[Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Final Destination Bloodlines.]

Summary

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff talks with Brec Bassinger, Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Anna Lore, Rya Kihlstedt, and producer Sheila Hanahan Taylor for a very special episode of Collider Ladies Night.

After an early screening of Final Destination Bloodlines, the stars and producer discussed horror icons who inspire them, working with directors Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky, and the importance of finding the ideal ensemble for a Final Destination movie.

The group also shares insight into challenging scenes, rehearsals, why they made changes to crucial characters, death scenes, and much more.

Since the dawn of the genre, women have soared in horror. So, what better way to celebrate the return of one of its most iconic franchises than with a very special edition of Collider Ladies Night, hosted by the queen of screams herself, Perri Nemiroff? For this exclusive advanced screening edition of the interview series, Nemiroff spoke with the stars and longtime franchise producer Sheila Hanahan Taylor for Final Destination Bloodlines, the first sequel in 14 years, just in time for the 25th anniversary of the OG.
After watching the movie, stars Brec Bassinger (Stargirl), Kaitlyn Santa Juana (The Friendship Game), Anna Lore (Gotham Knights), Rya Kihlstedt (Superman & Lois) and Taylor joined Nemiroff on stage for an in-depth conversation about the legacy of the Final Destination franchise, from the significance of casting lesser-known actors to bringing a very particular level of realism to this Death-defying narrative.
In this discussion, Taylor, who has worked on every Final Destination film, spanning nearly three decades, talks about working with directors Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky (Freaks), and explains why Bloodlines was a much different experience than the first film. The cast also discusses the inner workings of those gruesome Final Destination death sequences, the joys of working in horror, why certain deaths and even characters had to change from script to screen, and tons more. Check out the full Ladies Night conversation in the video above! You can also read the transcript, or listen to the conversation in podcast form below:

These Final Girls Paved the Way for ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’

The cast reveals which iconic genre powerhouses inspire them.

Image via New Line Cinema
 

PERRI NEMIROFF: On Collider Ladies Night, obviously, we love to celebrate women in television and film, but right now I get the opportunity to narrow it down to my favorite genre, horror. Can you each name a final girl, or perhaps someone behind the scenes that is a female genre powerhouse, who inspires you?
KAITLYN SANTA JUANA: Oh, that’s a big question.
ANNA LORE: I’ll say Toni Collette in Hereditary because that is just an absolutely unhinged performance. I think in horror, you always have to go to a 10. I mean, I guess Toni Collette does it, really, in every genre. She’s always going to a 10, but I loved her performance in that.
RYA KIHLSTEDT: Jamie Lee Curtis in Everything Everywhere All at Once. One of the best screamers ever.
SANTA JUANA: In the world.
KIHLSTEDT: Yeah. She’s a true badass.
SANTA JUANA: I think another one that I’m thinking of is Winona Ryder. I love the edginess that she brings to everything, and she’s done that forever. That’s something that I’ve seen and been like, “I want to be that.”
BREC BASSINGER: I think I’m super, completely biased, but I got the opportunity to work alongside Ali Larter, who is Final Destination royalty. I hadn’t auditioned for the project when I was working with her, but just to see her presence on set and the way she advocated for herself and her work was really inspiring. So, now, getting to follow in her footsteps, in a sense, I’m a big fan of her on and off screen.
SHEILA HANAHAN TAYLOR: I’m going to age myself, but honestly, one of my most vivid memories from years and years ago is Sigourney Weaver in Alien. I mean, I can’t not, right? Come on. And to this day, she still is so regal and just.

Image via 20th Century Fox

LORE: That was one of the first times a woman played a part like that.
TAYLOR: Absolutely.
LORE: I think I watched Aliens in, like, 2023, really, really recently, and I was like, “This is so badass.” It still feels revolutionary.
TAYLOR: Imagine what that did back then.
Casting for ‘Final Destination’ Can Make or Break the Movie

Producer Sheila Hanahan Taylor has been with the franchise since the very beginning.

