Makers of ‘Heretic’ say their thriller breaks stereotypes about Latter-day Saint missionaries

When Chloe East first auditioned for her role in the psychological thriller “Heretic,” she said she “was bummed, because I thought I couldn’t do it.”

East had been given only one scene to read for the audition and knew her character, Sister Paxton, was a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“I had assumed that it was [showing] some very polarizing, one-sided view on religion,” East said in a recent Zoom interview. She grew up in the Latter-day Saint faith (though she’s not currently practicing), and because she knows many people still active in the church, “I just couldn’t do that to my friends.”

Then she read the script for “Heretic” — which opens in theaters nationwide Friday — and changed her mind.

“I realized that it really is so open to interpretation and that they don’t show these missionaries as stereotypes, and it really is left open to the viewer,” East said. “And it was much smarter than I anticipated, and I really wanted to do it after that initial first read.”

Sophie Thatcher — who plays Paxton’s mission companion, Sister Barnes — also grew up in the Latter-day Saint faith but is not currently practicing. Like East, Thatcher said she had a similar experience reading the “Heretic” script for the first time.

“Within the first couple of scenes, it draws you in immediately,” Thatcher said. “You have such distinct, well-written characters. They’re really funny. But then it also works so well because you expect them to be naive, and then both of them have incredible arcs, and that’s always something you look for as an actor.”

The movie was written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who co-wrote the hit thriller “A Quiet Place.” It follows Paxton and Barnes on their mission in Boulder, Colorado. They stop at one address on their list, and find Mr. Reed (played by Hugh Grant), who seems intent on learning about their church.

As their visit proceeds, though, the missionaries quickly learn Mr. Reed is quite familiar with the Book of Mormon, the faith’s foundational scripture, and other religions, and will not let them leave until he tests them on their faith. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game of wills and nerves in which the consequences of choosing between belief and disbelief could be deadly.

The movie has drawn attention since its first trailer debuted in June, with talk mounting after its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. The marketing campaign — which included ads in the Salt Lake City International Airport that resembled missing-person posters — has prompted Latter-day Saints to recall their own scary missionary experiences.

Doug Andersen, a spokesperson for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in a statement released Wednesday night, said that the church supports its nearly 80,000 missionaries, and others who serve in the faith, “by providing a thorough, regular program of physical and emotional safety training. Our commitment is to foster a culture of respect, empowerment and safety for all individuals.”

The statement also noted that the movie is “is a work of fiction and is not based on actual events” and lamented that it portrays graphic violence toward women. “Any narrative that promotes violence against women because of their faith or undermines the contributions of volunteers runs counter to the safety and well-being of our communities,” Andersen stated.

“We encourage open discussions and constructive dialogue regarding media portrayals of faith and their impact on society,” the statement concluded. “Together, we can advocate for stories that portray people of faith with respect, that uplift audiences, and inspire positive change in our world.”

Utah’s influence on the script

Woods said he and Beck have been making movies together since they were 11 years old and growing up in Iowa. Their work on thrillers and horror movies led to their interest in making a movie about religion.

“Any scary movie, any thriller or horror [movie], they’re really about the same fear, which is the fear of death, the fear of what happens when you die,” Woods said alongside Beck in a separate Zoom interview. “[There’s] this anxiety that we’ve had our whole lives, of searching for the answer to, ‘What is the one true religion? Is there an afterlife that’s comforting? Is there nothing?’ — which is terrifying. And investigating that conversation has just been a big part of our lives.”

When the two directed their first movie, a low-budget teens-in-the-woods thriller called “Nightlight” (2015), they shot it in the Salt Lake City area. “We met Mormons for the first time in our lives,” Woods said. “We formed lifelong friendships and bonds with a group of LDS filmmakers. And so Mormon culture became of great interest to us, as well as all religions.”

As they were developing “Heretic,” Woods said, the idea of exploring the Latter-day Saint faith as part of the plot appealed to them.

“Mormonism is a very new religion, and it’s uniquely American,” Woods said. “It just felt like a great launching-off point for a conversation about everything.”

Beck said he and Woods talked to friends who are Latter-day Saints, read religious texts and met with Latter-day Saint missionaries, “being able to understand, specifically to this movie, what the day-in, day-out is of being a Mormon missionary. What’s that like? Putting yourself out there, sharing your faith, going door to door.”

The script puts Paxton and Barnes, Beck said, in a place that “is somewhat vulnerable, so we wanted to anchor it in as much authenticity as possible.”

East, who made a splash as the evangelical girlfriend in Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” recalled a line in the script in which one of the missionaries says, “Oh, we’re on the phone with the ward mission leader.” “And I was like, ‘They know,’” she said. “‘This is not someone who [just] did research on the church. This is someone who has had firsthand experience with it.’”

Thatcher, who plays the younger version of Juliette Lewis’ character on the TV series “Yellowjackets,” said that the script subtly revealed the dynamic between the two missionaries — such as noting that Paxton is from Ogden and has been in the church since birth, while Barnes converted later in life, when her mother joined.

“It really just shows two very different people on the spectrum of belief,” Thatcher said, “and where they’re at in life.”

The actors said they were encouraged to improvise some dialogue, particularly in the movie’s opening scenes, when the audience first meets the missionaries as they walk around a ski town (British Columbia playing the role of Boulder), filling the time with random conversation.

A line East says in one scene — that for every flight of stairs they carry their bicycles, their future husbands get 10% hotter — came from one of her friends who served a mission, she said.

Even the costume choices, East said, were meant to make the characters “very relatable and truthful.” East said some of her friends who went on missions “have better style than me. They don’t look like this frumpy missionary. They wear cute Free People outfits and Doc Martens. Like, they’re really cool. So I wanted to be a part of making that right and not just these stereotypes.”

‘A conversation about religion’

Beck said casting two actors who grew up in the Latter-day Saint faith was “a degree of coincidence for us,” though in the audition process, “there was an authenticity that we just felt. ... They kind of captured that exact tone.”

At the same time, Beck said, “Chloe and Sophie felt very different from each other, which echoed the idea of being a Mormon missionary, being assigned to a new place that you have to move to temporarily, and being joined with somebody else that you don’t really know. There’s a bit of discomfort there, but a shared mission, so there is a degree of camaraderie.”

The script is dependent on dialogue, as Grant’s Mr. Reed dissects parallels among religions — using board games and Radiohead’s song “Creep” as allegories — while presenting his argument for “the one true religion.”

Basing a thriller on so much talking, particularly after the practically wordless “A Quiet Place,” was “a fun gamble for us,” Woods said.

“We didn’t think any studio or any financier would want to make it,” Woods said, “but we just really believed in it.”

Sure enough, he said, the major studios “were, like, ‘We like the idea about two missionaries getting trapped in a house, but could you guys rewrite it so it’s, like, less talky and not psychological?’” (The independent distributor A24 ultimately gave Beck and Woods the green light.)

For Beck and Woods, the talk — on screen and among moviegoers — was the whole point of making “Heretic.”

“The ambition was to do a movie that’s a conversation about religion, and be a literal conversation,” Woods said. “And then our ambition is that after people see the movie, it translates into an actual conversation.”