The Big Picture

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff sits down with
House of Spoils
writer-directors Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy, and stars Ariana DeBose and Arian Moayed at Fantastic Fest 2024.

House of Spoils
is a psychological horror movie about an ambitious chef opening a restaurant on a haunted estate.
During their interview, the team share their production journey, personal food recommendations, and insights into their characters and experiences.

From Blow the Man Down writer-directors Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy comes a new dish, House of Spoils, served piping hot by Amazon MGM Studios and Blumhouse Television. Next up on the directing duo’s menu is this psychological horror movie starring Academy Award-winner Ariana DeBose, Arian Moayed, and Barbie Ferreira, which celebrated its world premiere at this year’s Fantastic Fest.

In House of Spoils, Chef (DeBose) is given the opportunity of a lifetime to open her own fine-dining restaurant in rural New York. With the help of sous chef Lucia (Ferreira), the opening night will be Chef’s chance to prove herself to her business partner, Andreas (Moayed), if she can present unique dishes and pull it all off without a hitch. Unfortunately, on top of renovating an old house, planning an experimental menu, and serving an unforgettable dining experience, Chef discovers her restaurant once belonged to a witch who doesn’t seem keen on letting go just yet.

At Fantastic Fest, Collider’s Perri Nemiroff sat down with Cole, Krudy, DeBose and Moayed to dig into this feast of a sophomore feature. The crew talks about how the original idea evolved from script to screen, DeBose leading her first horror movie, and Moayed’s real-life experience in the culinary world. They also talk about leadership, how Chef and Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly (The Devil Wears Prada) have a lot in common, their personal foodie journeys, the most joyful moments on set, and more. Check out the full conversation in the video above, or you can read the transcript below.

How ‘House of Spoils’ Was First Cooked Up
“Feed the beast!”

PERRI NEMIROFF: I want to begin by discussing the development of the story. Can you tell me what story idea number one was, the thing that started it all? But then I also want to know if you had a break-story moment, something you found along the way that really made it feel whole?

BRIDGET SAVAGE COLE: Basically we had this idea of wanting to do an artist experiencing the ghost of another artist, or the presence of another artist, or something. Two female things. It was kind of abstract and artsy, and then Krudy was like, “What if it’s a chef?” And then, all of a sudden, we had this sort of waterfall.

DANIELLE KRUDY: We call it a download.

COLE: I remember! I’ll never forget. It was, like, one hour where we [wrote] kind of the basic sketch.

KRUDY: I remember exactly where I was.

COLE: Me, too.

KRUDY: It was like we were there, it arrived.

COLE: And then it was like, “And there’s a rabbit…”

KRUDY: But make no mistake, there were a lot of hurdles.

COLE: And then it was still pretty bad for a long time. [Laughs]

KRUDY: There were a lot of challenges. “Everything needs to feel unexpected. Keep it unexpected.” And actually, there is the inspiration seed and then there’s all the story labor you do after that to keep it unexpected and keep it growing and alive, and you’re like, “Feed the beast!”

I feel like there are a lot of people out there who assume that when you make an exceptional first feature, it’s easy to get the second one off the ground, but that’s not always the case. What is something you would call a misconception about getting a second feature off the ground after a successful first feature, but then also, what is something about Blow the Man Down that helped you get this movie made and made the way you wanted?

KRUDY: We have so much empathy for how challenging the journey is to get even to set, and then from set on is a whole other kit and caboodle. You can only control your own little universe to an extent, and then you have stuff like the pandemic, which this was like a little boat on the waves, thrashed around. Then there are studio changes, people lose positions, ideas and tastes change.

COLE: It fell apart a couple of times. It is a miracle that any movie is made. I can’t believe somebody gave us money to make it.

KRUDY: Cannot. And we really champion those people. They know who they are.

COLE: And also our actors.

KRUDY: We can sit here and name names. You are helpless in a lot of ways to so many external conditions. We kept the faith in the ideas, and then we also just tried to persevere that we could see this realized. Actually, to see something original, totally original, realized these days is still really wild.