Digging into this franchise now, Sheila, you’ve been with Final Destination for a very long time. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the first credit I saw was Final Destination 2. You were an associate producer, right?
TAYLOR: Yes. I was working on the first one, but I worked for Craig Perry then. He was not my business partner. I was his development executive, so I was there for every minute of it, but I didn’t get a credit because you know how the studios work. It took a little bit to elbow in.
In that case, for the first Final Destination movie, is there anything you did making that film that made you think, “My god, this is the coolest thing and I need to have more of this in my life?”
TAYLOR: Absolutely. One of the things, to me, that was so fascinating, even just back then, was the way we were casting that movie. Just starting from the beginning, the conversations we were having around who the studio envisioned should be in that movie versus who we felt should be in the movie because one of the things that [Glen] Morgan and [James] Wong were bringing to the table was this level of groundedness that I think really firmly has established itself in every version of this. So, we didn’t want to go for those sexy, splashy teen magazine kids. We wanted people who, when you saw a death, it really could have been you. The minute somebody super famous is in these movies, it takes you right out. So, I think just the strategy before they rolled one inch of film was really specific and really smart.
I love it. Casting instincts were spot-on from the very beginning, and still to this day.
What is something that you were able to do in Final Destination Bloodlines that would make 2000 you, first releasing that first movie, go “My god, I never could have imagined I’d be able to do that with the Final Destination franchise one day?”
TAYLOR: Wow. I would have to think about that for a half-second, because some of the things we did in this one, we lucked out. One of the craziest things is, even though there was a strike and there were a lot of ups and downs for the entire industry, we were one of the few groups who had a finished script, so we were able to be getting into things more than ever, but it meant that a lot of other people were not shooting in Canada. It was basically us and Tron [Ares] and a couple of indie movies, and that was it. So, our entire department in every category was full of geniuses. We got the best crew we would have ever gotten, ever in the history of ever. So, I would argue that. We had a great crew on all of these movies, but to be with the level of people we were with on this one was a game-changer.
KIHLSTEDT: Can I just say something about casting for a second? I feel like it’s really important to say to you while you’re sitting here with us that you and Craig, yes, with Adam [Stein] and Zach [Lipovsky], as well, but you guys are the producers, and this is your baby for six now…
TAYLOR: Yeah, 28 years. This is the 25th anniversary, but we’ve been working on it for 28 years.
KIHLSTEDT: That’s incredible. Casting is really complicated, and finding chemistry amongst a cast is a complete crapshoot. You can think and hope and feel and wish that it turns out some way, and sometimes it seems like everybody should get along great and don’t. I just want to acknowledge that the cast on this had such incredible chemistry from the first time we all met. We are an eclectic, mixed group of where we come from, who we are, and it was really a gift to all of us, and I think you can see it on the screen. I think it makes a difference. So, thank you to you guys.

Related

Before ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ Hits Theaters, Let’s Track Death’s Long, 14-Year Journey Back to Theaters

Death, where the hell have you been loca!?

