The following story contains spoilers for the film It’s What’s Inside on Netflix.
THERE’S AN EMERGING subgenre of horror, and horror-adjacent, films that are doing more than one thing at a time. 2019’s Midsommar found writer/director Ari Aster 100% in his bag, capturing striking images, strange cult behavior, and graphic violence, but it was all backdrop to what was really a story about a relationship between two young people destined to end sooner or later. 2022’s Bodies Bodies Bodies was a little goofier; a bunch of upper class or upper-middle class kids stuck in a house during a storm and suspicious of one being a killer, but really a story about emerging their distrust with and distaste of one another.
It’s What’s Inside, a new high-concept horror/thriller/sci-fi from Netflix, is very much cut from the same cloth. The movie is ostensibly about a group of old friends, brought together for a reunion/hangout just before one of them is set to get married—but with a twist. One friend, who they haven’t seen in a while, comes with a mysterious piece of technology that they use to play a game. But this isn’t any game—it’s a game that switches the bodies and souls of anyone hooked up to the aforementioned machine. What follows is an absolutely wild ride, filled with twists, turns, and lots of dread, while also telling an interesting story about modern friendships and relationships.
“I don’t see it as trying to say anything super profound,” James Morosini, who plays Cyrus in the film, tells me at first. “I see it as a really fun body swap movie.”
He thinks for a moment, though, and realizes that there really is more to it. Just like the characters in It’s What’s Inside, when the movie itself gets a second to sit, there’s more than meets the eye.
“What resonates with me about the story is how much people are trying to hide from one another, especially the parts of each character they’re hiding from themselves, that ultimately get revealed when they have the disguise of another person,” he says. “Everybody comes into the situation in a slightly dishonest way, and when they ultimately switch bodies, then they’re able to be more authentically themselves when they’re inhabiting another person.”
The ability to put on that mask—to be authentically yourself with our fear of knowledge and judgment—is a major overarching theme in It’s What’s Inside, and that’s part of the mystery and tension that guides the movie to the finish line as its brisk 1 hour 43 minute runtime passes by with the blind of an eye.
Men’s Health spoke with Morosini, who along with Brittany O’Grady (who plays Cyrus’s girlfriend, Shelby), are the film’s de facto lead characters, about everything It’s What’s Inside, including how the movie came to be, it’s bonkers ending, and how working on a movie like this can influence his own writing and directing career.
MEN’S HEALTH: You filmed this movie about two years ago, and it premiered at Sundance, which was back in January. How hard has the wait been, getting all the way to horror/Halloween season?
JAMES MOROSINI: The weird thing about making any movie is that you sometimes make it two years before anybody else sees it. So, by the time it comes out, you might be in a completely different place in your life, and feel like almost a different person. I’m so proud of what we did with this movie, and I feel like Netflix is really the right place for it. But dude, two years after making a movie, that’s a long time to wait. So I’m glad that it’s finally coming out.
MH: You’ve done some American Horror Story, and your next movie is going to be a horror film with Lionsgate as well, but did you grow up liking horror movies? What’s your relationship with the horror genre?
JM: I’ve always been a big fan of horror. The thing I love about it is that it really makes you feel what it’s intending to make you feel. It always feels like a dare watching horror. I grew up watching a lot of David Cronenberg, but also watching a lot of foreign horror as well. I remember the first time I saw The Shining. A lot of these movies that are based on Stephen King books—Firestarter was another big one for me; just the feeling of dread and terror that they can evoke. I’ve always been a fan of that feeling for whatever reason.
MH: What are some of your all-time favorites? You mentioned The Shining and Cronenberg.
JM: Hold on—I want to be accurate, because I know I’ll forget some, so I’m going to open my Letterboxd.
MH: Oh, wonderful.
JM: I would say Hereditary is very high on that list. The Witch is terrifying. There’s a movie called The Vanishing that is so scary. I think Alien is kind of a perfect movie. I’m a big fan of Possession. The movie Raw, I think about a lot.
There’s one other: there’s a movie called Ravenous, from 1999, that’s like a civil war cannibal movie that I saw this past year that completely blew me away. It’s the weirdest movie I’ve ever seen.
MH: As we get into October, is there anything you are planning to watch that you haven’t seen before that you’re excited about?
JM: I’m really excited to see The Substance.
MH: It’s really good.
JM: I can’t wait to watch that. And then, I don’t know, man, I like going back and watching old horror movies. My brother does this thing where he watches a horror movie every day for all of October, and I might take a page out of his book.
MH: Let’s talk about It’s What’s Inside. Your character in this, you mentioned Hereditary before and your character in this kind of reminded me of Jack Reynor’s character in Midsommar a little bit, and just kind of being a subtly toxic boyfriend. What are you channeling to get into that right energy where you’re putting on the nice guy face, but getting at something a little bit less true underneath it?
JM: I think you said it. Cyrus really wants to be a nice guy, and he’s willing to do that at the expense of everything else, really. Anytime somebody’s really committed to being seen in a positive light all the time, it leads them to being dishonest. He’s not willing to be honest about where he is in that relationship, and because he’s so dishonest, he’s causing a lot of harm. He’s not able to commit to that relationship, because he’s not able to commit to himself. He’s constantly second guessing everything he does, and I wanted him to just feel uncomfortable in his own skin. I chose clothes that were a little bit too tight. I wanted him to feel like he was never quite solid in any moment, especially so when Dennis is in my body. Dennis has nothing to lose. He’s lost everything. And so there’s kind of a total uninhibitedness when Dennis is in my body. And I wanted those to really feel like polar opposites.