COLE: But Ariana believed in us and that was what made the movie real, and then we were able to get the rest of our amazing cast from there. Then you have momentum. “Okay, it’s a movie.”

Ariana DeBose Leads Her First Horror Movie
Image via Prime Video

I’ll jump to you now, Ariana. This is your first horror movie, right?

ARIANA DEBOSE: Yeah!

What is it about horror that made you think, “I have something to gain from the genre as an actor evolving my craft right now?”

DEBOSE: I’ll be really honest, when I read the script, which I loved, it was one of the first things that came my way after I call it “the big moment in the sun.” I didn’t really know that I was saying yes to the horror genre. Like, yeah, I saw the name Blumhouse and da, da, da, da, da, but I was drawn to the storytelling of it all, and there were so many other elements, and I was like, “Oh, that’s interesting. There’s suspense here. There’s something very scary about it.” I was just listening to a Q&A that Nicole Kidman just gave about Babygirl.

Babygirl ’s incredible!

DEBOSE: It’s an incredible film. So check that out, too. But you’ll watch this one first, if you feel so inclined. [Laughs] But she said, “I didn’t realize exactly what I was making until I was making it,” and I actually felt very similarly about this. But I will say this genre or subject matter stretched me in a lot of ways, which is exactly what I wanted because this character, first of all, her name is Chef. Her whole world is defined by her job. I didn’t always like her. I loved her — I did not always like her. I think you have to love your characters in order to play them honestly and authentically, but I did not always like her. I wanted to play someone who also asked a lot of me in regard to my set of skills. Like, I’m not a chef. I’m from the South, and I love to cook, but that’s cupboard cooking, y’all. What’s in the cupboard? Throw it in the casserole dish and turn on the oven. You know what I mean? I’m not mincing, this is not chiffonade. That’s not what we’re doing here.

So, I had to really challenge myself in that way and let go of some of my preconceived notions about acting, perhaps. I think we, as artists, tell ourselves stories about what it’s supposed to be, and I threw everything out the window and just tried a different tactic. So this was really an exercise of me realizing that I was semi-method — sorry about that — and just trying anything and everything new.

I have so many follow-up questions. Ariana and Arian, I’ll toss this first one to both of you because you just mentioned the idea of not really knowing what you’re doing until you’re doing it. Did you two have a moment on set when you stopped and said to yourself, “I get my character,” or, “I get the film as a whole now more than ever?”

DEBOSE: There were plenty of days where I was like, “I don’t know where I am right now.”

ARIAN MOAYED: “Are we still in Budapest?”

DEBOSE: We made this movie in Budapest, by the way. It’s a great double for Upstate New York. It’s also, I think, cheaper and gives you more time now. It’s economics, you guys. But I do remember a moment in the Jeep. There’s a really lovely moment between our two characters where — pardon the language — both characters are in the shitter, but they don’t know that they’re both in the shitter until they share. And shooting that scene with him was definitely like one of those, “I don’t know if this is the right tone. I question everything I’m doing, but we’re doing it. We’re doing it together,” and that was cool.

MOAYED: I do love that scene.

DUBOSE: Great scene.

MOAYED: There are so many. I mean, putting on the costume and all of a sudden getting into that Jeep and then all of a sudden coming out and throwing keys at you and then you catching the keys, and I was just like, “Oh, we’re here now.” Also, I have to say the production design on this is just so incredible that when you walk in, you feel like you are in that world and that really sets everything to a nice tone and makes everything much easier.

Arian Moayed Is No Stranger to the Culinary World
“I feel like there’s always an Andreas in every line of work.”
Image via Prime Video

Arian, I hear that you have a lot of experience in this world. I was reading that, of course, you’re part owner of Pebble Bar, but you were also described as an “insider of the Broadway restaurant scene.” Can you tell me something specific about your knowledge of or experience in that realm that we can see coming through your performance here?