I do think it is of the utmost importance to cast this movie with a pitch-perfect ensemble to play a family that I believe in. Do you each remember the very first moment, either in prep or on set, when you looked around at the rest of the cast, and you were like, “Yes, we are the perfect people to play this family?”
SANTA JUANA: It kind of felt so instant for me. Once we hit rehearsals that day… We had rehearsals at the beginning of the shoot, which is something that never get to do.
KIHLSTEDT: We don’t get to rehearse ever!
TAYLOR: To preface this, nobody ever gets a rehearsal, and to be given that, especially in a family setting, is so iconic because you get to meet these people before you have to work with them, and I think that really set the tone for the whole thing, because we are really just like a big bunch of 10 weirdos.
LORE: I was like, “This is my dream group of misfits,” after I met everyone. The most important thing I want in a person is a sense of humor, and everybody on the set had such a good sense of humor. That was, I think, what helped my relationship with Owen [Patrick Joyner] and Richard [Harmon], is right away they felt like my brothers. I was like, “Oh, okay, they can take any shit I’m going to give them.” This is exactly the relationship that I have with my brothers. Then, after two rehearsals with you, I was like, “Cousins! I get it.” You know what I mean? “I get this. I get the dynamic exactly.”
KIHLSTEDT: And it’s a generous group. Everybody’s really happy to give, take, make sure someone else is stepping back so that you can have this, or figuring out what we all need.
LORE: Owen made a really nice point today where he was just like, “I think all of us were so excited to be working on the movie.” It’s the biggest thing that we’ve ever done. It was just so egoless, so it put everyone on super equal footing.
I’m going to go back to the rehearsal of it all now because I’m obsessed with the fact that this is a big studio horror movie that budgeted the time to let the cast not only rehearse, but I also heard that there were improv takes, and you were telling me about silent takes today, which I’m fascinated by. Can the four of you each pinpoint something about a tough scene that you managed to crack only because they carved out the time to let you do those types of things?
SANTA JUANA: I think probably the car scene between Teo [Briones] and me. We worked on that for a solid while just in rehearsal, if I remember that correctly. I think sometimes you can overcomplicate just everyday conversation when it comes to script, because you think it has to be like God’s gift of words to cinema, but I think once we got in there, me and Teo were just chatting. It was like, “Oh, it can be simple!” Then it became a version of that. Then once we got to camera, it became a version of that, and it was just like playing. So, that was something that I felt really proud of.
LORE: For me, it’s that opening scene when Stefani first comes to the house, because that is a scene where you have to feel the relationships right away. You know what I mean? It kind of sets the tone for the movie. So, I felt like in rehearsals we ran that scene quite a bit. We did all kinds of different takes with it, and I was just sort of watching and interacting with a different person each rehearsal. I was like, “Okay, I understand who Bobby is to Julia. I understand who Stefani is to Julia.” It was so helpful.

Image via Warner Bros.

KIHLSTEDT: I would say for me, it was the scene that you, [Kaitlyn], and I have when we’re driving that had been rewritten from something else and turned into that. I was really struggling with how much Darlene would say, how much you knew, what time we had. We rehearsed and talked, and Sheila recorded improv rehearsals and sent them to the writer. Then, because that scene, I don’t think we filmed it for a couple of weeks, I would then go and start working and writing stuff, sharing them with you, sending it to Sheila. We were working on that scene on paper until the week before we filmed it.
SANTA JUANA: Yeah.
KIHLSTEDT: Which, you just don’t get to do that.
BASSINGER: For me, the moment that Iris admits to expecting. All of the craziness, the fire and the action, obviously, that takes a lot of time, and I had a good amount of time to really think about those moments. But that scene is much simpler, so we don’t have as much time for that, so those rehearsals of really building depth there and what it would be like to be an unwed woman in the 1960s who’s pregnant, what does that look like? What does that mean for Iris? What would her anxiety be? And I think those rehearsals really allowed for me to get into the depth of that.
Sheila, what’s up with this? Why don’t more films carve out the time to do stuff like this? Is there something you would recommend to other producers?
TAYLOR: It’s wildly tricky because everybody wants the director’s attention. Props needs them, the camera needs them. They need to be doing shot lists, wardrobes got to have checks, and everything. So, to figure out how our directors could carve out, like, three or four hours a day for seven or eight days to meet with everybody was just a pure brain trust of the first AD and scheduling and our directors being confident enough to walk away from our department for that time to be able to come and hang out with you. Then, I was in the room, too, because, as they were saying, there were so many beautiful things happening, but we needed to get it to our writers to get our writers to turn it into the screenplay version. So it was all about discovering what they found. It was like all hands on deck, honestly. But I believe that if a director wants it, we can figure it out.

