Hollywood couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie reveal how filming horror movie tested their marriage

Real-life Hollywood couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie explain what it was like working together and the real reason they shot their new movie in Australia.

When they travelled to Australia last year to film their new movie Together, Hollywood power couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie had it in the back of their heads that the experience would either bring them even closer together – or possibly tear them apart.

Some of the scenes that Melbourne writer-director Michael Shanks had come up with in his horror movie about a couple whose rocky relationship is up-ended by a mysterious force that pulls them together were so taxing mentally and physically that they were both left exhausted and hurting at the end of long days of filming.

“We joked going into the process that this whole thing would end in either divorce or we would be more co-dependent than ever,” says Franco with a smile over Zoom call.
“And we’re happy to report that we are not divorced.”

Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Picture: Getty Images

’We knew that this was going to ratchet up the intensity of working together …’ Picture: Getty Images

Brie, sitting next to her husband in their Los Angeles home, chimes in: “Sadly, we are more co-dependent than ever. We knew that this was going to ratchet up the intensity of working together but I think we were both excited about that.”

In the end, it was the strength of their relationship that convinced the pair that they were the right actors for the job. Shanks had written the script inspired by his own long-term relationship with a partner he’d met at Schoolies 15 years ago and pitched the film to fellow horror enthusiast Franco as “a film about the potential horror of sharing a life with someone”.

Franco and Brie have been together for nearly as long – they met at Mardi Gras in New Orleans in 2012 while both were high on MDMA – and married in 2017. Since then, they have also worked together on four movies, acting together in The Little Hours, The Disaster Artist and The Rental and co-writing the 2023 rom-com Somebody I Used To Know (Franco also directed the last two).

Picture: Getty Images

Picture: Getty Images

“We could all relate to spending years with a person and starting to wonder where you end and they begin,” says Brie. “I think we would not have been able to make this movie if we didn’t feel like we were on solid ground in our own relationship.”

Despite the script raising the thorny issues of commitment, co-dependency, monogamy, romance and resentment – Franco says immediately agreed not just to come on board as a producer, but also so travel to the other side of the world to shoot it in Shanks’ home town.

“I read it and thought it was one of the most unique, exciting horror or any other scripts I’d ever read,” says Franco. “And I turned to Alison and said ‘I think we should do this together’ because of the fact that our real relationship could really lend itself to these characters and give the relationship in the film a lot of weight and history.”

Australia turned out to an easy sell for Brie. She’d spent five months of 2023 filming Apples Never Fall with Sam Neill and Annette Bening on the Gold Coast – Franco had visited for lightning weekend trips to Melbourne and Sydney – and the experience had left her “thinking I wanted to move to Australia”.

Filming Together in and around Melbourne had a similar effect on Franco – even if one culinary encounter with a local delicacy proved to be a bridge too far.

Alison Brie and Dave Franco in a scene from the movie, Together.

“We loved walking everywhere,” he says. “We’re huge foodies. It’s impossible to find a bad cup of coffee and so we were we were in heaven and it’s one of the few places we’ve ever worked that we could actually imagine ourselves living there.

“My friend who works in the food world turned us on to this very fancy restaurant where they served emu three different ways. That was a little exotic for us, but it was a fun experience.”

Brie, best known for her roles in Mad Men, Community and her Golden Globe nominated turn as wrestler Ruth Wilder in three seasons of GLOW, says she works so well with her husband because they have a similar attitude of “really giving our all to a project”.

“We’re probably both a little type A about it, very focused, and we respect each other so much,” she says.

“I think that Dave has such incredible taste. I think he’s an incredible actor. I trust him. We trust each other so implicitly that it makes it really easy to act together and to be on set together and to take bigger risks with each other.”

Picture: Getty Images

Franco, whose recent roles have included The Afterparty, The Now and was this month nominated for a Guest Actor Emmy for playing a heightened version of himself in Seth Rogen’s The Studio, agrees. Together features two of the oddest and most disturbing sex scenes in recent memory and Franco says their ease and directness with each other – which can sometimes come off as brusqueness to observers – were assets in the more challenging scenes.

“When you feel at ease on set, you are more prone to take huge swings and try weird takes and that’s typically when the best stuff happens,” says Franco. “The stuff that you’re not really planning for and you’re feeling it out in the moment.”

Brie’s positive energy and ability to switch seamlessly between comedy and drama, Franco says, also proved invaluable in what was a high-pressure, lighting fast shoot with few takes and little margin for error.

“She’s almost like this happy butterfly just floating around set just keeping everyone’s spirits high, even when we’re filming extremely tense sequences,” he says. “I know that the entire crew would really feed off of her energy and I include myself in that as well.”

With hopes high for Together after rapturous screenings at the Sundance and South By South West film festivals, both Brie and Franco are heading back into blockbuster territory. Franco has reunited with co-stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson and Aussie Isla Fisher for a third entry in the Now You See Me franchise, reprising their roles as professional illusionists who moonlight as master thieves. With No You See Me: Now You Don’t due for release in November, Franco hopes there’s more magic to come.

“I love this cast so much,” Franco says. “We have now known each other for nearly 15 years and I don’t know if there’s any cast that I’ve worked with where I laugh more. I just hope to continue making more iterations for the rest of my career and continuing to reunite with these people every few years.

“We just have a great time together and the nature of how these movies are made requires very long shooting days and it can be very draining, but we all love the material so much and we love each other so much and I think the fact that we just get such a kick out of each other keeps us coming back for more.”

Brie, on the other hand, is tight-lipped about her role as the villainous Evil-Lyn alongside Jared Leto’s Skeletor in next year’s big-budget reboot of ‘80s animated favourite Masters of the Universe.

“Oh gosh, I’m terrified to say anything,” she says. “I don’t think I’m allowed to say anything, but we are done with it and it was a really fun shoot. I think it’s going to be really fun and hopefully great points of nostalgia for people and also fun for new generations of He-Man fans.”

Together opens in cinemas July 31. For more from Stellar, click here.