The Big Picture

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff sits down with the team behind
Immaculate
at SXSW 2024.
Sydney Sweeney, Álvaro Morte, Benedetta Porcaroli, Simona Tabasco and director Michael Mohan discuss making a contemporary horror movie that has the elegance of 1970s classics.

Immaculate
hits theaters nationwide on March 22nd.

Sydney Sweeney and Michael Mohan continue to pave a promising path forward for themselves as creative partners in the feature film space. After working together on the Netflix series, Everything Sucks!, they made the 2021 Prime Video release, The Voyeurs. That film is quite engrossing with some delightfully bonkers twists and turns, but the filmmaking precision and elegance on display in Immaculate puts their latest collaboration on another level.

Sweeney leads the film as Sister Cecilia, an American nun who relocates to a remote convent in the Italian countryside. She arrives radiating kindness and warmth, enthusiastic about her new home, but the longer she spends there, the more apparent it becomes that there’s an unspeakable evil brewing on the premises. That evil ultimately takes Cecilia “from an emblem of purity to a feral creature, drenched in blood.”

While in Austin celebrating Immaculate’s world premiere at SXSW, Mohan, Sweeney and co-stars Álvaro Morte, Benedetta Porcaroli and Simona Tabasco all visited the Collider interview studio to discuss their experience making the film.

How Sydney Sweeney Met ‘Immaculate’ Director Michael Mohan

We began our conversation by highlighting Sweeney and Mohan’s creative partnership, a continued collaboration that began during the Everything Sucks! casting process. “She walked in and she was perfect for the part, and then when we were actually shooting the show, I realized just how special of a person she is outside of her acting talent.” Mohan continued by pinpointing the quality he saw in Sweeney that signaled he had to continue working with her. “When you find someone who helps you inspire the crew to do their best work, you just hold on to them.”

Mohan went on to highlight Sweeney’s deep interest in all aspects of filmmaking, and how that interest strengthens the projects she tackles as a producer — Immaculate included:

“
I see a completely different side of Sydney than the public sees
because what they don’t know is that, behind the scenes, she has so much respect for every single person on the crew. And she spent time, like when we were working on Everything Sucks! together, she would sit with the AC and ask questions about what lenses they were using. And this is when she was 19 years old. And so when she came to me saying, ‘I’m producing a movie,’ I was like, ‘Hell yeah! I need a producer like you to help make something even better than I’m capable of making on my own.’
The fact that this movie both has an artistic sensibility, but also has a commercial sensibility
where, you know, if you’re just a casual horror fan, you’re gonna love it, and if you’re a deep horror fan, you’re gonna love it,
I give Sydney all the credit for that.
”

‘Immaculate’ Director Gives Sydney Sweeney Credit for the Film’s Jump Scares

0:46 Related ‘Immaculate’s Sydney Sweeney Shares Theater Etiquette in New Alamo Drafthouse PSA [Exclusive] She’s joined by Simona Tabasco to discuss theater etiquette.

That wasn’t the only standout quality of Immaculate that Mohan credits to Sweeney’s instincts as a producer. He also noted that Sweeney and producers David Bernad and Jonathan Davino encouraged him to up the jump scares, and to do so in a tasteful manner. He explained:

“I give Sydney and David Bernad and Johnny Davino, they deserve the credit because they were the ones that were saying, ‘With this movie,
if we put jump scares in the movie and if we do it tastefully, that will really help the audience buy into it
.’ So, for me it was taking that feedback from my producers and going, ‘Okay,
let me study the history of jump scares and see how I can do my own spin on it
.’ I’m still learning. I can’t wait to do my next film and to make even more sophisticated and more complex jump scares. But for this one, they were the ones that really inspired all of them.”

Sydney Sweeney Sparked Applause on Set for THIS ‘Immaculate’ Acting Feat
Image via YouTube 

Switching gears to focus on Sweeney’s contribution to the film as an actor, Mohan took a moment to make sure the world knew of one especially impressive feat Sweeney achieved in that department, because it’s one the world will never get to see. (In full, at least.)

“There was the moment where we did this little reshoot of a close up of hers because we weren’t able to get it on the day, so we had to build a fake wall and she had to react to a series. She had to react to an explosion, she had to react to the sound of — well, I don’t want to spoil anything. She had to react to a series of things and she was just staring at a tape mark, and literally just went through one emotion to the next emotion to the next motion to the next emotion, and at the end, I remember,
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I said, ‘Everybody, Sydney Sweeney,’ and started applauding
, and she was like Mike, ‘Please don’t do that.’ [Laughs]”

Given Immaculate is quite the performance showcase for Sweeney and the film also marks her first producing credit (following up her executive producer credit on Anyone But You), it’ll likely come as no surprise that there was a considerable amount of praise for her work during our interview. But, Sweeney made sure to highlight one especially significant contribution Mohan made to the film. She credits him with a scene that will likely wind up being a personal favorite scene of 2024. She noted:

“
I’d like to give him credit for the ending.
Michael brought the ending to the table. When I sent him the script within, I want to say, by the end of the day, he sent over like a 20, 30 page deck of everything — his inspiration, how he sees the movie, and I remember going through it and it solidified why I knew he was perfect for it. And so
I was blown away by what he brought to the table
. And then second, it’s always his kindness. Mike is always so considerate and compassionate and he takes into heart everybody’s feelings. Working with someone who creates such a nice, safe environment is really nice.”

That environment allowed Sweeney to soar throughout the film, but especially in that one incredibly demanding scene — that ending. It’s a “you have to see it to believe it” kind of moment, but when you do catch it when the film hits theaters nationwide on March 22nd, this fact will undoubtedly impress. During our interview, Sweeney noted that what you’re witnessing in that moment is a true oner. “We did it in one take.” They did film that particular shot twice, but Mohan also confirmed, “What you saw was take one.”

Sydney Sweeney Reveals Her Extremely Relatable Weakness in a Horror Movie Situation
Image via YouTube 

Clearly Sweeney, Mohan, Morte, Porcaroli and Tabasco know a little something about acting in a horror film, but what if they found themselves in a horror movie-like situation? What would be their greatest strength? But then also, what would be their weakness, the thing that would likely do them in?

Mohan began, “I would have empathy for the killer’s problems and try to solve them from the inside. That’s what I would do. [Laughs] And then I would die. I’d be the first one to die.”

While Mohan admits he’d be taken out quite quickly, Sweeney insists she’d have a shot at surviving thanks to one very important horror movie skill — running. “While Mike is trying to get underneath the killer’s skin, I will be running.” However, Sweeney did admit to having a horror movie survival weakness, and it’s a highly relatable one. “My dog. I’d dog anything.” Porcaroli would suffer the same problem. “I agree with her. I have this weakness, or this strength. I don’t know. My dog.” Tabasco laughed and added, “I feel the same, but I don’t have a dog.”

Looking for more from team Immaculate on the making of the movie? You can catch our full SXSW 2024 conversation in the video interview at the top of this article!

Immaculate arrives in theaters in the U.S. on March 22nd. Click below for showtimes.

Get Tickets