Her Private Hell star Sophie Thatcher spoke with ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese about the film’s unique shoot and why she is stepping away from horror. Neon will release the movie in theaters on July 24, 2026.
“When a mysterious mist engulfs a futuristic metropolis, unleashing a deadly and elusive entity, a troubled young woman searches for her father. Her quest collides with an American GI on a harrowing odyssey to rescue his daughter from Hell,” says the official synopsis.
Tyler Treese: I’m really glad this interview got delayed because Her Private Hell is one of those films that sticks with you. I’ve been thinking about it the whole week since I watched it. How does your approach differ when you’re doing a film that is meant to be interpreted and has naturally divided people? Because it’s definitely a challenging work. It’s very vibes-based, it’s very trippy, and you’re working with one of our true auteurs.
Sophie Thatcher: It definitely felt less specific in terms of building out the character trajectory and saying, “This scene leads to this, and this is cause and effect,” which I’m usually very keen on. I like mapping out a character trajectory beforehand and doing as much prep as possible.
The prep for this was about finding the world, listening to music, and tuning into yourself. It felt very much like going inward, so it felt deeper and more emotional. A lot of the prep was building a relationship with Nic and feeling comfortable with him. Things were changing a lot from day to day, but we were lucky enough to shoot in order. It did feel like we were building the character from the ground up from day one.
The scariest day was day one. I remember doing this scene and feeling like I was floating. A lot of the time, I felt like I was floating.
I read that Nicolas was having dreams and then rewriting scenes the morning of based on those dreams. That has to make you really change your approach. I assume it’s freeing in a way because you have to be in the moment and roll with the punches. What was most rewarding about that experience? It definitely had to change how you work.
It forced me to go inward and look at myself and think about my dreams and my relationship to music and art. I really had to rely on my intuition. I couldn’t prep anything. It had to happen on the day.
There was so much discovery within that which you couldn’t have planned, and we couldn’t have predicted where Elle was going to go. I had no idea. I think learning to embrace the unknown was probably my biggest takeaway.
He made it very clear early on when all of us were asking him questions and saying, “Give us concrete answers about who Elle was as a kid,” and all of that. I had an idea. I had a feeling. It was very feeling-based.
I think that is natural for me as an actor because that’s my job. Even with him playing music on set, it was about capturing a feeling rather than overly intellectualizing it. It was about having trust in him that he would put it together and make it cohesive in a way.
It was cohesive, but it’s still very abstract. It’s like a mosaic. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to people, but it’s about the experience and being open to the experience.
I think this is definitely going to be rewarding upon rewatches for that specific reason you mentioned.
It’s very nice. I like when it sticks with people or bleeds into people’s dreams. I think that’s so interesting.
I read another quote from you where you said you had learned bad acting techniques that worked specifically for horror, but not elsewhere, and you wanted to get away from that. I always love your performances, but I thought that was a tremendous act of self-appraisal and knowing that you can’t just rely on what has worked in the past. Can you speak to that perspective of wanting to challenge yourself and grow as an artist rather than just becoming a scream queen where all you do is horror?
Sophie Thatcher: There are all these tricks that I’ve learned to get to emotional places that feel a bit inauthentic. It’s not about diving deep into a character. It’s very results-based. I think that’s where I was coming from with that.
This was so stylized, but it was also so still. There were so many close-ups, so much silence, and so much just sitting in silence that you could see through everything. I felt like I was always in it.
I felt like I was in it on set even when we weren’t rolling. I’ve never had that before, where it’s like, “I can quickly start crying and go there,” by doing something that’s very technical. That’s fine too, and that’s amazing. But at that point, I had done so much of that that I was craving something that felt more inward and was looking for something deeper.
Thanks to Sophie Thatcher for taking the time to talk about Her Private Hell.
