“I think I just texted Jenn in all caps, ‘I AM MANIC,’ about 10 minutes ago,” confesses Sam Lansky as he sits down with CULTURED. “That’s where we are.” Lansky is referring to Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, his best friend and creative counterpart in the creation of I Know What You Did Last Summer. The pair, co-writers on the project with Robinson in the directing chair, are Zooming in from Los Angeles on the day of their twisty, genre-warping franchise extension’s premiere. No wonder Lansky’s riled up.
Though the pair have been best friends for a decade, the latest installment of the 1997 slasher series (which Lansky wrote and Robinson directed) marks their first collaboration—and a new chapter in their relationship. Until IKWYDLS, the friends were in different lanes. Lansky is a career writer (he has published a memoir, The Gilded Razor, and a novel, Broken People) and the former West Coast Editor at Time; Robinson is the writer-director behind Someone Great and Do Revenge. Despite their differing sensibilities, a lifelong love for horror movies (and plenty of experience watching them together) made the pair an ideal fit for the project.
Here, the duo reflect on the twists and turns of bringing a film to life—from their time shooting in Sydney (wearing matching pajamas, sharing cigarettes, and engaging in plenty of rom-com revisionism, et cetera), to their hopes for how audiences react to the film. Below, Lansky and Robinson discuss The Blair Witch Project, communal movie nights, and their matching pajamas.
CULTURED: It’s great to connect with you both. What emotions are you feeling today?
Jennifer Kaytin Robinson: Insane. I feel crazy.
Sam Lansky: Yeah, me too.
Robinson: I feel crazy—parentheses, complimentary. You know what I mean? It’s not bad, but it is crazy. I had a big panic attack at the Someone Great premiere, and I think I’ve gotten better with each one—not going full tilt—but it’s just so much. It’s more than a body should experience.
Lansky: It’s a level of intensity that’s hard to contend with, and there’s a kind of surreality to it. For me, because this is my first produced credit as a screenwriter, it’s all new to me.
CULTURED: It’s rare to experience a moment like this with someone you know so well. What does it mean to share this milestone together?
Robinson: We’ve been friends for 1o years. So we’re now closer than any two adults who are not in a relationship could ever be. We lived together in Sydney, and we truly have the most codependent, adult, platonic relationship that two people can have.
Lansky: Really. Extremely intimate.
CULTURED: As collaborators, you’ve mentioned a mix of voices in the proverbial room—people who are loyal to the original film, and others bringing a fresh perspective. How do you reconcile that deep nostalgia with the demands of a more modern, cinematic language?
Robinson: I mean, I think it’s staying true to the vision—to what Sam and I wanted to do, to what I wanted to do, to what the actors signed up for, to what we were all on set creating—and using that. We tried not to let any one note take it in a direction that didn’t feel authentic to what we wanted to make, but also wanted to be very open to feedback: how does the film feel when you put it on its feet and screen it? Are people laughing, are they screaming, are they scared?
Lansky: I would also say the North Star was fun. More than anything else, we were both driven by our shared memories of how fun this movie was to see when we were young. We knew people were going to see it in a community, with their friends, with their soda, with their popcorn—as you should. That felt like a really fun thing to be able to do.
CULTURED: Speaking of, I have some fun questions too. Between the two of you, who do you think would die first in a slasher movie?
Lansky: Me. Jenn is surviving to the bitter end.
Robinson: I was going to say Sam, but then I was like, I want to see what he says.
Lansky: I am dying so much faster than Jenn.
Robinson: Can I say something? You would also just be like, “I’m gonna kill myself.”
Lansky: I would absolutely surrender. I’d be like, “I’m ready. I’m done. I’ve had a good run.” Jenn would have a knife between her teeth at the absolute bitter end: final showdown. Jenn is the final girl to her very core.
CULTURED: When you were living together on set, what kind of rituals did you share?
Robinson: So glad you asked. We had matching jammies.
Lansky: We used to go to this store in Sydney that I want to shout out—called In Bed. It’s really beautiful, lovely Australian linen. For Christmas that year, I got matching sets for everyone I know. I still wear them. I wore them to sleep last night.
Robinson: We have pictures of us in matching pajamas.
Lansky: Yeah, they’re pretty good. We also worked out with the same trainer, so we would go in the morning, before we started prep. Shout out to Wade.
Robinson: There was a lot of us coming home at the end of the day and sitting in silence. Us sitting in silence, on our little deck, smoking a cig—sorry, we smoke. Sorry, cigs are back. Then a group of bats would loudly fly over. There are so many bats in Australia, you don’t even know! So, a group of bats would fly over, and we would just sit there in silence, collectively processing, dissociating—and then we would just start howling, laughing. And that was really the experience of us living together. Actually… I just saw something. I had Twitter open, and I toggled over to look at something. It’s so important that I actually think I should tell you on this Zoom.
Lansky: Yeah, tell me live.
Robinson: Do you know what was released on this exact day in 1999?
Lansky: No.
Robinson: The Blair Witch Project.
Lansky: No, that’s crazy!
Robinson: I had never seen The Blair Witch Project. It was playing in a theater in Australia, and Sam took me to see it. Then it became very important to both of us. I talk about it all the time now. I think Heather from The Blair Witch Project is actually our greatest female filmmaker. Because she shot that fucking movie. She was like, “You want to go back? You go back.”
Lansky: Jenn gets pretty inspired by Heather, and I feel like it’s a really good omen that the movie was released on this day in 1999. It’s the only thing Jenn should talk about on the carpet.
Robinson: I do think it’s the only thing I’m going to talk about on the carpet.
Lansky: You should start by saying you’re here to honor your inspiration, Heather from The Blair Witch Project, who blazed a trail—who walked so you could run.
Robinson: Sam, what is your favorite line of dialogue in the movie?
Lansky: I don’t want to spoil it, but I think it’s what you improvised on the day, and suggested for—
Robinson: Oh, the gay guy dialogue.
Lansky: Yeah. When Jenn came back to the monitor after delivering a note to the actors, I said, “Everyone’s going to assume I wrote that, because that is the most gay guy dialogue I’ve ever heard.” You hear it and think, This could only come from the brain of a crazy gay guy. And the fact that Jenn came up with it is extraordinary. It’s boundary-breaking.
Robinson: And it’s also coupled with someone spitting in someone’s face, and the other person slapping that person across the face. So it’s: spit in face, line of dialogue, slap across, line of dialogue.
Lansky: It is the cuntiest moment ever put on screen. I can say that with full confidence. I did not write it. People assume that, as the gay guy in the writing duo, I did. I want it on record: they are wrong. It was Jenn.
CULTURED: We will bring justice to this line, Sam, I can tell you that.
Lansky: Yeah, it is destined to be memed endlessly. As it was written, so it shall be done.
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