Adam Scott & Damian McCarthy On Making The Terrifying “Hokum”

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:08]Hi, this is Dan Bayer from the Next Best Picture Podcast and we are here talking with Adam Scott and Damian McCarthy, the star and writer director of the new film Hokum. Adam and Damian, thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:00:23]>> Thank you.

[00:00:25]I wanted to start with you, Damian, because this film opens with one of the scariest things that I can think of as a writer, trying desperately to write an ending to something that you're writing.

[00:00:40]>> And I'm curious if that scene was based in any personal experience and why you wanted to center this story around a writer in particular.

[00:00:49]>> Um, yeah, I'm sure it was. I mean everything you write this is some part of yours it works its way in there somewhere and and trying to find endings it's all on the ending you know if you can have every story sometimes even a bad story if if the ending can be really good then it can save the whole thing and people might go back and and uh and watch it or read it again. Um I I I think that trying to find that I mean the script took a couple of years to write and with those bookins that really helped to um to unlock it somewhat.

[00:01:22]And you both told the hilariously relatable story of uh your first meeting for this film at the South by Southwest premiere, which I was lucky enough to be at, which was an incredible story, but I'm curious since you each thought at the time that the other wasn't interested. Once Adam accepted the role, how long did it take for the two of you to build a report now that you knew how similarly you think to each other?

[00:01:51]I don't know. No, I mean I mean Adam's made a lot more movies than I have and I think that uh you kind of know your time together is going to be short and it's going to be intense and you do you you seem to I would find that people bond quite quickly because you know like we're here and we we like the story and we want to get this done and um and you know you partner up and you help each other through it and uh you know and I really felt I had I had that with Adam from from the day he arrived even though he was with all the crew and I' I'd worked with the same crew so I at least had the short hand with everybody else there but Um, but Adam and and the supporting cast around him, they were all coming in as uh as you know, new people were working with us. Uh, but no, it was I I thought it was great right from the start.

[00:02:32]>> Yeah.

[00:02:33]>> Yeah, definitely. It was it was fun. I mean, I didn't really know anyone. I talked to Damian a couple times over Zoom, but you know, just sort of landing and being so welcomed by this. I mean, you know, Ireland, everyone is so kind over there and really genuinely kind and uh and it was beautiful and it was it was just really fun and this great material to work on. It was it was a blast.

[00:02:59]And Adam, you've played a lot of very sort of dry straight mananish roles before, but so much of this film is just you and reacting to often seemingly nothing.

[00:03:13]>> And I'm curious for you, without another person to bounce your energy off of, how did you modulate all the different levels of fear that M is feeling throughout this story?

[00:03:26]>> Yeah, it was daunting. I mean, it was a certain point in the schedule where Damian just sort of uh showed me the schedule and was like, uh, you know, we've got three weeks now where it's just you in a room. And uh, you know, I really depend upon the other actors to to uh to find the scenes with to to really find the the tone and the and the tenor of a scene. But um you know this was a a really beautifully designed room. Um it was certainly evocative and felt like a a place that hadn't been touched by human hands in a few years.

[00:04:08]There was a layer of dust on everything.

[00:04:10]And even after a couple weeks, I was still discovering weird objects and and I mean it was really meticulously put together. So, this room really acted as another character that I was interacting with and uh it was a lot of fun.

[00:04:26]>> Yeah, I think that's part of the fun thing about horror movies. These sets or props often become characters in their own right because they have so much personality. And I, you know, Damen, since you both wrote and directed this, when you finally stepped onto that set after all the writing and deliberating and uh collaborating with your set designer, production design teams, what was it exactly like you pictured or did it somehow end up different?

[00:04:59]better, you know, which is what you always want because um uh you know that that's why it's it's like working with great actors. It's like it's the same as working with great production designers.

