Summary

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff speaks with sibling trio, Kevin, Matthew, and Michaela McManus, about their movie Redux Redux at SXSW 2025.

Kevin and Matthew McManus discuss their influences, how they approached multiverse storytelling, VFX, and crafting a time machine.

Michaela McManus shares what it was like watching her brothers’ dreams come true, and inhabiting a mom out for blood.

Filmmaking families are always something special, but in the case of Redux Redux, the trio behind the film is also a real family. Directing brothers Kevin and Matthew McManus have been making movies, along with their sister and star, Michaela McManus, since they were kids. Their bold, multifaceted film follows Michaela as Irene Kelly, a woman who travels through parallel universes, killing her daughter’s murderer over and over, as she becomes consumed by vengeance.
At SXSW 2025, the McManus siblings stopped by the Collider Media Studio at the Cinema Center to talk with Perri Nemiroff about their script, how it changed after the Marvel Cinematic Universe started to explore the multiverse, and other film influences that inspire them. They discuss creating character-driven sci-fi, blowing up beloved cars, their killing room, and the joys of making something with your family.
You can check out the full conversation in the video above, or you can read the transcript below.
‘The Terminator’ Was the “North Star” for ‘Redux Redux’

Matthew and Kevin McManus discuss how sci-fi elements are a “backdrop” to character.

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

PERRI NEMIROFF: I’m so excited to be talking about Redux Redux. This is one of my favorite movies of the festival!
KEVIN MCMANUS: I love to hear that!
A lot of our audience is first going to learn about it through SXSW, so I must give someone these duties – can you give us a brief synopsis of your film?
MATTHEW MCMANUS: Redux Redux is about a woman who gets her hands on a multiverse machine, and she goes from universe to universe to universe, trying to find one in which her daughter is still alive because you find out that she was kidnapped and murdered. She goes from one universe to the next, and she realizes that all of them are remarkably similar, and actually, she’s gone in all of them. She figures, “Well, if I can’t find my daughter, at least I can kill the bastard who did this to her.” So, she kills this guy over and over and over to the point that it’s becoming an addiction, and she knows she’s got to quit.

Image by Photagonist

I love asking this question in general, but in particular, when someone comes up with a really cool, high concept that I get obsessed with. What was idea number one, the thing that started this all, but then also, did you guys have a break story moment, something you found along the way that made this idea feel whole to you?
MATTHEW MCMANUS: Oh, that’s such a great question. For Kevin and I, whenever we’re coming up with ideas, the hope is to do something that is a high concept that is really character-driven, and the science fiction and all that kind of stuff is just kind of backdrop, but just a vehicle to tell a really human story. So, for us, our North Star is The Terminator. I’m always like, “I just want to try to make The Terminator,” or a tenth is good.
So, Kev and I were talking about that and we were talking about the multiverse. When we first came up with this idea, it was before the multiverse had been a thing, and we were like, “We’re gonna have to take a lot of time to explain to the audience what the multiverse is.” Then we realized there’s no need. Every single Marvel movie is just about the multiverse now. But it was really just us throwing the ball around, and it came up to us. Stephen King has this great quote where he says, “Writers will tell you where the ideas come from, but the truth is, they have no idea.” That’s true. I don’t really know where this one came from. It’s just us talking.
The Filmmakers Reveal How They Wanted to Change the Time-Travel Genre

“The multiverse is this opportunity for these crazy, wild worlds, but what if you actually didn’t go that path?”

