Summary

Collider’s Steve Weintraub talks with Death of a Unicorn director Alex Scharfman.

Scharfman expresses excitement in audiences getting into the theaters to see that the people who made the film are “weirdos.”

Scharfman covers creative decisions for the film, from casting to crafting unique death scenes.

A24’s latest release, ​Death of a Unicorn, blends comedy and horror to make a commentary on the ethics and morality of the ultrarich members of society. The film marks the directorial debut of Alex Scharfman, who also penned the script for the feature, though he has more than a decade under his belt in the film industry with credits including producing Resurrection and Blow the Man Down, among others.
Death of a Unicorn stars Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega as a father-daughter duo who accidentally kill a unicorn while en route to a weekend retreat hosted by the father’s billionaire boss, portrayed by Richard E. Grant. The discovery of the unicorn’s curative properties leads to a series of darkly comedic and increasingly horrific events. In addition to Rudd, Ortega, and Grant, the cast also features Téa Leoni, Will Poulter, and Anthony Carrigan.
Collider’s Steve Weintraub recently interviewed Scharfman, and the discussion included the experience of directing his first feature and the process of turning his script into a love letter to the films that inspired him. Drawing from his background as a producer, Scharfman reflects on the importance of building a strong ensemble cast and working with A24, as well as his thoughts on crafting unique death sequences.
How This Producer Made the Shift to Directing With A24

“I didn’t have an impulse to direct until a couple of scripts ago.”

COLLIDER: Getting into a little bit about you before we get into the film, how much did you debate what you wanted to make as your first feature? I’ve spoken to a lot of people, and many ask, “What is that first film?” Because the truth is, you might only get to do one.
ALEX SCHARFMAN: It’s something I debated for a long time. I’ve been working as a producer for a number of years and as a screenwriter for a number of years. None of the scripts have been produced, but I’ve been working with them in development with production companies, other directors, actors, casting, and so on. I didn’t have an impulse to direct until a couple of scripts ago. I’ve written about 10 or 12 feature scripts, and only recently did I start to think, “Oh, I think I should be directing this.” I think that’s just a product of getting better as a writer—feeling like I’m tapping into something I was trying to express but didn’t necessarily know how. You just learn from so many steps along the way.
This checked a number of boxes in terms of excitement levels. I tend to write slowly, and I also know, having produced movies, that directing your first feature takes years. From when I started developing with A24, it was almost five years ago. I had written it before that, done a version of it, and I’d outlined before that. I knew from the outset that I needed to have a lot of reasons to want to do it, because otherwise it’s way too easy to stop somewhere along the way. One of the big reasons was when I had the idea for this movie, I realized it was a way to make a love letter to some of the movies that made me fall in love with filmmaking and films from my youth, that when I was a young adult, I was very into and excited by movies that provided a kind of populist escapism that I love. Realizing, “Oh, I get to do my own version of that,” was really exciting, and it felt worth holding on to.
As far as first features go, not to be too pragmatic about it, but it’s in a genre space that helps, certainly, get things made, get things greenlit, and gives them a certain potential. But also, in relation to it being genre, it being a popcorn movie, in the sense of the films that made me fall in love with cinema, there’s a certain theatricality to it that’s fun. It invites being seen on a big screen with a big crowd, and those are the kinds of movies I want to be making, and A24 is committed to that sort of filmmaking and film exhibition. So, when I had this idea and saw all the things it would allow me to play, and the canvas it allowed me to play with, and the story, it just felt like this was the one to hold onto for myself and to try to see if there was a way for me to find my way into it and make it feel personal, weird, and idiosyncratic in the ways I would hope my first feature would be.

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You’ve mentioned that you’ve produced around 20 projects. What did you learn as a producer that carried with you into making this film from your experience on set or in production meetings?
SCHARFMAN: It’s so hard because it’s a perspective thing. It’s not like I have a bullet list of, “Here’s the five things I’m going to do that are different from what I have seen.” For one, there’s just a certain familiarity and comfort level on set. I like being on a set. I know what that environment is like, and I like problem-solving within that space. Obviously, directing and producing are different things, but as a producer, I was always standing right next to the director, helping them figure out their vision, making sure they got what they wanted, and making sure that the movie was, in a literal way, just cutting together, that we had the coverage that we needed. Did we get the performance that we need? Are there diminishing returns, or should we move on?
I wish I could say it was like, “Oh, here are the five things I learned as a producer.” I think it’s more of a perspective—getting closer to that 10,000-hour thing, building that comfort level up. Making a movie, you make thousands of decisions. You just make thousands upon thousands of decisions. There’s something to helping other people make those decisions. Perhaps you get to see some setbacks, and you see where people make really great decisions that maybe go counter to your own instincts, and you realize, “Oh, that was the right call.” It’s hard to pinpoint it now, but you put those experiences in your back pocket and hope they inform the whole process.
This Was the Most Important Policy on the Set of ‘Death of a Unicorn’

“We had a great time making the movie.”