Kaitlyn, I’ve got a big question for you. It’s the scene where you’re essentially explaining bloodlines and Death’s Design to the family. Exposition is so hard. What is the key to delivering all of that information in a way that is clearly conveying the details, but also feels like it has energy, and I could feel the authority and the urgency with which she’s delivering it?
SANTA JUANA: I’m so glad you said that, because I’m still trying to figure out how to do that. That was my hardest day.
LORE: I was just going to say, I feel like of the whole movie, that was the hardest day. I feel like all of us as actors, even, we’re like, “Oh yeah, we know. Exposition.”
SANTA JUANA: It was so wordy and so mouthy, but just remembering key points that you had to say. Then sometimes, I would get notes like, “Don’t forget to say this. Don’t forget to say that.” But having this group of wonderful people looking back at you, being like, “What are you saying?” You kind of forget that you’re acting in it. So, I just really had to focus on the words because when people are staring at you like you have four heads, it’s not really hard to be like, “Why are they looking at me like that?” That was also the first day that Jon Watts came to set, and I found out halfway through, and I was like, “Oh, god!”
TAYLOR: He came because he knew it was going to be a tough day. He was like, “I’m here for support.”
LORE: Owen listed that today as his toughest day.
SANTA JUANA: Oh, what? [Laughs]
TAYLOR: But there’s a real reason why. There are two things to add to this, truly. So the other reason that Kaitlyn is a rock star is, because we had to cover so many people sitting in that room, you had to do that speech 35 times.
SANTA JUANA: Yeah, I did it like a million times, and I did my coverage last. So I think I had rehearsed enough to know what I was saying and make my mistakes for other people’s coverage.

Image via Warner Bros.

TAYLOR: But if you look at the math of this movie, we created the Bobby character, Owen, and he’s our naysayer, but the sweet, charming naysayer. He’s the one who busts up every one of these moments. So in that one, he has to be like, “So, we’re on Death’s hit list?” And later he’s like, “I hate to bring it back to Death…” So it’s really hard for Owen because he has to bring the whole thing back to reality. It’s actually weirdly hard.
SANTA JUANA: You know what? Yeah. You’re right. Let me take that back. [Laughs]
KIHLSTEDT: No, but you have all the heavy lifting. She did an unbelievable job. You guide not only us, but you guys, [the audience].
SANTA JUANA: Thank you.
KIHLSTEDT: Kaitlyn had to do the job for everybody and explain and map out, and tell us what the hell is going on.
SANTA JUANA: I mean, I’m kind of neurotic in real life, so it just felt like it’s just me being me.
Sincerely, I ask that question because you crush it, and I know that’s a very difficult thing to do as an actor.
Why ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Kind of Pulled an ‘Alien’

“I think women are the powerhouses and do the heavy lifting.”

Image via Warner Bros.

Rya, there’s one thing that I really want to ask you that’s a follow-up to something Craig told me today. He told me that originally in the script, Darlene was Stef’s father.
TAYLOR: It was “Dale.”
I was wondering if I could get your take on why a mother-daughter relationship, in that respect, serves the overall story even better?
KIHLSTEDT: That is a loaded question, so I will be as politic as I can. There was always Iris, and the lines from mother to son to daughter aren’t as straight as mother to daughter to daughter. There’s just genetic bloodlines between women that are undeniable and that are complicated, and that are layered. We all joke in those moments that you realize you said something, and you go, “Oh my god, I’m becoming my mother,” which is a blessing and a curse, right? We try to do better than our mothers, not in any offense to them, but we also carry their hopes, wishes, dreams, who they are. We carry family trauma that they inherited. I mean, it’s a really straight line. I mean no offense to fathers and to men, but I think women are the powerhouses and do the heavy lifting. I apologize.
Seeing the matriarchs rise to the top in this movie is powerful, but in addition to that, I think the bloodlines concept is a brilliant way to explore grounded family bloodlines and what children inherit from their parents. We’re doing it through a high-concept horror movie, and that’s really something exceptional.
KIHLSTEDT: But it’s there!
LORE: I’ve been saying all day, this movie walks a tightrope between the drama and the humor of it. That balance can so easily tip one way. Even as actors, we were all kind of like, “Was that too funny? Was it not serious enough? How should this work?” And I think that is just a testament to everyone that it was so balanced. It’s you guys. It’s you. It’s the directors. It’s really tricky. It’s tricky, but I think that we made a funny horror movie with a lot of heart. That’s crazy!
KIHLSTEDT: With surprising depth.
LORE: It’s a lot of work. It’s really hard!
The Behind the Scenes Beauty of the ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Blood and Guts

“My death fed families.”

