Samara Weaving Quit Horror Until This Jason Segel Movie Pulled Her Back In

For Jorma Taccone’s dark comedy remake, Over Your Dead Body, the actor-turned-director enlisted the talent of two genre favorites, Jason Segel and Samara Weaving, to co-lead this brutal tale of one miserable couple. While chatting with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, to hear them tell it, the filming of the movie was nearly as intense, between the unforgiving Finnish winter and the blood splatter.

In the movie, Segel and Weaving play Dan and Lisa, an unhappy couple who embark on a weekend getaway to save their marriage. Unbeknownst to one another, each of them is plotting to off the other for the insurance money, but their devious plans are thwarted when a trio of unsavory individuals (Timothy Olyphant, Juliette Lewis, and Keith Jardine) turns up at their secluded cabin.

Don’t miss the full conversation in the video above, or the transcript below, where Segel and Weaving share hilarious stories from off-set, discuss the fake blood, freezing waters, and Weaving talks about how Over Your Dead Body pulled her back into the genre.

Jason Segel Lived Every ’80s Kid’s Dream

“Love me some Double Dare.”

COLLIDER: Before we jump in to talking about the film, I like throwing a curveball at the beginning, and today’s curveball is: Have you ever asked for someone’s autograph?

SAMARA WEAVING: I don’t think so. I’m too afraid.

JASON SEGEL: I don’t have it anymore, but when I was young, I had the autograph of the guy who hosted Double Dare. Remember that old game show? I had it up on my wall. Was that Marc Summers who was the host of Double Dare?

You might be right.

SEGEL: But that was the only autograph that I ever had. I loved me some Double Dare. You know what that is? Probably not. It’s like a kid’s game show where they have to do these stunt-type things. Like there’s goo…

WEAVING: [Laughs] “Love me some Double Dare.”

SEGEL: Ooh, yeah. Boy, and they would fall down.

WEAVING: I have a British comedian, Noel Fielding, who I’m a big fan of, and I do technically have his autograph because I bought a painting of him.

SEGEL: Oh, cool.

WEAVING: And his signature is on it.

SEGEL: Does that count?

WEAVING: Does that count?

100%.

WEAVING: It’s my favorite painting.

SEGEL: I have a bunch of paintings. I didn’t realize.

WEAVING: Well, it was my idea.

SEGEL: I mean, this feels like a cheat.

Jason Segel and Samara Weaving Share Their Wildest Off-Set Encounters

“That guy’s definitely high.”

Switching into the movie, I am so curious, do you both enjoy getting covered with cuts and blood? And how much do you want to leave set and go to the local Starbucks and be like, “No big deal. Just my day?”

WEAVING: Oh, once I had to do that. I was doing a job, and because of the turnaround, I’d have to go home and sleep in the makeup because I was covered in tattoos and had no eyebrows. I looked insane. And yeah, I would go to the grocery store, and the hotel would really check my ID a lot, and people would cross the street to get away from me. It was a social experiment, for sure.

SEGEL: Yeah, I went to the grocery store after they had removed a bunch of my makeup, so there was no actual makeup on, but I looked a little crazy. They tried not to let me drive away. Do you remember this? Because they thought that I was stoned or high.

WEAVING: Oh, yeah! [Laughs]

SEGEL: But because I smiled at everybody. The Finnish culture is so different. My personality is like this all the time. I had come from hair and makeup, I was in a sweat suit, my hair was a little messed up, my face probably was a little messed up, and I’d be like, “Hello! Hello, everyone! How was your day? How was your day?” They were like, “That guy’s definitely high. Do not let that guy drive.” I said, “I’m not high. I’m just friendly.”

Jason, I know that you’re pretty selective with what you do outside of Shrinking, and you’re pretty selective with the roles you take. What was it about this script that was like, “Oh, yes, I need to do this movie?”