You’ve now made your first film; you had VFX, you had big movie stars. If you could go back in time to the first day of filming, is there anything that you would tell yourself because you learned it while making this, or was it a pretty smooth sailing project?
SCHARFMAN: We had a great time making the movie. I got sad when the production process was ending. I was like, “Oh man, I love shooting this movie.” I loved our cast. I loved our crew. We really got very lucky. It was a real “no assholes” policy, and we succeeded with that. I think there are certainly things that I’m like, “Ah, man, if I was reshooting that scene, I’d get this angle, or I’d try to get a take that did this,” or things like that, but overall, I feel very fortunate in that we made the movie we set out to make. I don’t think there was a time that we were like, “Oh, no, we’ve got to salvage this and scrap this whole idea.”
There were scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor, so if I could have those days back again, I’d be like, “Well, that scene’s not going to be in the movie, so let’s not waste six hours shooting it.” But at the same time, you only learn that through the process. So, I don’t know, it’s tough. I don’t know if I could actually tell myself to do this, but just, “Have fun with it.” Which I think I did get to a place, but there’s a certain anxiety when it’s all coming out of your head and pouring onto the page, or pouring off the page and into the camera, talking to everybody. There’s just so many logistics and all those thousands of decisions stacking up.
It’s a little forest through the trees, but sometimes you look around, and you’re like, “There’s a really cool puppet over there and Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega and Will Poulter over there, and they’re saying the words that I wrote,” and it’s a very surreal time. I tried to enjoy the ride as much as I could, but I feel like you could always go back and have more fun with it.

Image via A24

Yeah, I’ve heard that from everyone. We put on studios at different film festivals and places, and so many people say, “I wish I could enjoy it more,” but you’re working so hard that it’s only when it’s right about to end, and you realize, “Oh, it’s about to end.”
SCHARFMAN: I laugh a lot as a person; I like to joke around, and with this ensemble, it’s hard not to have fun. But I was certainly in the pressure cooker. I think prep was probably more stressful than the actual shooting. Sometimes with prep, you’re just pushing a boulder up a hill. Then, once you start shooting, the boulder’s rolling, and you just need to guide the boulder, like, “Alright, we’re going to try and push it in this direction,” but it’s already moving. However you set it up to go, that’s where it’s going to go. So, I think the prep was really the most stressful part for me. Once I started shooting and the actors were there, that got much more into the play.
How much did you debate the title? Was it always Death of a Unicorn, or did you almost have something else?
SCHARFMAN: It was literally only ever called Death of a Unicorn. I never entertained another title. It used to be Death of a Unicorne with an E on the end, which is a Middle English, antiquated spelling of unicorn. That was what it was for most of the history of the project. Obviously, the movie has a lot of references to medieval unicorn mythology and lore from antiquity, and so that was sort of a nod to that. But in discussions with A24 and marketing, there was some concern about, like, “We’ve got a weird enough movie as is. Do we also need to tell people we’re medieval history nerds in the process, or let them discover that as they watch the movie?” It wasn’t a major picadillo for me, but it was an interesting conversation where I was like, “Okay, that seems good. Get people in the cinema, then tell them we’re weirdos.”
No, you made the right call, 100%. The title that you have is the right title.
SCHARFMAN: It was one of those titles that just came to me, and I was like, “Alright, great.” I had another script idea that was like, “Death of a Blank,” years ago. I mean, I never even wrote it. It was more of a short story than anything. I don’t know why, it’s just the kind of structure I like.
Securing ‘Death of a Unicorn’s Impressive Ensemble Cast

“I kind of took that as an invitation that someday I should write something for him specifically.”

Image via A24

Again, this is your first film, and you put together this insane cast. I’m just curious what kind of blackmail material did you have on everyone to actually get everyone in this movie? I’m joking around, but it’s crazy.
SCHARFMAN: My kompromat is very much secure and locked away. No one will ever know, because they all did the movie. That was the deal. “You do the movie, the kompromat stays locked away.” No, I don’t know. I just wrote this script that I thought would be fun to be in if I was an actor. I tried to make every character have their moment to shine and be democratic in the sense of balancing the ensemble and letting everyone have their fun moments where no one’s really a straight man. They all have their own idiosyncrasies and perspectives. I honestly just got very lucky.
I wrote the lead role for Paul, and the ensemble started with him, because he had read and we were talking. We had met years ago about another script that I had written that I was not attached to direct, and in that meeting, he sort of hinted, asking me in a coy way, like, “Do I ever write for specific actors?” I kind of took that as an invitation that someday I should write something for him specifically. So I did that, and then that was the first domino, and what an incredible domino to get in place—a role that I literally tailored for him, hoping he would do it, and he loved the script, and he got very excited by it.
From there, building an ensemble is a really fun, stressful, exciting thing, especially one like this where it’s like all these different family units, you know? That’s something casting director Avy Kaufman and I talked about a lot, how you shape each of these family units. Avy, I’m very lucky to have her on the team. She’s just a genius. She’s a legend. She’s put together some of the best casts of any movie, like period. Full stop. Having her as the North Star guiding, “Here’s how we’re going to do this beat by beat and build it out, one person at a time…” Then, at a certain point, it was like, “Well, if you get on a roll, don’t look down, just keep going. Keep shooting for the stars.” We just got very fortunate.