Image via Warner Bros.

We haven’t talked much about the blood and gore of it, which everyone out there knows that I love, love, love. Sheila, of all the big set pieces in this movie, which did you think was going to be the most ambitious for you all going into production, and ultimately, was that the toughest of the bunch?
TAYLOR: Well, they’re all really tough, to be quite fair. I mean, it’s a whole game between special effects and stunts and the AD department and our actors and camera. No department is left alone because we kill people with props. Everybody has to be fully communicating at a level that I’m not used to on other movies. Truly, you can’t fake it. You can’t have a rogue department doing their own thing. So, just in general, they’re all really complicated.
I would say, honestly, one of the ones that was weirdly tricky, but I think we pulled it off, was the MRI sequence. That means there were so many conversations because of how what we call the diving board comes out, and a lot of MRI machines have a leg to it, but we couldn’t have the leg to it because it needed to suck in. We needed to clear the space because we visualized, at the end, Bobby to be up against it, and we needed to see Richard hanging out of it, and if there was like a leg thing, it doesn’t have any of that deliciousness. So, to mastermind all of that, again, art department, set design, special effects, camera, everything.
LORE: Richard reminded me today about how his shirt was, at one point, sewn to his stunt double’s pants.
TAYLOR: Yeah! We had two people in there. That’s the best part is we had a cool dolly that our stuntman, who is the real stuntman for Richard, his legs were sticking out so that Richard’s chest could be sticking out.
LORE: It’s one of the ones that looked as gross shooting it on the day as it does in here. It literally looks like someone would be bent backwards.
TAYLOR: But honestly, they’re all a labor of love.
LORE: Yeah I like to say my death fed families. [Laughs] My death had people working for months, I mean. My death was an economy.
TAYLOR: Your face was involved. How risky is this? This beautiful actress decides she’s okay with them smooshing her face for real on camera. I mean, that’s pretty amazing.
LORE: I am really brave. You’re right. But truly, it started months and months ahead of time. I went and got a scan of my whole head, and they had to do a cast of my arm. Then they had to paint all my identical mold. I was talking today, when I was wearing the fake arm, if I was looking at it, my brain would forget it was fake because it looked so much like my real arm, and that was before we even got to set. Then I get to set, and [special effects coordinator] Tony Lazarowich, who Sheila mentioned earlier, has built the interior of the garbage truck, which had this amazing contraption, that on the day when we were shooting it, it looked like my head was getting cut in half. The way they had made it, I can’t even describe it. I can never describe it. I need a PowerPoint.

Image via Warner Bros.

TAYLOR: You know that thing that you put your hand in, and the pins all take the shape of your hand. They made a giant one that was the wall to come at her.
LORE: It was a bunch of pins and they would come at my face. It was insane. It was an insane contraption. And the first day, I was like, “Is this what we’re doing? This is our final piece?” It was really wild. Then I’m also stepping on trash bags the whole time, so it was like doing a StairMaster for, like, eight hours. They put wet oatmeal in there and diapers. There was all kinds of stuff.
SANTA JUANA: I kept thinking you were going to get snagged in the eye by that thing.
LORE: I’m glad you’re just telling me that now and not on the day. But that contraption did have me feeling Final Destination-y. That contraption, I was like, “A lot of things that could go wrong here…”
SANTA JUANA: I have to say, though, I do remember there was one take, and I think it’s the one that we used, where you cried one single tear as it was coming.
TAYLOR: That’s real!
SANTA JUANA: What an actress.
TAYLOR: It’s not CG. When you watch it again — because you’re going to watch it again — you’ll see the tear.
LORE: I think that the hardest thing about it was that because I had the fake arm, I was tethered to two special effects people. There was one in front of me holding a tube and a little thing, and someone behind me holding me up. So, they call action, and I’m like, “Oh yeah, and act. Do acting.” Because there are so many other things that I was thinking about. It’s really hard. It’s technical. It can be really tricky.

Related

Every ‘Final Destination’ Opening Disaster, Ranked

“In death there are no accidents, no coincidences, no mishaps, and no escapes.”

