentle giant. I knew I needed somebody who, first of all, obviously had the acting chops, but I needed someone who I could totally believe would be an elementary school principal and could also be terrifying if they were to attack me. And Benny, he just came along at the 11th hour. I was kind of in a despair moment where I just was not able to get that part cast. And then one of my producers was like, “You really should check out Benny.” And I went down a rabbit hole and then we did a Zoom—I think he had just woken up and was like, “What do you want for this?” And he kind of ad-libbed his way through the scene. And on that Zoom, I was like, “You have this job. Come to America.” And he’s great, man. Benny’s the best. He’s so good. I love him.
Cary Christopher is one of the leads of this movie and he’s 10. I didn’t even think of Cary as a child actor. I just thought of Cary as an actor. He’s an incredibly smart person, and he asks thoughtful questions on set. He’s dialed in; he listens. Here’s what makes Cary so special. I feel like most child actors, they pre-shape—when an actor decides in advance how they’re going to deliver a line, that’s pre-shaping and it sucks. And children pre-shape, almost all of them do. And Cary doesn’t. Cary is just allowing himself to be in the scene and to listen and to react. And so right there, what else can you ask for? And he’s great. His instincts are always to play it real. He doesn’t ham it up. I loved him and he’s like a good energy on set. He was my little buddy, and I’m eternally grateful to Cary for bringing it in this movie, because he really brought it.
And then there’s Amy Madigan, who is just as good as it gets for an actor. You watch her in Field of Dreams, and you get the pep and spirit. You watch her in Gone Baby Gone, and you get the precision. And I had lunch with her at this Greek restaurant, and we were talking about the character, and right there across from me at the table, she just did it. And I promised myself when I went to this lunch that I was not going to offer her the role. And then when she did that, I was like, “This part is yours. You have the part.”
Q: What is it about this genre that continues to appeal, not only to filmmakers, but to the fans who will turn out for the theatrical experience?
ZACH CREGGER: Horror is really interesting right now, because it’s one of the few areas of modern film where you’re able to get a theatrical release and a decent budget while making something challenging, weird and new. I’m sorry to say it, but I don’t think you’re going to get a lot of that from these big budget giant action extravaganzas. It is more likely you’re going to get that from horror. And I’m fortunate, because my creative tuning fork tends to vibrate the most with it—I resonate with horror, and if I was writing just for me, I’d write horror. So, I’m lucky in that way. The stars have aligned right now in 2025 where horror is in vogue and people are paying attention to it, and so thank God. I’m in the sweet spot, because I love it. It’s my favorite thing. I never get scared in movies, but that one out of a hundred where I do, there’s nothing like it.
There’s something you get when you go see a horror movie or a comedy—come on, comedy, come back!—in a movie theater, where you are tapping into the vibration of the room… When you are coming together in a crowd, and you’re forfeiting your attention in unison to this experience, and you find the same wavelength, it’s more fun. It’s more engaging. We’re all kind of at a church. We’re not looking at our phone, we’re not talking about other s**t hopefully, unless you’re an asshole, and we’re dialed in and the experience is richer. That’s why it’s worth getting in your car and spending 40 bucks on popcorn and soda and getting a babysitter. It’s because you get something from the energy of the room. And when you get that in a horror movie, and you’re on this roller coaster together, it’s a thrill and an adrenaline and laughter release. That is more enjoyable when you do it en masse. I will always go see them in theaters; it’s just more fun.
Q: So, how do you feel about what you set out to do with Weapons?
ZACH CREGGER: My mission as a filmmaker is to stay completely clear and loyal to the vision that I have when I’m writing. When I’m writing the movie, I’m watching the movie and my only job is to make sure that that stays pure. That’s the hardest thing in the world to do, because there are a million problems that come your way every day when you’re making a movie where you could just start chipping away at that vision and, inevitably, you sometimes have to.
But I feel like when I’m watching it on the monitor on set, I’m seeing what I had in my head. And when I’m in the cutting room, most importantly, I’m watching the movie that I was watching a year ago and that I watched every night when I fell asleep, because I’m that obsessive. Every night when I fell asleep, I watched this movie in my mind. And I’m the proudest that when I watched it in the color grade, which is the last step of the edit, I was watching the same movie. And to me, it’s like, “Okay. Now, I’m kind of bulletproof. People can love this movie. People can hate this movie. It could perform well or it couldn’t, but I won the movie, because I made what I had in my head.” That’s the biggest victory I could ask for.
ZACH CREGGER’s (Writer / Director / Producer / Music by) feature writing and directorial debut, BARBARIAN, premiered in theaters in 2022 and stars Bill Skarsgård, Georgina Campbell and Justin Long. He just wrapped on his highly anticipated follow-up film, WEAPONS (also written and directed by Cregger), which is set to release in 2025. Zach was a founding member and writer for the New York comedy troupe, THE WHITEST KIDS U’KNOW, which he started while attending The School of Visual Arts. The group’s reputation for unpolished hit-or-miss hilarity precedes them around the New York comedy circuit, and they won the award for Best Sketch Group at Aspen’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival 2006. The group’s self-titled sketch comedy show ran for five seasons on IFC TV and Fuse. As an actor, he has appeared alongside Anthony Anderson, Jesse Bradford, Gary Cole, Megan Mullally and Krysten Ritter, and starred in TBS’s hit series WRECKED.