Image via RADiUS-TWC

Whether it’s time-travel movies or multiverse movies, and you already brought up Terminator, is there any particular thing you’ve seen in one in the past that inspired you, something you wanted to hold tight to?
KEVIN MCMANUS: You know what’s funny? It’s not even a time travel movie that we’ve been talking about a lot, but one of our favorites is Blue Ruin. What I love so much about that movie is how much they rely on the audience to figure it out. You’re watching a process, and you know exactly what the protagonist is thinking at any given moment. So, we’re always looking to have fun with a story like that, and Redux Redux was our first opportunity to really do that, where we got to see what is Irene doing each step of the way, and hopefully, the audience is figuring it out as she does those tasks, and eventually realize what’s going on.
Now, I need the opposite. Is there a time travel or multiverse storytelling pet peeve that you guys have that you wanted to maybe course-correct here?
MATTHEW MCMANUS: Honestly, my taste kind of runs the gamut, so I like a lot of these fun Rick and Morty kinds of things where the multiverse offers you this zany, really fun [worlds]. It’s kind of like when time travel first started out; it was an opportunity to do fantasy stories. So, it’d be like, “We’re going to go see the dinosaurs. We’re going to go see King Arthur’s Court,” and then The Terminator and Back to the Future comes out, and actually, it’s a really personal story and time travel is in the background. That was our thought. The multiverse is this opportunity for these crazy, wild worlds, but what if you actually didn’t go that path? What if you just told a very grounded story, and every world feels really similar to our own? What does that look like?
All I keep thinking about is how I want you guys to turn it into a cinematic universe where we can see how other people use this technology.
KEVIN MCMANUS: It’s 1,000% what we keep talking about. I love The Matrix, of course, but my favorite sequel to The Matrix is The Animatrix, where it’s like, “Let’s see other people in this world,” because it’s such a huge world where the way other people are going to explore it is going to be completely different. So, we kind of can’t help but keep coming up with ideas where we’re like, “Oh, man, that’d be so cool to also see!” If you can have a multiverse machine that can take you through the multiverse, where things don’t change a whole lot, what are the different ways the characters would interact with that?

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To start looping Michaela in now, when you two were writing this, were you writing it for her?
MATTHEW MCMANUS: We first came up with this idea 10 years ago, and so we had different ideas character-wise, but it’s grown over time. So, first we go through a development thing with studios, and then eventually it occurred to us. I think she was written to be a grandmother at first, and so we’re chasing after megastars. Financiers would be like, “Yeah, we’ll give you the money if you can get Reese Witherspoon.” You’re like, “Well, okay.” So, it’s one of those kinds of things. So then, eventually, we were like, “Let’s do this ourselves,” and thought, “Actually, Michaela would be amazing in this, and we’ll just adjust the script.” It’s been just an absolute joy.
KEVIN MCMANUS: We just waited until Michaela was grandmother-age.
That’s the sequel! Many years down the line.
KEVIN MCMANUS: We’re really trying to bake in the legacy sequel.
MICHAELA MCMANUS: I remember them talking about this concept, this idea, but this was 10 years ago. I wasn’t really at an age where it would make sense even to have a 14-year-old daughter. So, lucky me, sorry, guys, that it took a minute to get off the ground, but it gave me the opportunity to fill those shoes.
You’re so good in this. Truly, the second you appear on screen, there’s a powerhouse performance quality to your work that sucked me in big time.
MICHAELA MCMANUS: Thank you so much.
Michaela McManus’ Brothers Brought Her to Tears on Set

“I watched this passion grow.”

Image by Photagonist

Clearly, you all know how talented each other are, but I am curious, Kevin and Matthew, is there anything you saw Michaela do in this movie that made even you go, “My god, I knew you were good, but I never realized you’d be capable of that?” And the same thing for you, Michaela, but for the two of them as directors.
KEVIN MCMANUS: It’s not even so much the surprise in the movie, it’s that we’ve seen Michaela act forever. We’ve seen her in plays when she was at Ford. I remember thinking, “Oh, man.” She has such a well that she can pull from, and she has so much range, and it’s so exciting to write a role that had a lot of range. There are a lot of different things you have to hit in this role, which makes it really challenging, but we knew from the get-go that Michaela would crush it. It was so exciting to see you get to show off that whole range.
MATTHEW MCMANUS: I think the thing that surprised me the most was Michaela hates guns. Whenever I give Nerf guns to her boys, she’s like, “What are you doing?” Then, seeing Michaela with a shotgun in her hand, shooting it with these full-load cartridge blanks, it was so sick. I think for the first time in my life, I was like, “Damn, Michaela is pretty cool.”