Oh, I’m going to follow up on that with you, Brec, because your sequence has so many different little pieces to it. Of the bunch, which was the most difficult to nail all the choreography, but also act in that respect, and make sure that we could feel the emotion and also the determination she has to help as many people as she can?
BASSINGER: I think you know my answer, Perri.
I do!
BASSINGER: That’s why she asked it! [Laughs] There’s a very quick moment. Anytime real fire was involved, naturally, the stakes just went up because there are actually real people being set on fire. The whole fire department was there, and there was real risk. There’s a particular shot, and if you blinked, you missed it, but I see it every single time. I have to duck behind the bar, and it’s Mr. Dustin, who was also in the first Final Destination. He’s on fire, and they blow fire at him. At the same time, we had shot stuff where I didn’t have a headband, and then I’d had a headband, so we had to create a moment where I knock the headband off naturally, and they’re like, “This is the moment.” I’m like, “Oh, when someone’s on fire? This is the moment we want to do it?” And they’re like, “You have to duck perfectly because we’re blasting fire in your direction.” I’m like, “What if I duck at the wrong time?” They’re like, “Don’t duck at the wrong time. Also, it has to look natural because we can only do one or two takes.” And I’m like, “Oh, great.” So, there was so much adrenaline there. It’s so technical.

Image via Warner Bros.

I felt a lot of pressure because I didn’t want Mr. Dustin to have to get set on fire again. I don’t think it was comfortable, and I was genuinely so scared. Like, poor Adam and Zach. I felt like they were these father figures on set for me, and they’re like, “Are you okay?” I’m like, “Yes, I’m fine.” But it didn’t feel like acting when it came to the fear. Then the technicality of it, I had to be so present, and I was really proud of it. I think we only did one take, and I was really proud of it.
TAYLOR: She nailed it.
BASSINGER: And I didn’t get set on fire!
I do have one follow-up question, and I’ve thought about it with literally every single Final Destination movie, because if the person who has the premonition doesn’t act on it and doesn’t take the initiative to try to stop it, there’s no movie. What do you think it is about Iris that makes her the kind of person who would see that, believe it, and try to stop it?
BASSINGER: Well, clearly she’s a strong woman if in the ‘60s she’s trying to figure out how to have a baby, wants to tell her soon-to-be fiancé. She’s a strong woman, and I think you can see that as they played their strong woman roles. Like you said, it’s a linear line that the mother is the mother. So, I’d like to believe she was a really strong woman, and that’s why she saved a bunch of lives.
KIHLSTEDT: Fearless. She didn’t care what anybody else thought. There’s power in that.
This Character Almost Had an Entirely Different Death Sequence

“It was too glib. It was too silly.”

Image via Warner Bros.

Rya, let’s go back to the big explosion. Can you walk us through the reality of filming something like that from your perspective? Were you on set when the actual explosion happened? Then, can you walk us through the prosthetics and makeup work that’s required after the fact?
KIHLSTEDT: Initially, Darlene died when we left the hospital. So, the three of us, my kids and I, come together in the hospital and we leave. I get stuck in the revolving door and then walk out, and within two steps, I, like you, there was no fire, but I had two steps to hit a tape mark, turn around, say one line, and on the right, halfway through one word, turn this way, and a giant blood bag drops because it was going to be the giant L at the top of “hospital” that came down and smashed Darlene.
TAYLOR: That had been shaken loose when the MRI started doing things. So, she took the L, right? But it was too glib. It was too silly. It wasn’t worthy of who Darlene was, we decided.
KIHLSTEDT: Yeah. So, Darlene gets an appropriate, fantastic death for her kids. So, we came back later. I wasn’t at the explosion. When you guys filmed that explosion, this was four months later. I had now seen footage of it, but I wasn’t there. I wasn’t in any of that. We reshot all of the camper stuff, all of the pull-up, but none of that had been on the day at the location with the explosion. So, we shoot pre-explosion and then post. So I show up and we have this unbelievable crack team of special effects who did the Shōgun special effects. I spent an entire day with them doing tests with burn and singe and skin pieces laid on and hair and the whole thing. It was really horrifying.
LORE: Special effects artists have a crazy job, by the way. They had to sit there and Google that. I’ve been electrocuted, and I’m like, “How do you know what an electrocuted person looks like?” They’re like, “Oh, we have to go look it up.” I’m like, “What kind of job is that?!”
KIHLSTEDT: It’s incredible.
SANTA JUANA: You need a special kind of stomach for that job, my gosh.
You also need a special kind of stomach to do a drowning scene. I heard a little bit today about the extensive breath work you have to do for something like that. Can you tell us about the prep work that you did and anything that surprised you about what it takes to actually film something like that?
SANTA JUANA: So there was a lot of care going into it. I felt, actually, quite comfortable. That’s kind of crazy to say, but I did a day doing some freediving training, and there was a portion of it that was just training on holding your breath. I can hold my breath for two minutes. Doesn’t Kate Winslet, like, have…?
TAYLOR: Six or something crazy.
SANTA JUANA: I’m going to get there. I’m going to get there one day. I need another job pretending to drown, or the next Avatar.

