Scott Cooper & Keri Russell Antlers Interview

This weekend sees director Scott Cooper teaming up with Guillermo Del Toro for the new horror film, Antlers. The film, based on the short story “The Quiet Boy” by Nick Antosca, tells the story of a school teacher named Julia Meadows (Keri Russell) who becomes concerned that one of her students named Lucas Weaver (Jeremy T. Thomas) is going through a terrible trauma at home. What Julia isn’t prepared for is what Lucas is going through is far more frightening than she could’ve ever imagined.

Cooper, known for tapping into the darker side of humanity with films such as Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace, and Hostiles, enters into the world of horror for the first time with Antlers but his directorial sensibilities are perfect for the genre as his focus on real-life horrors become terrifyingly juxtaposed with the supernatural horror that is taking place during the film. As Julia, Keri Russell gives a truly powerful performance as someone who wants to take action to protect her student while also dealing with severe emotional trauma from her own childhood that continues to impact her adult life.

I had a chance to chat with Cooper and Russell about Antlers and when I touched on how Cooper’s focus on the characters and their emotional traumas made the horror happen more organically, he expressed that this was his intention but also talked about how difficult it was to find the right balance between the realism and the supernatural horror elements. As a producer, Guillermo Del Toro’s fantastical touch is on Antlers and his involvement likely helped the film find the balance Cooper was looking for. For her turn as Julia, Keri Russell discussed digging into a multi-faceted character with many different layers who is a heroine but also broken in her own right.

Antlers is in theaters exclusively this weekend!