Image by Photagonist

MICHAELA MCMANUS: The first time. [Laughs] No, you know what? They know me as an actor better than anybody. I think there’s this thing that happens when you start out in your career, and there’s a box that people put you in. I’ll never look a gift horse in the mouth—I’m so grateful for all of the work that I’ve gotten—but to get an opportunity like this kind of had to come from them because they knew what I could do, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity.
It was a really interesting process while we were filming, because not only am I the actor in the movie and I’m sitting in my cast chair, and I’m getting in my head of the character, I’m also the big sister that’s looking at my brothers, and I could honestly cry talking about it because it was like, “Oh my god, they’re doing it.” I watched this from when they were little kids, and I watched this passion grow, and it’s really so special to have a front-row seat to that. It was a really interesting dichotomy of sister and actor in the movie.
One of the Hardest Roles to Fill Is Played by a Rising Star

“I adore her as a human.”

Image by Photagonist

Someone was recently telling me it’s so exciting for an actor to jump into a new project and be on unstable ground but then have that “aha” moment when you do something, either in prep or on set, and you realize, “I have just found who my version of this character is.” Did you have that in this case, and if so, when?
MICHAELA MCMANUS: When I first read the script, I was pretty intimidated by it, to be honest. It’s really ambitious, and I was like, “Whoa, this character is going through something incredibly intense.” On top of all of the stunt work and gunwork, like my brother mentioned, the emotional work that needed to be done was so intense. Obviously, having my brothers alongside me was like having that safe place to really dive in, but I’m a mom, and I think anyone can relate to the idea. I think everybody’s lost somebody really close to them, and what would that be like? So, it wasn’t actually a hard place to go to when you really go there. I feel like the first couple of days, I was on this rocky footing, and I was kind of stressed out, but I think having my brothers there to lift me up, they were so unwavering in their support, and having this incredible cast around me that I could work with, I settled in, and I was like, “You know what? We’re gonna really go for it here.” I’m really pleased with the outcome. I really feel good about the movie we made.
You should be! Again, this is really something else in so many respects. Another one of those respects is Stella [Marcus]. How did you find her, and what’s the first thing you saw in her that signaled to you, not only would she be a good fit for this character, but she would also be able to handle a role that demands she take it to an 11?
KEVIN MCMANUS: Again, it’s a hard role because that requires a lot of range, so it’s a hard one to audition, and you’re trying to do scenes that give you a sense of the whole range. We pulled Stella from an audition. We did a bunch of callbacks, and we had a lot of great actresses come for that callback, but a lot of it was in person, and she was based in New York, so she was the only one over Zoom, so she’s already working at a disadvantage. But the big thing that we were looking for, especially in those callbacks, was if they could have fun with the role because it’s such a serious role, there’s a lot of monologues that you’ve got to nail, but you can have some fun with this. Immediately, there was this spark that you could see, and she jumped through the Zoom with a spark, like, “Oh, man, she’s funny and she’s gonna have fun with it.”

Image by Photagonist

She was such a joy to work with because this was her first film project, so she’s excited to be there, and she’s just having the time of her life. She’s like, “I don’t want this thing to end. This is so great. Let’s keep going.” So, yeah, she was such a spark plug. We were so grateful we were able to find her.
Michaela, I see you pop on screen, and I’m like, “Oh my god, breathtaking work. Who is going to be another character that could be added to that mix that could actually go toe to toe with you?” And then, all of a sudden, she’s introduced in the movie. When did you first realize, “This is going to be someone who I can really play with?”
MICHAELA MCMANUS: What I love so much about Stella is we are really different, actually, in our approach to the performance and everything, so I think that is what plays really well together. It’s like those opposites attract kind of thing. She’s just phenomenal. I adore her as a human. She’s such a good person. Whereas my character gets really intense, there was something about just being in her presence that was really calming. Again, she offers a safe space to play, and that’s the dream when it comes to a scene partner. We were really lucky to get her.
The Great Joy of ‘Redux Redux’ Was “Killing Jeremy Holm Over and Over Again”

They worked with the special effects artist from Kurt Russell’s ‘Bone Tomahawk.’

