In Whistle, a misfit group of unwitting high school students stumble upon a cursed object, an ancient Aztec Death Whistle. They discover that blowing the whistle and the terrifying sound it emits will summon their future deaths to hunt them down.
As the body count rises, the friends investigate the origins of the deadly artifact in a desperate effort to stop the horrifying chain of events that they have set in motion.
Directed by Corin Hardy (The Nun), Whistle stars Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Sky Yang, Jhaleil Swaby, Ali Skovbye, Percy Hynes White, Michelle Fairley, and Nick Frost.
Over the weekend, we sat down with Keen to discuss her first horror movie role. Many of you will know the actress best for her playing Laura/X-23 in Logan and Deadpool & Wolverine, though she's also explored the fantasy and sci-fi genres with stellar turns in His Dark Materials and The Acolyte.
During our conversation, Keen talks about what drew her to Whistle, the bond she formed with on-screen love interest Sophie Nélisse, and how her action roles prepared her for the unique challenges presented by horror. We also hear from her about what it was like working with Nick Frost, her approach to Chrys, and the movie's wild creature effects.
You can check out the full interview with Keen in the player below.
You've already had an amazing career, but I'd love to know what it was about Whistle that made it the right horror project for you to want to follow in the footsteps of so many other iconic female horror leads.
I honestly was really in love with the script. I thought the concept was so fun. I'm a big fan of a slasher, so there was something quite fun about that. But particularly, I really loved Chrys and Ellie's love story. I thought it was so tender and honest. And I think it's really special to have a queer story that doesn't revolve around their queerness. They just sort of happen to be queer in the same way that a straight couple just happens to be straight. And that was very appealing to me. And I love Corin's work, and I'm a huge fan of Sophie's work. So, it was all just kind of perfect.
I'm glad you mentioned that relationship because it's one of my favourite parts of the film, and it's really the heart of the film in a lot of ways as well. So, how was it working with Sophie to develop and explore where the relationship would go as this story progresses and as things get crazier for them?
It was honestly so easy. I mean, Sophie, we met, and we were honestly kind of soul mates. We had the exact same sense of humor. We were immediately like this. We did this whole rehearsal with Corin, and we were supposed to be rehearsing, and Sophie and I were just mucking about and laughing to the point where Corin was like I don't think we need to rehearse because this was so you guys could build chemistry and you guys clearly have chemistry in heaps, so we're good. But Sophie and I met, and we had each other's numbers, and we got to this hotel, and it was terrifying. And so she texted me, being like, "Hey, do you want to sleep over? I'm really scared." And we'd never met before. And that was kind of how we then basically lived with each other for like 3 months while we were filming. So it was really easy for us. And we had so much fun doing all of our scenes together. And she's honestly one of my favorite people I've ever worked with.
This is such a dark film at times. I'd love to know how much fun it was working with Nick Frost. He brings some levity to the story early on; was that quite a nice thing to have before it gets into the really dark side of things?
Oh my God. Of course. I mean, I think everyone knows that Nick Frost is a legend, but I feel like, as a Brit, I really appreciated the fact that Nick Frost was on set. That was honestly a big sales point for me because he was attached before I was, I believe. And I was like, "Wait, Nick Frost is in it? I'm doing it." He's so iconic, and he's so funny. And we had so much fun on set. I mean, he's just so witty, and we were doing his scenes, and he had this line that he just kept saying, and I couldn't hold it together. I was like, "I can't. He's too funny." At one point, I made him laug,h and I literally called my dad. I was like, "Dad, I made Nick Frost laugh." This is the highlight of my life.
You've done some action-heavy projects obviously before this one, like The Acolyte and obviously Logan and Deadpool & Wolverine, but did those almost prepare you for how gruelling it can be to shoot a horror film like this?
Yeah, absolutely. I think in general, any sort of experience you can have kind of builds you up for whatever your next project is. But yeah, I think I was very used to the physical side of things. I wasn't used to there being something so physically demanding about having your body in fear and tension for hours a day. And at the end of the day, as an actor, you do put your body through trauma. Even though your mind knows that you're not actually going through it, your body truly believes that it is. If you're crawling and screaming all day, your body kind of holds on to it. It keeps score in a weird kind of Meisner-ish way. But it was such an intense shoot, and we were also kind of trauma-bonded, and it was so fun, but we were doing really crazy night shoots and these really intense scenes, so it was quite taxing physically and emotionally, but in a really fun, rewarding way.
You've been surrounded by superheroes and Jedi and fantasy creatures, but Whistle has some really amazing creature and makeup designs. So, what did you enjoy about seeing those on set? And what were you most excited for people to see as well?
I loved that. I think that was again another huge sales point for me was the kind of the creature creation of all of it. And Corin comes from a very art-focused background. I mean, when I called him for the first time, he was in his sculpture office, and it's all full of sculptures and sketches that he's made. And he had all these amazing pictures of these deaths, and there's this one particular death that I can't talk about, but I haven't seen it done before, and it's really amazing. We had a bunch of prosthetics for it, and a contortionist, and it was just so we all really wanted to see it happen on the day. But it was so fun to work with all the death creations. I mean, a few people from our special effects makeup team worked with Guillermo del Toro, which I was geeking about because I think that's so cool and so exciting. And we would just go into the SFX trailer and be like what's going on today? And when the deaths were on set, we were always like, "Wow, what does it feel like?" We were all so geeked about it. It was so cool.
Chrys is such an interesting character. She's a bit of an outsider, but we realize she's been through a lot, and the film alludes to that. How do you approach a role like this? Do you give a lot of thought to her backstory?
I think my process is always you tailor it to each character, but it's always relatively similar. I like to read the script a few times until I'm very familiar with it. And I like to do a lot of prep so that then when I'm shooting, I don't have to think about anything. And I'll barely learn my lines the night before because I already know everything from prep. So, I don't have to think about it, and I'm free enough that I can play in the moment, and I'm not focused on anything else. But yeah, I think with Chrys, there was a lot that I had to take into account. I think there was a lot of research that I had to do about drug addiction, about suicide, and about depression. And obviously, I think we've all had our mental health battles. I know that I have. But it was very important to depict it as accurately as possible. But a lot of what was happening during the film was honestly so easy to do because of Sophie, truly. It was so easy to act opposite her. She's so wonderful. So I just had to arrive with the context that I knew and just let Sophie throw me tennis balls and play with her.
Whistle is now playing in theaters.