MOAYED: I got involved as one of the owners of Pebble Bar maybe a year prior to shooting this. That whole world is a completely different world because you’re all of a sudden dealing with advertising and so much stuff that’s happening. There’s a level of, “Everything’s going amazingly. Can’t you tell?” But you have to just keep pushing, like, “It’s all amazing.”

COLE: That is filmmaking.

KRUDY: So real.

COLE: “We’ll shoot in the spring!”

MOAYED: “It’s just going great guys. You didn’t know it’s going great?” And then deep down, you go home, and you’re just like, “Why did I do this? I could have just been an investor in something else.” [Laughs] There’s a little bit of that in the movie. Andreas is really trying. He’s putting his whole life out there and being like, “I’m gonna try something big.” Putting Chef in there in this new place that’s haunted, and then all of a sudden… You know. But he also has to tell everyone, “Everything’s okay. I promise you, everything is fine.” So, I kind of sense that a lot with these restauranteurs.

DEBOSE: That is so indicative not just of moviemaking, but I feel like there’s always an Andreas in every line of work. There’s always some guy that’s like, “It’s great. It’s great. It’s great.” Even the finance guy that’s like, “It’s great. It’s great. It’s great.” And then the whole market tanks. You know what I mean?

KRUDY: And sometimes — shoutout — you need that producer to tell you, “It’s great.”

DEBOSE: You do.

KRUDY: Sometimes you need that producer man or lady to keep the cruise.

MOAYED: “It’s all going great. It’s all going great.”

Image via Prime Video

One thing I think about very frequently is, when I was in film school, we would make our shorts and we had one person who would be the go-to AD. Every time someone got frustrated, he would stop and stand in the middle of everyone and go, “Guys, we’re making a movie!” And that, in all honesty, completely changed the tone of the set in a heartbeat simply because he said that with enthusiasm that we all caught on to.

DEBOSE: It’s the best. And I also think you always need the one person to reframe, right? Because when you’re in it, it feels so heavy, and it’s the end of the world when you cannot find a solution, so you do need the one person. And nine times out of 10, nothing’s burning up, nothing’s on fire. You just can’t see the forest for the trees in the moment. So, thank you to all of those people who do that.

MOAYED: Who have been bullshitting us for years. “No, you’re great!”

DEBOSE: “It’s a real dumpster fire, but it’s great!”

KRUDY: We need it! We want more of it.

The Cast and Creatives of ‘House of Spoils’ Share Their Food Recs
Image by Adam Matignetti

Because you brought up your cooking skills, I’m gonna go here next. For each of you, can you recall your most memorable meal?

DEBOSE: You know what? I had some great meat today. I did.

KRUDY: Famous quote from DeBose! [Laughs]

MOAYED: Let’s just take a quick five.

DEBOSE: Sorry! [Laughs] Anyways, I believe it’s a place in Austin called Terry’s

Terry Blacks!

DEBOSE: Terry Black’s. I think that was some of the best ribs I’ve ever had in my life. If you enjoy meat — that’s not for everyone — it’s delicious.

MOAYED: No, keep going. Say different ways of what you’re trying to say with the words “meat” and “enjoying it.”

DEBOSE: It’s great. Big fan. It doesn’t even need the sauce! [Laughs] Really, really great. Big, big fan. Yeah, that was good.

COLE: When I was 23 and a waitress in Bar Harbor, Maine, there was this fine dining restaurant called Havana’s. It was really random that I was there, but it was a really nice restaurant, and I remember the chef taking out this one meal and allowing us to try it. It was gonna be a new special, and it was a pork thing on a sweet potato and plantain, pancetta kind of thing. I just remember this one bite of being like, “Oh, no, this is food.” He was really, really talented chef, and it was like South American fine dining or whatever. Also, he was passionate and I had just never thought of food on that level before. I wish I could remember the chef’s name. He’s also a total dick. [Laughs]

MOAYED: Cut that part out.

DEBOSE: But the food was amazing.

KRUDY: Take five!

MOAYED: We’re gonna take another quick five.