Image via Warner Bros.

LORE: We can get you there. I think we should train. We could get there by, probably, November.
SANTA JUANA: You could. If there’s a will, there’s a way. So I did some freediving training. We did some breath-holding work, and then I think we had one day just to kind of feel it out. But it’s so different to just being in a pool with a bathing suit because you have all these clothes on, but the clothes kind of make you float, so I was also being weighted down by weight belts, by other weights in my pockets, in my shoes. It was just heavy. It was a really, really hard day. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like that in my life. Also, working with the seat belt, as well. I remember we were struggling with that seatbelt, too, because it kept coming undone, so I had to fake it.
TAYLOR: That’s the last thing you want, right? It was a 30-thousand-gallon tank with eight people also all weighted down filming you. There’s a special underwater crew up in Vancouver who were amazing. They’re called the Sea Nymphs. They were there, like, five feet away from you. But it’s still really scary.
SANTA JUANA: Yeah, it was still really scary. There was a contraption that just dunked water onto you. Whether I was ready to go or not, it was just happening. I would just dunk my head underneath the water, and I couldn’t see for, like, the next two days after from all the chlorine. But it was honestly so fun. When do you get to do stuff like that? That’s what’s so nice about horror movies is that you get pushed to the limits of what you’re capable of doing. Even with screaming, it feels kind of therapeutic because you can’t go outside in real life and just scream. I mean, you can, but no one really does that. But to be able to be given a place to do stuff like that, it kind of just really shows you what you can do.
The Cast of ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Really Did Become a Family

“We’re all going to cry on Ladies Night? I’m down.”

Image via Warner Bros.