MH: Part of what I love about this movie is that yourself and the rest of the cast get to do five different performances in once, but for your main, the Cyrus character, did you have any specific references or influences from other movies or shows?
JM: I wanted to approach it as realistically as possible, so I just tried to look at it from his perspective as much as I could. He’s seeing these friends he hasn’t in a long time. He wants them to think he’s cool. And he feels kind of embarrassed by his girlfriend and himself. So, from the jump, he’s uncomfortable going there, but is hoping that it might be the thing that fixes his relationship. I think Midsommar is a great reference, and there’s a similar dynamic with those characters, for sure, in that it’s kind of a broken relationship that both people are clinging to—and end up experiencing the consequences of that.
MH: How long did it take you to get a solid grip on the core concept of the movie, and all that was going on with all the body swaps and everything that happens?
JM: The whole time. Every scene you’re having to reorient, because each time somebody else is switching into your body, they have a completely different perspective on the story, and a totally different relationship with each character. So you really have to know all of the characters inside and out in order to be properly oriented. I mean, a of acting in this piece was making sure that we were all on the same page about who was who and what was what, because so much of the story is playing with that Rubik’s cube puzzle that is happening throughout the story.
MH: What was the key to portraying so many different characters in the same body?
JM: I think just being really clear about who, fundamentally. each character was, understanding what is driving each of these characters. For Cyrus, it was a desire to fit in and be liked. For Dennis, it was… honestly, something kind of similar, but in a different way. I mean, for Dennis, I think it has more to do with domination and getting the most attention in every moment and being kind of alpha. It really forced us to be super clear about who these people were underneath the bodies they were in.
MH: Which was the hardest character to portray?
JM: I don’t know, man. I don’t know if any of them were particularly hard. I think probably Forbes, because he’s coming in with such a big secret. So to understand how that secret influences his perspective throughout, but I was playing him for such a short period of time that it wasn’t as heavy a lift. But that’s a tricky character, because there’s so many layers of deception.
MH: Right. And then the big reveal at the end is that it was Forbes’s sister within Forbes. So it was Forbes’s sister within Forbes within Cyrus.
JM: That’s correct.
MH: Was that twist something in the back of your head throughout too? There are just so many layers.
JM: It’s important in a story like this to really just be playing the moment to moment, because you can get lost in how complicated it all is—but that’s ultimately not what you’re experiencing as an audience. All of these bigger thematics and takeaways, they just kind of happen, and it’s the actor’s job to be as present to whatever’s happening moment to moment.
MH: How does acting in a movie like this have an impact on your own writing and directing, especially as you’re getting ready to go do your own horror film?
JM: I’m always a student of how to make the best possible movie, and so every director I work with when I’m acting, I’m always learning from them and picking up on new tools and ways of making the best movie I can. For me, as an audience member, the thing I’m drawn to the most is tension. How do you make the tension as unbearable for an audience as possible? That’s something this movie does super well, and something I’m always focused on in my own storytelling. How can I make each moment as dynamic, and tense, and entertaining to an audience as I possibly can? That’s something [writer/director Greg Jardin] did really well on this one.
MH: Building on that, this is, as you just said, such an intense movie, especially as we get into it more and more, especially after the turn where two of the characters die. It’s just like, oh my gosh, what’s going to happen next? How are they going to carry through? When you’re getting into doing such an intense project, do you do any special kind of mental prep so you don’t lose it a little bit? And then when you’re done, how do you detox and get back to normal and say goodbye to this intense environment?
JM: I try to imagine what’s happening in the story as vividly as I possibly can. A big part of that is trying to get clear what would it actually be like to swap into somebody’s body and then to try to imagine that with as much granularity as possible. So, when I’m pretending that that’s happening, I have points of reference that do feel real.
In terms of shaking any of it off, it’s always just pretend. Iit never sticks with me. That said, it is emotionally very taxing. So, after we were done shooting this, I did feel like I kind of left it all on the field, and so then to have to wait for two years for it to come out, it feels like this message in a bottle that you send out and then comes back years later.
MH: As we get to the end, your character ends up in jail. What’s your read on the end and whose side are you on?
JM: I think movies are like metaphors. They can’t be interpreted literally. It’s like, ‘Do I think Cyrus deserves to go to jail for what he did?’ Probably not, no. But it’s not about that, it’s more about Shelby’s emotional triumph, and her finally being able to stand up for herself, and stand her ground, and maybe even go too far in that. I don’t know if I take sides, but I think I’m just excited that we’re able to track these characters arcs even though they’ve been in all of these different bodies throughout.
MH: You’ve got your horror film, Mommy’s Home, coming up. What’s something you want to do in your career after this project, after this movie comes out and in the world?
JM: Just working with other creatives that I’m a genuine fan of, and telling stories that feel risky and fresh, but in a way that feels really personal and authentic. I’m constantly asking myself, how can I take more and more risk in the stories I’m telling and that I’m a part of telling? I think the next movie I’m making is definitely a big swing and lines up with those aspirations.
MH: What can you tell us about that film?
JM: The movie’s about a guy that brings back his mom from the dead, and she’s this 24-year-old. And it feels very much like the dynamics of a Hand That Rocks the Cradle but has these big horror swings like a Barbarian or M3GAN. It’s going to be a really fun, scary, sexy genre blend of a movie, that I really can’t wait for people to see.
This interview has been edited for content and clarity.
