A24’s hit horror Talk to Me is returning for a sequel, and lead actor Sophie Wilde really wants to return. However, speaking to GamesRadar+ after her nomination for the EE BAFTA Rising Star Award, the horror star says she’s not yet sure if she’ll get the call.
"I don't know," Wilde says about if she’s coming back. "I feel like it's still a bit hush hush because I mean, the boys [filmmakers Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou], they're such workaholics. I know they're focusing on a bunch of other projects that they're doing at the moment. So I don't know, it’s all up in the air. But I said to them, I was like, 'I'm gonna get actual FOMO if I'm not in this film, so can I just come on set and be like a boom operator? I will be an assistant director, I just want to be involved.'"
Wilde played Mia in Talk to Me, who gets sucked into a terrifying game of possession. After discovering that an embalmed hand lets its users contact the dead, a group of teenagers become addicted to the game, unaware of the supernatural power that they’re unleashing. Mia, dealing with the grief of losing her mother, becomes obsessed with its power and starts using it in riskier ways.
This all leads to a very tragic conclusion for Mia after she’s inhabited by the malicious spirit. Under its influence, she stabs her father and attempts to murder her friend’s brother Riley, who has been in a catatonic state after an earlier incident with the hand. However, before she can push Riley into oncoming traffic on the highway, she kills herself, becoming trapped along with the lost souls in the hand.
The first movie ends with a group of Greek men using the hand as Mia reaches out to them. It all seems ripe for a sequel, and the moment has spawned endless theories about what could happen, including a suggestion that the hand they’re using is the opposite to the one in Australia. Wilde says she loves hearing all of the speculation.
"It’s actually so sick," she beams, "Some of the theories are things that I've never even thought of or things that I'm like, ‘Oh, my God, I could see how as an audience member you would think that but I've never even comprehended that.’ So it's kind of cool. I love hearing the theories because I guess I know… [but] also, I don’t know everything, there's still a lot of ambiguity even that I don't know. But there are things that I know for certain that go certain ways. So it's always interesting to hear what people have to say."
So far, little has been revealed about the sequel, but the filmmakers did previously suggest they have enough footage for a prequel as well. While we wait, check out the upcoming horror movies we do know about.
Voting for the EE Rising Star Award is now open at ee.co.uk/BAFTA until 12pm GMT on Friday, February 16. The winner will be announced at the EE BAFTA Film Awards on Sunday, February 18. The EE Rising Star Award is the only category at the EE BAFTA Film Awards to be voted for by the public.
For more, check out our list of all of the 2024 BAFTA nominations.