KRUDY: This is kind of cheesy, but actually, my journey on this movie has been to love cooking, and I like cooking a lot more now than I did even four years ago. When I cook something that I’m proud of and enjoy it on my term, I will tell you, that is my own little slice of bliss. It can be really simple. It feels like a journey from being somebody who’s just shoveling food in front of a monitor — you’ve been there — to just eating a nice piece of toast and beans and homemade pesto. Whatever. I said it. Homemade pesto.

MOAYED: I gotta say, one of the things I love, and it’s also in this movie, is this idea that the presentation of the meal is so lovely. I’m gonna actually shoutout my mother in Chicago, Illinois right now. When she presents food, it’s always like a piece of art, and so people just take a second with it. I just feel like when I want a good meal, I like it presented in a nice way, which Chef does a lot of in this movie.

DEBOSE: I learned to plate like a champ. We call it “plating.” It’s art. It’s an artist going to work. There are different phases of the art.

To completely demolish that idea and make me feel better about the fact that I have zero cooking skills, I want to know your favorite foods that are the polar opposite of fine dining.

MOAYED: Nachos.

KRUDY: Oh, down and dirty nachos.

MOAYED: Just load it up.

KRUDY: Burrito. Breakfast burrito. Always. Dip it, dunk it.

COLE: Have y’all ever tried cereal? [Laughs]

MOAYED: Tell me more.

A+ answer! Now you’re talking my language.

DEBOSE: I’m like an Oreos and peanut butter kind of gal.

KRUDY: I can see that for you, Ariana.

DEBOSE: Absolutely. And it’s odd because I will pair it with, like, a deep glass of red wine. So, it’s been a bad day. [Laughs]

Follow-up question — what is your peanut butter of choice?

DEBOSE: Skippy.

Crunchy or smooth?

KRUDY: That’s the Southern in you, dude.

DEBOSE: Smooth. I don’t like that crunchy stuff.

Image via Prime Video

Can I ask you two a really weird performance question? I get really obsessed with the little things, the basic things we do every day that are hard to replicate believably on screen, like sneezing, coughing, fake waking up. What is it like fake tasting?

DEBOSE: You did that a lot.

MOAYED: Fake tasting to make it pretend that it was delicious?

COLE: Everything was actually delicious, right?

MOAYED: Right.

COLE: And not lukewarm from being on set?

MOAYED: Actually, let’s take another five. [Laughs] Usually, when it’s food that you have to eat on set, they’re more interested in how it looks, so it’s usually frozen or something very cold. But there was something that was supposed to be disgusting and that was actually disgusting, and that was that mushroom thing.

COLE: The truth comes out.

MOAYED: The truth comes out. It was pretty gooey and kind of chewy.

What Does Leadership Look Like?
“You can own the vulnerability of being a leader.”
Ariana, I’m gonna ask you a very, very specific line question. It’s when you say the line, “I’m not an asshole, I’m just the boss.” What was it like tackling that and hitting the right tone so a line like that cuts through as well as it does?

DEBOSE: Well, I didn’t think about it much, I’ll tell you that. I just said it in the moment. I think there’s probably not a woman alive who hasn’t worked in a toxic work environment, and I think women are held to some really ridiculous standards, and our leadership styles are, nine times out of 10, encouraged to be incredibly firm. However, what I loved about this film is that it is an exploration of trying and learning, and I think you watch Chef come in with some really toxic attributes to her leadership style. And throughout, you’ve watched someone learn that there is a better way, there’s a softer way, and you can own that soft. You can own the vulnerability of being a leader. It’s not always easy. You’re not always gonna be liked, but you can lead with generosity of spirit, and that is ultimately the goal.

But for myself, I don’t know if people realize this, but actors, we’re a walking business. We run our own business. Yes, it’s flashy and realness, but there’s a business and a business. And quite frequently, I have to remind people that I’m a boss. I run a company, the company of Ariana DeBose. I run my business, and I’m real nice. I am not an asshole, but I am still the boss. And people don’t always like the decisions you have to make, and that sucks because I used to be a people pleaser. Again, I don’t know that a woman alive who doesn’t know what that feels like to want to please, to want to be liked, to want people to respect you and be willing to do all the work to make that happen, but it’s hard when you just got to get a result, and it’s not happening. But you always have a choice.

