Married actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco get Together again for body-horror thriller

LOS ANGELES – Love and terror intersect in the new indie body-horror thriller Together, which stars real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie.

The M18-rated film, which opens in Singapore cinemas on Aug 21, follows dating couple Tim (Franco) and Millie (Brie), whose relationship becomes strained when they move to an isolated countryside home.

But after an incident in a mysterious cave, their bodies begin to repeatedly fuse together upon contact, and each gradually loses control of his or her own physical self.

Speaking at a recent Los Angeles screening of the movie, the American actors – who have been together for more than a decade and married since 2017 – say it is a metaphor for co-dependency and the loss of individuality that can occur in a relationship.

They were also captivated by the novel approach to body horror taken by Australian first-time director Michael Shanks, 34, who also wrote the screenplay.

Says Franco, who appeared in the heist film series Now You See Me (2013 to present): “We were initially just blown away by the horror set pieces, which just felt so innovative, and like nothing we had ever seen before.

“Then I turned to Alison, and I figured that our real relationship would lend itself really well to these characters in the movie, who’ve been together for over 10 years,” adds the 40-year-old, whose brother is 47-year-old actor James Franco, star of the first Spider-Man film series (2002 to 2007).

“And hopefully when you’re watching us on screen, you can feel a little bit of history, and a weight to that relationship.”

Brie says Together’s graphic horror sequences are not gratuitous, but support core themes in the story.

“The build of the set pieces was so beautiful and cool, and it all tied back to the central themes of the movie and to this relationship story, and fears of monogamy and toxic co-dependency and things like that,” says the 42-year-old, who starred in the Mad Men drama series (2007 to 2015) and the sitcom Community (2009 to 2015).

“And one of the reasons I love horror as a genre is that you can explore these really relatable themes, but then take them to these insane places,” she adds.

“You use these very graphic visual metaphors to explore these topics, and leave people thinking about things in their real life.

“And nothing’s arbitrary – it is all showing this couple and their struggle.”

Shot in just 21 days, production on Together was intense and physical, and Franco and Brie’s couple status came in handy.

“The fact that we were living together was very beneficial because we could rehearse as much as we wanted,” he recalls.

Being married was also an advantage when it came to having to wear prosthetics that fused them together – once for an entire day, including trips to the bathroom – as well as collaborating to solve problems in their role as producers.

The pair had already worked together four times – both appeared in the 2017 comedies The Little Hours and The Disaster Artist, and Brie starred in two films directed by Franco, horror flick The Rental (2020) and romantic comedy Someone I Used To Know (2023).

But this experience deepened their bond.

“Working with her is my favourite thing for so many reasons,” Franco says. “Creatively, she’s one of the best actresses working today, so she makes my job very easy – it’s very easy to play off of her.

“And on top of that, as actors, our jobs can be very vulnerable, so to have her there with me – just to lean on and check in with, and keep each other from getting in our own heads – it’s invaluable.”

Brie walked away from the project feeling “inspired” by the process, she says.

“It is the power of independent film, and exploring new ideas that aren’t the same intellectual property that you see reproduced over and over again.

“And it’s everyone on the set taking a huge risk – and a big part of why we were able to do that is because we had each other on set,” she adds.

“We really trusted Michael Shanks and his vision for this movie – and as a secondary precaution, we trusted each other, so that enabled us to take really big swings.”