Following her Evil Dead Rise success, stunning Aussie actress Lily Sullivan is back with a gripping new psychological thriller about a disgraced journalist who goes down the rabbit hole as she tries to unearth a supernatural phenomenon. In this digital age, if you want to start your own podcast, good news: It’s pretty easy to pull off, even from the comfort of your home. Just be careful what you pod for. Monolith, a claustrophobic new film out of Australia, explores this notion, with the help of lead — and only — actress Lily Sullivan.

We recently caught up with her and director Matt Vesely to learn more about their intimate new project, shot at a sole location to unnerving effect. Similarly unsettling is the fact that we never learn Sullivan’s character’s name — check the credits, where she’s only listed as “The Interviewer.” Check out the video above or our interview below for more.

Podcasting and the Little 2001 ‘Connection’ in Monolith
Monolith Release Date October 26, 2023 Director Matt Vesely Cast Lily Sullivan , Ling Cooper Tang , Ansuya Nathan , Erik Thomson Writers Lucy Campbell

With the vast number of podcasts available to us, we had to ask director Vesely if he had any previous listening experience of his own. “I don’t listen to a huge amount of them, but I am super interested in the combination of podcasting, YouTube, social media, the way that we tell each other stories or communicate, reporting, journalism, any kind of narrative to each other, has changed so much […] So that was what I was super interested in, how that has changed so much. And there’s obviously incredible stuff in those platforms, but because there’s so much of it and it’s so democratized, some of it is really questionable.”

Sullivan also weighed in on the podcasting phenomenon:

There’s no visual, so you’re just talking to them while they stare off into nothing… It’s such a weird thing to be a voice in someone’s ears. And even shooting [
Monolith
], it was quite bizarre and psychedelic in ways because you’re getting removed from people in front of you. It’s just someone telling you a story.

And the story we’re told through Monolith kicks into high gear once the Interviewer (Sullivan) stumbles upon headlines about mysterious black objects appearing across the globe — hence the name of the film. which also evokes Kubrick vibes.

“The ‘Monolith’ title does have a connection to 2001 because when we originally pitched the film, we were like, ‘OK, so she is going to be investigating some kind of conspiracy that maybe seems fake but could be real,'” said Vesely, adding:

“At the time, someone was erecting
2001
star monoliths in all these random places [in real life], like the middle of the desert, if you remember. It was one of those stories that was like really big for a week, and then everyone forgot about it. But no one was claiming it. And so originally, we were like, ‘Oh, she’s going to investigate that, so we call it ‘Monolith.’ And then we made a change, but we kept the title because there’s something thematic about this idea of a power structure looming over you, that is immutable and cannot be changed.”

Besides 2001: A Space Odyssey, some other classic films might come to mind while watching Monolith. “In terms of filmmakers, we were thinking a lot about obviously about claustrophobic films and films with one person,” said Vesely. “The two films that I made everyone watch were Enemy by Denis Villaneuve, the Jake Gyllenhaal film. The meaning in that film is really kind of malleable, and you don’t quite know what you’re grasping onto, in a really interesting way. And the other one was a Haneke film called Caché, this beautiful film about a guy whose past kind of comes back to haunt him from when he was a kid.”

Lily Sullivan on ‘Feeling That Sickness of Lack of Self-Worth’

The eerie vibes from these other films certainly bled into the powerhouse Monolith performance by Sullivan, who shared more with us about how she got into the Interviewer’s headspace:

Shooting the film, the abstract nature of it and the experimental nature of it, 15 days, chronological order, one person — you don’t come up for air. But it was just, as an experience, that kind of informed the way I approached the character. There was just this feeling of lack of self-worth. No real love and connection for any person around us, just voices in our head.

“It’s just this really kind of narcissistic, self-loathing energy and this idea of just wanting to exist online to say something noteworthy to be something for everyone else,” continued Sullivan. “And weirdly, again, with the style of shooting and covering so many pages of dialogue, and the only one being filmed all day, instead of really fleshing out like this character’s journey… I usually would fill a journal.” What she did with Monolith, however, was very different, descending into an existential abyss to face the character:

Instead, it was just feeling that sickness of lack of self-worth, even just that nauseating feeling of having a social-media presence now, this idea that you have to create a brand for yourself and to be something.

Matt Vesely Says Sullivan’s Performance Benefited from Evil Dead Rise

There’s been word that an Evil Dead spinoff will hit the masses in 2025. and it just so happens the movie Sullivan had shot right before Monolith was Evil Dead Rise, a successful expansion and continuation of Sam Raimi’s blood-soaked franchise. “There’s been lots of conversations happening,” said Sullivan when we asked about a potential follow-up. She elaborated:

Jumping into the
Evil Dead
universe was obviously so much fun. And going from
Evil Dead
, so physical and absolutely pushing the boundaries in the physical sense, and then going full introspective and contained [with
Monolith
] and still creating the same level of chaos, I felt like
Monolith
was almost more exhausting, in a way.

Related: Evil Dead’s New Spinoff Gets Award-Winning Director Sébastien Vaniček at Helm

“You brought a lot of that physical work to Monolith, which was something that surprised me,” Vesely replied to Sullivan during our paired interview. “We’re so grateful that you’d just done Evil Dead. Because of that, Lily would do things like do push-ups before a take, even though she’s just going to be on the phone for the take, just to get the adrenaline flowing in her body. And there’s obviously some physical work towards the end of [Monolith] that Lily was so prepared for… Being confident to do that, especially when you’re working quite quickly, it’s so valuable. So, thanks to [director] Lee Cronin and everyone at Evil Dead for giving Lily that crash class because we really benefited from it.”

Looking ahead, it seems Sullivan hopes to continue tackling the kinds of scary projects she’s been doing of late. “Horror and doing genre-based films, it’s just so addictive because it’s so much fun to exercise and entertain and push boundaries that you just don’t get to do in real life,” she told us. “I’m just so about it and so about telling spooky stories.”

With awards season upon us, Sullivan and Vesely were both excited to see a fellow Aussie take home trophies at some of the recent ceremonies. “I love Succession,” said Vesely. “I was happy to see that clean up. [Emmy winner] Sarah Snook is from Adelaide [in Australia].” Australian pride!

And on the big screen, from Well Go USA, Monolith is now playing in theaters and on demand. You can rent it on YouTube below:

Watch Monolith