SEGEL: When I kind of locked in to this, you could do this movie as though it was a metaphor for marriage counseling, that you start off wanting to kill each other, you both go in with the intention of getting the best of the other person, and then there’s a big blow-up. Then, in the aftermath, some real emotion comes out, and then you realize, like, “Okay, we’re in hell, and the only way we’re getting out of here is together, and I choose that.” By the way, I’m not married. I’m making all this up. But that’s how I viewed it. I just thought, “Okay, that’s what this movie is about.”

I think where I’m selective is, I really need to understand why I’m doing something, or what I think it’s about, or what I am trying to help illuminate. Like, what is the issue of the movie? And so this one, I was able to wrap my head around it. And then I was so excited to work with Sam and work with Jorma [Taccone], and I love the original movie.

Is Samara Weaving Ready to Give Up the Genre Crown?

The pair also share the most challenging moments on set.

Samara, I definitely have an individual for you. You’ve sort of become a master of the survival horror space, and I’m just curious, how does Lisa, do you think, compare to the previous characters you’ve played?

WEAVING: Honestly, I keep telling my team, “I’m not doing any more genre movies.” But this project came along on my desk, and the script was phenomenal. I’ve been such a fan of Jorma and the cast attached to it. I’ve been a huge fan of Jason’s, and then having Juliette Lewis and Timothy Olyphant attached, it was really a no-brainer.

I think what was slightly different about this was that I got to lean into comedy a little bit more. The script really made me laugh a lot more than other genre scripts I’ve read. So, that was a big drawing card for me.

When I was watching it, I laughed out loud multiple times. The film is really, really funny. So, in a movie with this much blood, a bad take usually means a lot of time cleaning the set and changing costumes. Was there a specific scene that felt like a one-shot or a we’re-done-for-the-day moment?

SEGEL: That’s a great question. No, because there’s not a lot of blood splatter, right?

WEAVING: Yeah. It’s not like on Ready or Not where people are exploding and you’ve got one take.

SEGEL: No, there was a little bit of water stuff where I was like, “I don’t want to do this for very long.” That water, it was Finland in the winter. It was really legit cold. We would get in, and you know when you drink something cold, and you get that terrible headache?

WEAVING: Brain freeze.

SEGEL: Brain freeze, they call it. I was getting brain freeze from the top of the head from the water being so cold. It would come over me. And so we could only do that for, like, 20 minutes at a time.

WEAVING: You were a good sport.

SEGEL: Thanks. But, yeah, it was all pretty much a blast.

Actors often talk about how miserable it is wearing fake blood. It’s cold, sugary, and attracts every bug in the woods. Between the two of you, who handles the blood better?

SEGEL: She handles all of it better.

WEAVING: But I think we have the same mentality. I think with that stuff, I’m always going like, “Well, did you read the script? You knew that it was going to be miserable, and you were going to be covered in goo, so why are you complaining?”

SEGEL: Yeah. Also, an interesting thing happens that with some time, I hope that if you’re a conscious person, you pick up, which is that’s actually the stuff that sticks with you is the good memories. Like, “Remember when we were freezing in that lake?” You know what I mean? The stuff that is the most rigorous is the stuff that has the longest impression on you and that you end up looking back on fondly. You don’t really think about the mundane days. You think about, like, “Oh god, remember that time when it was really, really hard and we did it?” So I try to think of that even when we’re doing the hard stuff, like, “Oh, this is going to be cool, and it’s going to be on film forever.”

100%. I want to do this question spoiler-free. I absolutely love the ending, and I love the way that it leaves audiences on a high. Everyone’s smiling, and people are going to walk out smiling. For both of you, spoiler-free, what was your reaction to the ending, and with any surprises that were worked in?

WEAVING: I mean, it was really fun to do. It was really fun to play that version of it. It felt like doing a really fun sketch.

SEGEL: You know who else it was really fun for? The stunt guys. Because they had really handcuffed themselves by that we were supposed to be inept. So all of the stunt sequences had to be kind of scaled back to regular person ability. That’s the point of the movie. It wasn’t that we wouldn’t have been able to do it, but it’s supposed to be like, what if this happened to regular people? So they were really psyched about that last scene because they got to really show what they can do.

WEAVING: Really show off.

Over Your Dead Body is in theaters now.