Image via A24

It definitely helps with Paul, but then each domino that you push helps you get the next one. Because once you start assembling an all-star lineup, it’s so much easier, I would imagine.
SCHARFMAN: Then you get someone like Anthony Carrigan wanting to step in to play the role of Griff, which on the page doesn’t have much dialogue, but my contention was always that Griff is one of the most prominent roles in the movie because he’s always around. He doesn’t say much, but he’s always there. We’re always checking in with him, seeing what he sees, and what’s his reaction to this and that. But yeah, absolutely. I think you only get that sort of strength of ensemble by, each step of the way, not letting the chain get weak. I count myself just so fortunate that all of these actors chose to be in the movie because, as you said, it’s an embarrassment of riches. It makes my job very easy.
I definitely have to ask you, and I brought it up with Anthony, what was it like for you at the World Premiere at South By, when Anthony is the one who got the biggest applause?
SCHARFMAN: I was really touched by that. I wanted to cry because I love Anthony. He’s such a sweet guy, and he’s so talented and so nice and so smart and funny. I don’t know, that’s the guy who deserves all the flowers as far as I’m concerned. He’s such a team player and just down to Earth, and really, really talented. It was cool to see that room light up for him. I don’t know what to say other than that’s surreal. I’m so glad he got to have that moment of recognition, because I think he’s been doing such great work on Barry for years. I think he did great work in the movie. The sky’s the limit for that dude.

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Crafting Kill Scenes for ‘Death of a Unicorn’

“There’s a cathartic rage-joy from the unbridled violence and the inventiveness.”

Image via A24

Talk a little bit about getting into the editing room. You have your assembly cut or your first director’s cut. Were you just ready to jump out of the window, or were you like, “Oh, I got it. This is going to come together?”
SCHARFMAN: That’s one of those things where being a producer helped me. I’ve watched a lot of assemblies. The classic adage is, “Things never look as good as they do in dailies or as bad as they do at the first assembly.” So, with that first assembly, it’s helpful to say that out loud: “This is literally the worst the movie will ever be. It’ll never be this bad ever again… hopefully.” When I watched it, I watched it with that in mind, having seen all of the assemblies for every movie I produced. Watching rough cuts, watching assemblies, you have to develop the goggles you need. So, when I saw it, I was like, “Okay, we made what I thought we made, and there’s work to do.”
But the assembly made me laugh. I trusted my editor, [Ron Dulin]. He made some good choices. We made them better over time. I was pretty intimately involved in the edit, except for the assembly; the editor is that first assembly, usually unsupervised. It was funny because he was cutting while we were shooting, and so we wrapped, I went home—we shot the movie in Budapest—I traveled home, and I think three or four days later I watched the movie for the first time.
You have some great death scenes in the movie. Can you talk about how you came up with those scenes? Was it all in the script? How much were you figuring it out in pre-production, working with makeup and stunts?
SCHARFMAN: Those were all scripted. Those were all storyboarded in prep, some of them in very early prep, in fact. Because to get this movie greenlit, we had to know what all the creature shots were. So we had a bid to match, so “Here’s what everything costs.” So, that meant I had to really figure out a lot of that stuff prior to anything happening, prior to casting really starting. That was sort of the nature of the beast with that.

Image via A24

That’s part of the fun of writing sometimes. You’re like, “What are the inventive ways I can do this?” Some of the deaths have homages baked into them, of, “What’s the fun tongue-in-cheek reference point here that I could do?” At a certain point, you want to keep things fresh. You don’t want to just do the same thing. It’s very easy with a unicorn movie to be like, “Okay, I’m going to stab someone through the chest and stab someone through the chest and stab someone through the chest.” So, it became a fun game of how to do something different each time and feel like you’re saving the audience’s bloodlust anew. It’s part of the spectacle and the fun of the movie.
Oh, 100%. I saw it with a huge crowd, and people were erupting.
SCHARFMAN: There’s a cathartic rage-joy from the unbridled violence and the inventiveness in a way. Like I said before, it’s a love letter to so many of these kinds of movies, where that’s a pleasure of, like, the Evil Dead movies, or so many movies where you’re like, “Yeah, there’s going to be some fun kills and moments that are brutal and bloody and silly.”
It’s basically because you wrote characters that I wanted to see killed.
SCHARFMAN: Exactly!
Death of a Unicorn is in theaters now.

Death of a Unicorn

Release Date

March 28, 2025

Director

Alex Scharfman

Writers

Alex Scharfman

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