That tees up the question I wanted to end on quite perfectly. Recently, I was having a conversation with another horror director who made a point to emphasize how happy it made him to see his cast and crew be so happy on his set and take such pride in their work. Can you each single out the day of making Final Destination Bloodlines that brought you the most joy as an artist, as actors and as a producer?
TAYLOR: This is tricky. I don’t know, actually, because we were stopped because of the strike for so long. The fact that we were even able to get it back up seven months later and get everybody back was a miracle. So, truly, honestly, this sounds so cheesy, but every single day we were like, “We’re making this movie. This is amazing.” And it’s Final Destination. We’re back! So, for me, it was more on the daily, I would argue. As we’re sitting in Video Village watching something, we’re like, “It’s real! It’s happening!”
BASSINGER: For me, probably one of the days we were filming on the Skyview tilted set, which is after it breaks in half. They had a literal 45 degrees where you had to be in wires to even be filming on that. I remember the grandiosity of this set and all the stunt teams, and just looking around. Going off what you were saying, with horror films, you get to really push the limits, and I feel like I’m a pretty big dreamer, but it was that day in specific when I looked around, and I was like, “Oh, I dreamed big, but I never thought I would get to be doing something this big.”
TAYLOR: Can I add one more thing about the tilted sets because I think it’s really cool? We all have learned that stunt people, when they go through windows, it’s usually sugar glass. We’ve all heard that. So what we learned was, in order to have people hanging on that glass, waiting, waiting, waiting for that piano to come, we couldn’t use sugar glass. They would have all broken through. So, that’s all actual, real glass. We had 19 stunt people, who were like, “We’re down with that.”
BASSINGER: Not just down, excited. Proud to be doing it.
TAYLOR: And some of them were held on wires like a foot and a half above it, so that they would have the true smash-through. Then we’d do the stunt safety meeting that you have on an important day like that, and generally the speech is like, “Okay, so if anyone needs anything, the hospital’s over here. This is what you do…” This was like, “There’s going to be some blood and there’s going to be glass everywhere, and it’s going to take a little minute.” It was a very different experience. Then we watched all these people fly through the glass and land on mats, and that was bananas. It was a crazy day.
LORE: Stunt people are even crazier than special effects people.
TAYLOR: And Megan [Hui], who is the woman who gets hit by the piano, she got a huge real cut, like a legit cut, headed to the hospital with her stuntman husband…
BASSINGER: And showed up the next day on set, ready to go. She’s like, “Let’s do it again.”
TAYLOR: She’s like, “I need to get killed by the piano. You’re not replacing me.” It was amazing. And that’s a stunt person. They’re all a special breed.

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LORE: I think for me, it was the last day of filming for the family. We did the barbecue, and I think the last day of that was all of the family’s last day. I went up to Kaitlyn sometime towards the end of that filming, and I was like, “Can I use your hotspot? I want to download that Green Day song that’s like, ‘I hope you had the time of your life.’” I was like, “Well, I don’t know, maybe that’s stupid.” And she’s like, “No, here’s my hotspot. Do it.” And then I went around and just would play it to different people, and I would just be like, “Man, I’m really going to miss this place.” Then I’d hit play on the thing and make Kaitlyn go around filming me. But the thing that I loved about it was, you were just like, “No, no, no, we have to do that! Here’s my hotspot.” We had so much fun, and I loved working with you guys so much. I’ve been saying that I wish it was a TV show, because I would work with these people for 10 years. So, that’s the worst thing about your movies, [Sheila], is that you can never do another one!
TAYLOR: You’re all dead! I know. We can’t get you back. It’s so hard.
KIHLSTEDT: I second that. Just the general sense. I know there were days when we would drive home from set and say, “We made a good scene today. We did it. We did good work.” But it’s just magical when you get to work with a cast like that, and you all show up on set and you all give and take, ego-lessly, generously. That’s a joy and a gift.
LORE: Oh, okay. We’re all going to cry on Ladies Night? I’m down.
I always forget to bring tissues. I never learn my lesson with this stuff!
LORE: Well, you’re like, “Oh, it’s the cast of Final Destination Bloodlines!”
KIHLSTEDT: “There will be no tears.” [Laughs]
I’ve cried tears of joy watching these movies more times than I can count! [Laughs]
SANTA JUANA: I love all of the family day stuff, but I think one of the days I’ll never forget was one of our last days shooting. We were in the mountains. I mean, this is also Vancouver, which is my home, so getting to shoot all of this stuff, low-key in my backyard, was so much fun. I have a really big connection to all of that. But it was on one of our last days. It was the scene where Teo’s character, Charlie, revives me, and there’s this beautiful fire of a house blaring in the background. We wake up and we say, “We fucking did it.” I’m sorry for swearing, but we did it! It was the end of shooting, and I was like, “Wow, we really did do that. We really all did that.” And the fire, it felt so romantic. I think that was one of the most beautiful days I’ve ever lived.
Final Destination Bloodlines is in theaters now.

Final Destination Bloodlines

Release Date

May 16, 2025

Runtime

109 Minutes

Director

Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein

Writers

Lori Evans Taylor, Guy Busick, Jeffrey Reddick, Jon Watts

Producers

Craig Perry, Jon Watts, Dianne McGunigle

Kaitlyn Santa Juana

Stephanie Lewis

Teo Briones

Charlie Lewis

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