Exclusive: Willem Dafoe and director Vasilis Katsoupis talk psychological thriller Inside
Currently in theaters from Focus Features is the psychological thriller Inside, written by Ben Hopkins and directed by Vasilis Katsoupis in his feature directorial debut. The film stars stars Willem Dafoe, Gene Bervoets, and Eliza Stuyck.
Inside tells the story of Nemo, an art thief who enters a collector’s penthouse apartment hunting for valuable works of art. As he enters, the security system locks everything down. And then malfunctions. He is locked inside. At first, he expects his partner-in-crime to arrive, then the security guards or the police. Or the owner. But no one comes. Then he hopes and prays for a cleaning lady to come. A servant. Anyone. But no one comes. And days stretch out into weeks and months. He is locked inside a prison adorned with exquisite, strange, even eerie works of art: works that he both covets and admires, but which are now, for him, useless. Instead, he must use all of his cunning and invention to survive. To break into all the locked spaces to find all the food and liquid he will need. The luxury penthouse – this locus of perfection and aspiration – has become a prison. A desert island. A torture chamber. And then a place of revelation.
Dafoe’s most recent credits include Robert Eggers’ The Northman, Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, and Jon Watts’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. His upcoming projects include Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things, as well as Lanthimos’s next project And; Patricia Arquette’s Gonzo Girl, and Walter Hill’s Dead for A Dollar.
Prior to this film, Katsoupis was known for his music documentary film My Friend Larry Gus.
Blackfilmandtv.com’s Wilson Morales spoke with Dafoe and Katsoupis on the making of Inside.