I always go back to The Devil Wears Prada. Meryl Streep’s character, Miranda Priestly. That was not a happy woman, but she was a boss leader, and she got results, but she was not happy. But I don’t know if she was a great boss. Would you define her as a great boss?

COLE: She had some toxic work environments that she didn’t undo.

DEBOSE: Yeah. That character, I think, asked us to ask a lot of questions of ourselves in regard to what leadership looks like, and my character got to do it in this way in this film. So, I’m not saying that we need to, like, compare Chef to Miranda Priestly because, honestly, I would probably lose, but I do think the conversation of leadership styles and how we grow and how we learn and how those have changed and evolved over time is really great. Let me stop talking now.

So we can highlight a couple of scenes in the movie, I’ll end on this question. In an earlier interview that we did at Fantastic Fest, it was for The Rule of Jenny Pen , the director, [James Ashcroft], spoke about Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow’s process and emphasized how much joy those two take in their work. I want to know, what is the day on this particular set that you felt the most joy as an artist?

COLE: I love that question.

DEBOSE: There are a couple of days that jump to my mind, which is good. You wanna have multiple days of joy. There are two. I loved the day I was on set with you, Barbie [Ferreira]…

MOAYED: We miss you, Barbie.

DEBOSE: We miss you!

Barbie’s great in this.

Image via Prime Video

DEBOSE: You’re so good in this! But it was the getting to know you, “Andreas, come on, let’s go to dinner. We’re gonna go meet the fancy guy.” I loved that. It was the most awkward, wonderful, meet-and-greet thing. There was such joy in that. But I felt a lot of joy during the shooting of the big final sequence, the final cooking sequence in the scene. That brought me a lot of joy because it combined all the things that I love most — movement and food. I think food brings people together. And the culmination of all of that energy that’s happening in this film, all the exchanges of these characters came together in a really beautiful, cool way. And, yeah, she had a big cauldron thing. That was cool. It was great.

MOAYED: I have a lot of days, too. It was a lot of fun. Budapest was so much fun. But one day in particular, it was when you were presenting a bunch of new meals at the table, and we’re all sitting. It’s me and Barbie and a few others are sitting there, and you’re bringing out food, and everything is kind of going wrong. And all of a sudden, Barbie’s character says something like, “Yeah, it needs a little bit of this,” and I’m like, “What the hell did you just say?” And that whole day was really kind of fun and funny.

Image via Prime Video

COLE: I’m glad you brought that up because that was a really fun moment for me. I remember watching like, “Oh, this movie is gonna be funny.”

MOAYED: Everyone is having their own meal.

KRUDY: Oh, the take withe bugs. It was like, “Oh yeah, these guys are popping.” The looks. The looks between them alone — the comedy! I got a lot of joy from these two. These two were like two peas in a pod to my left.

DEBOSE: Ari².

MOAYED: Ari².

KRUDY: It was really Ari². We had a real time. And I was thinking for me, joy was in the garden whenever we had Ariana in the garden where she was dirty and just up to her arms, sleeves rolled up, and just pulling weeds. Watching a woman work is a lot of pleasure for me, so I really enjoyed those parts.

COLE: I also liked that. I felt really happy seeing the bare arms and the working.

DEBOSE: I remember I was sore a lot. I was always in the dirt or in the plants. I would do push-ups before.

KRUDY: I meant to compliment you on that. I forgot about that. The Chef from the activation today, we were like, “Hey, did you relate to the movie at all?” And she was like, “This and this and this, and then when she was standing in the garden holding her back.” She was like, “I felt so seen,” with specifically the back pain. [Laughs]

DEBOSE: It was a lot of physical challenge for me.

House of Spoils premieres on Prime Video on October 3.

Watch on Prime