Until Dawn: Filmmakers Reveal How They Found Actors Willing to Go All the Way for Horror

Until Dawn, the highly anticipated survival horror thriller is set to plunge audiences into a twisted world of time loops, blood-soaked stunts, and terrifying monsters. Behind this chilling film, director David F. Sandberg and writer-producer Gary Dauberman had a clear mission in mind: to cast actors who could withstand the brutal psychological and physical demands of the script. “We wanted actors who were willing to go all the way,” says Sandberg. “We knew this was going to be a tough shoot, filled with practical effects, and that the actors would have to crawl through dirt, get drenched in blood, and scream endlessly.”

This approach led to the recruitment of a fearless cast. Ella Rubin, who plays the lead character Clover, faced some of the film's most extreme challenges—surviving bear traps, enduring blood sprays, and being dragged across the ground. “Ella, like the rest of the cast, always had to go full on,” says producer Lotta Losten. “When you’re dying repeatedly, it’s not going to look pretty. Ella has this raw, magical way of capturing Clover’s horrors.”

Rubin herself described her role as both "exciting and kind of delicious." She explained, “There’s no way to rein it in when your character is constantly in a life-and-death situation, being chased by a monster with an axe!”

The commitment to authenticity was not limited to Rubin. Michael Cimino brought such intensity to his role that the team had to ask him to pull back his movements with the knives. Meanwhile, Ji-young Yoo delivered a self-tape that Losten described as “the most brutal I’ve ever seen,” showcasing her ability to embody a psychic whose body becomes inhabited by trapped souls. “Her screams were so genuine, filled with terror,” Sandberg notes.

This unwavering dedication to realism—whether through intense physical stunts or raw emotional breakdowns—was at the heart of Until Dawn. For the filmmakers, the horror had to feel real, relentless, and utterly unyielding. And they found the perfect actors who were ready to go to the extremes to make that happen. Until Dawn will be released in Indian theatres on April 25th, 2025, in both Hindi and English.