Image via SXSW

I feel like when it comes to time travel and multiverse stories, you can feel the pressure to plan, plan, plan and get all the plot points right, but there’s also a great opportunity to play on set and find unexpected magic. Can you each recall a time on set when something emerged on the spot that you weren’t ready for, but you embraced it, and the film is better off for it?
KEVIN MCMANUS: Matt and I do such an aggressive amount of planning for everything we do. We get our shotlist down to the point where it’s not only a shotlist but it’s also an edit list. We have a really good idea of how it’s all going to come together. But right before we started shooting, we kept trying to find, like, what is our opening going to be in the film? How do we get an image that makes you get off your cell phone? Can we please be like, “Hey, you gotta start paying attention right now. Please start watching.” And we were talking to our stunt team, and it finally occurred to us, we’re like, “People have been burning guys alive for, like, 100 years, right? This is a thing that people do. We should be able to do this, right?” So, we talked about putting that piece together, and it was so exciting. I think that’s definitely the most exciting thing.
MATTHEW MCMANUS: One of the other things we discovered was the joy of this film is killing Jeremy Holm over and over again. So, we were like, “It would be great to have more of this. I don’t know where it’s gonna even land in the movie.” We were working with Hugo Villasenor, who did Bone Tomahawk and stuff, as our special effects makeup artist. We’re like, “I just want to let this guy do his thing and not just give him 10 minutes to do a quick thing. We should just give him time.” Kevin and I brought in another camera, and Jeremy had a day off, and we were like, “Actually, come in that day, and we’re gonna put you in the kill room, and we’re just going to kill you all day.” Kevin and I flipped a coin. One of us was just going to direct the regular stuff, and the other one was going to go to the kill room. It was the worst day on set for me because I had to go do the real stuff, and Kevin got to just hang out.
KEVIN MCMANUS: The best day! I won the coin toss. We still reminisce about how wonderful the kill room was. Jeremy coming in, getting murdered, and then taking time to get a new effect done. That was, like, the most fun making a movie in a long time.
MATTHEW MCMANUS: And we didn’t know that would happen, when I would go into the cut and then finally seeing it in post and be like, “Oh, there are these moments where you see her drifting off into thought,” and we can just use these to punctuate those moments.

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I’m endlessly fascinated by stunt work and makeup effects, so that sounds like the most twisted dream creative scenario for a film like this.
MICHAELA MCMANUS: Similar to my brothers, I’m a little neurotic when it comes to prepping. Reading a script like this, it’s one thing when you’re filming out of sequence, it’s another when you’re filming out of universe. This is wild. I read the script so many times, and I would write line by line, just a quick summary of each scene. There are a lot of scenes, so I had a sort of bible to refer back to.
When I read the script, I was like, “Okay, I think I’ve got to get into killer shape, and I’ve got to work a gun, and look like a real pro,” but the thing that caught me off guard with my brothers when we discussed what she looks like when she’s fighting this guy is they were like, “She’s a mom.” She is not a trained assassin. She figured it out along the way. So, however I did that was going to work. That was such a relief to be like, “I don’t have to come in here with all of this training.” However it works for Irene is how it’s worked for the last several years. That was a surprise to me at the beginning, and it was really helpful.
I’ll preface this question by noting, you give me the exact amount of information I need to fully understand and be immersed in the story, but given how prep-intensive you are, do you have a multiverse travel bible? Do you know every single rule within this world? And, Michaela, for you, did you have any big burning questions for them, certain things that maybe aren’t said in the film, but you needed to know just to understand her history with this technology?
KEVIN MCMANUS: There was a monologue that initially went into the script when people didn’t know what the multiverse was. In fact, there was gonna be a title card that said “similar to the multiverse,” and we were like, “The audience is going to go wild!” Then, the multiverse got so overdone, we were like, “We can’t put that in there.” There’s this monologue where it describes how similar each universe is and how everything from keys to WiFi codes oftentimes will be the same in one universe to the next. So, that becomes her superpower, right? She has that key ring, and that’s because they are often going to match up to Neville’s house or the Penske keys, or that kind of thing. We have this map of what are the roles, what is her superpower, what are the things that would carry over from one universe to the other, and what wouldn’t? A lot of it didn’t really have to end up in there, and hopefully you can get it in context clues.