[00:05:09]You go, well, here here's what I'm thinking and then they go great and then they they build on that. So we'll say we till Frolic and his team who did the production design the art direction it's brilliant you know you give them ideas you walk around it and you know I I get very excited about props and you know how spooky a room is going to look and um even just walking through uh our early designs of it I knew we were going to have this chase sequence where the witch is going to be you know chasing Adam and he's doing everything he can to escape and it was like well it's a it's a room how how exciting can we make this and that's where you start adding hatches and bat tubs full of dirty water and glass walls with, you know, with with with P with with cubes missing and transom windows and canopy around the four four poster bed. Um, all of these things, you know, it's it's very it's just exciting, you know, because you know that, okay, we're going to get an extra scare here because we've put a window over the door. Now she can be looking down at him and um yeah, >> it's great. And I thinking about that, you know, Adam, obviously you read the screenplay before you ever stepped on set, but did anything on set actually scare you either on camera or off?

[00:06:20]>> Um, you know, when you're making something, you're just shooting those little like bits at a time. And um you know the witch was this woman named Sue who was super nice and and funny and we kind of you know hung out while we're shooting. So it's not really scary while you're doing it but the exciting thing about it is you know you try and psych yourself up and and and get scared before you're shooting one thing or another. The exciting thing is knowing what it's going to uh eventually cut into and and thinking about watching that with an audience and and watching an audience have uh have a blast.

[00:07:04]Yeah, I can bet. Um and speaking of being in the audience, the audience at the South by Southwest premiere that I was at, you could feel how everyone was so tense in that theater. It was fantastic. And I have to say that uh the creature design for Jack the Jack Rabbit is one of the most incredible things I've seen in a long time. It's incredibly scary at first, but then when it's revealed that he's this sort of old children's show character, it it somehow makes sense the the creepy quality to it. And so Damen, I have to ask, where did this character come from? And was there a children's show host that scared you deeply when you were young?

[00:07:48]>> Uh I I'm I'm sure there was. I was easily scared as a child. That's why I was making horror films out trying to recover. Um >> it it was I just thought it'd be an interesting idea that uh you know everything bad that happened to the character came from came from what happened to him as a child with this you know bonkers TV show playing in the background. So I thought, well, what if that had kind of haunted him and followed him around his whole life and it kind of comes to a head when he's up on that honeymoon suite, especially when he's, you know, he's got this um mushrooms in his system or uh and the the room is cursed and all of these things kind of comes out as this as what appears on the TV. Um I also just thought I mean there were certain ex moments of exposition that you got to get across and they can always be difficult in a script. It's like how do you deliver this? Na, wouldn't it be good if if it's just he really just it's that this horrible demon that appears on the TV just kind of lays it out for a bit. That would be very unsettling and um >> Yes.

[00:08:45]>> and visually interesting.

[00:08:48]>> It It absolutely is. I was It's one of the creepiest things I've seen in a long time. I know we're coming up at the end of our time together, but before we leave, you know, here at Next Best Picture, we are always looking ahead to what's coming next. So, where can we see each of you next after Hokum? What's coming?

[00:09:12]>> Uh, well, I'll I'll I'm taking a break for a little while anyway. It's, you know, I'm so proud of the movie and, you know, it's been kind of like, you know, two plus years um getting to here and I'm so happy with it. Uh, I'm I'm writing all the time. I love horror. I'd like to I'd like to stay and make a couple more horror movies and um you know try to always outdo myself and see if I can make something scarier next time or or something different. Um yeah, that's kind of the that's kind of the kind of my plan anyway.

[00:09:41]and Adam.

[00:09:43]>> Um, we are, uh, soon going to start shooting season three of, uh, of Severance. And I'm in a movie, um, called, uh, The Whisper Man. That that it'll be exciting.

[00:09:58]>> This is very exciting. Looking forward to what's coming next from you guys and looking forward to see what everyone else in the world thinks of Hoko.

[00:10:06]>> Thank you for joining us. Thank you.