Image by Photagonist

MICHAELA MCMANUS: Well, I’m intimidated by the sci-fi of it all, and personally, I’m really interested in human drama. What I think is really cool about this movie, and what I think audiences really connect to, is the human relationships that are going on. On first read, I was trying to wrap my head around, “Okay, now she’s in this universe, and where was she before, and this and that.” It’s actually really cool that they don’t get too hung up on all of the nitty-gritty, and they trust the audience to go with it. I think that’s such a benefit to the film, and it was certainly a benefit to me. I didn’t get bogged down by all of that. I could really just be in the moment and play this role for where she was at, which was a gift. They’re amazing directors.
Crafting the Time Travel Machine for ‘Redux Redux’

The duo went for a look with “miles on it.”

Image by Photagonist

I want to stick with the world-building element and ask about your multiverse travel machine. When you first started working on this movie, what did you picture it looking like, and how did that initial vision compare to what we see in the finished film?
KEVIN MCMANUS: Honestly, kind of what it came out to look like. It’s described in the screenplay as something between a coffin and a refrigerator. We love sci-fi where it feels like it’s got miles on it, right? It’s not just chrome, and it’s sleek, and it’s cool. We worked with our production designer, Charlie Textor, and his art director, Steve Dudro, to come up with that design, but trying to express how we wanted the design to come out with sketches is a little bit difficult. I ended up getting some balsa wood, and we hot glue-gunned this little stupid thing together with that with a hand carton attached to it, and we’re like, “Charlie, something like this.” He goes, “I think I get it.” [Laughs] They started designing it in a 3D model, and it looks exactly like the 3D model. They did an incredible job with it.
MICHAELA MCMANUS: It was hot in there! [Laughs]
I can’t even imagine. And I love how cumbersome it is, how it’s an extra challenge for her to have to move around with it.
KEVIN MCMANUS: There’s no faking it. The thing was as heavy as a refrigerator.
I’m going to end with this particular question. I’ve been asking it a lot lately because we’re here celebrating independent cinema, and it’s hard making these movies, but on set, there’s also a great opportunity to experience joy as artists. Can you each isolate the single moment of making Redux Redux that brought you the most joy as an independent filmmaker?
KEVIN MCMANUS: My favorite thing, and it’s a small thing, but I’ve had the same car since high school, and I haven’t gotten rid of it, much to my wife’s dismay. Eventually, I bought a new car, and I tried to trade it in, and they offered me $100 for the car, and I said, “For 100 bucks, I could blow it up in the movie!” So, it’s a little shoehorned in there. You might be watching like, “This car blowing up, does this really make sense?” But we leaned in so we could do the moment. It’s the car we put in all of our high school movies, so it was this Viking funeral. Then, I drove [it] there, and it quit on the spot, where it blows up. It literally wouldn’t start, and I was like, “This is a sign.” Michaela was not only the stunt driver in that scene, she’s also the camera operator, because it’s a fixed camera there, and she nailed that driveaway so it could explode right there in the background. So, that was the greatest joy in the world was that Viking funeral.
I love that story so much!
MATTHEW MCMANUS: I think a big highlight for me followed the most tense 10 seconds of all of our lives, and it was when he lit Chad on fire for that scene. Just seeing a dude on fire, Michaela’s five feet away from him, just staring him in the eyes. Everybody was just so silent during that whole moment. You just hear the flames kind of licking in the air, and eventually, they put out the fire extinguishers, and still, everybody is so silent. You’re just like, “I hope this guy’s okay.” They go, “You alright?” And he goes, “Yeah,” and everybody just exploded with tears. It was just this very cool moment. I remember asking Michaela, “What was that like looking at Chad while he’s on fire?” She was like, “It really felt like I was looking at a dude on fire!” It was really intense.
MICHAELA MCMANUS: For me, a really special moment was on the same day we blew up the Saturn. It was so cool because I’ve been making movies with my brothers since we were kids. Kevin’s girls came to set, my son was there to see the big explosion, we were also shooting that day the smugglers in the machine. It was an amazing set that they built. Showing my kid, “This is it!” I can just see the seeds being planted. It was just like a real full circle moment for me.
Special thanks to our 2025 partners at SXSW, including presenting partner Rendezvous Films and supporting partners Bloom, Peroni, Hendrick’s Gin, and Roxstar Entertainment.

Redux Redux

Release Date

March 8, 2025

Runtime

107 minutes

Director

Matthew McManus, Kevin McManus

Writers

Matthew McManus, Kevin McManus

Producers

Matthew McManus

Michaela McManus

Irene Kelly