VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Deon Taylor & Joseph Sikora On What Scares Them The Most, Their Movie ‘Fear’

Director Deon Taylor and lead actor Joseph Sikora discussed filming their movie Fear during the height of Covid-19 as well as what scares them the most – on set and in their personal lives – in their new uInterview.

When asked about the most memorable behind-the-scenes moment, Taylor explained that it was “the overall agenda of why we made the movie,” he told uInterview exclusively.

“I think a lot of people are just now finding out that this was the first movie that was up and running during the global pandemic,” Taylor explained. “It started with me and Jo making phone calls and asking people to just come to this abandoned cabin and make this film.”

“We shot this film in 16 days, 18 days,” Sikora later added. Taylor believes that it was after people realized how they made the movie that they began to understand the story and how hard it was to make and deliver Fear while dealing with Covid-19 and its restrictions.

“We didn’t know what covid was exactly, how long it lived for, what substances it could survive on,” Sikora added. “So, a lot of what you see in that movie of the unknown is happening in real-time and in some ways is documented in this horror/drama.”

When asked about the scariest scene to film, Sikora revealed that he broke his kneecap in the middle of filming.

“And so, any scene that involved running was the scariest to film after that point for me,” Sikora joked.

For Taylor, the scariest scene to shoot featured actress Ruby Modine. “She basically gets snatched out of the kitchen down a flight of stairs. And I know that was one of the hardest stunts for us to pull off, but it was also one of the scariest things when I watched it through the monitor because I was just like, ‘Oh man, it looks so real’ and it felt so real,” Taylor recalled.

“I actually thought she disappeared for a moment, and I was like ‘Is Ruby okay?’ and she was like, ‘I’m okay Deon.’ So that was one of the scariest moments for me but it was all around just a great movie to make. A fun movie to make. And it’s even funner to watch.”

When asked what scared them the most and what advice they have for overcoming fears, Taylor first joked that his biggest fear is being offered “cold croissants.”

Sikora had a more serious response. “One of the big things that I’m afraid of is letting people down and I think that the more responsibility you have in life, the higher you rise,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Oh I want to make sure I can take care of the family. Oh does this person need a favor. I don’t want to let this person down. You don’t want to let your audience down.’”

“But I think that something that Deon often brings up and I think it’s a general thing of staying present and knowing that the joyous moments are there so you can celebrate them in real-time and knowing that the bad ones are only temporary,” Sikora added.

“Always wondering how or where you’ll be in a couple of years or a decade from now if you will be here. And we were just saying earlier, like allowing different fears to creep into your body. Whatever it might be. It might be something physical. It might be a snake, a reptile, animal. Whatever that is, those fears are what holds us back often,” Taylor explained.

“So what the movie explores is can you overcome your fear. Can you get past your fear? And once you do that, it really allows you to be free. And I think the movie has like an incredible global message for just that.”

In a similar vein, Sikora highlighted that “one of the best parts is that the movie kinda gives you a bit of a template, a bit of a blueprint, of how to defeat fear in a real way.”

“I mean I think that’s why people are taking this movie so much to heart and people love it so much is that it’s not just kinda like throwing an idea out there. It’s an idea, and then a pathway of how to defeat fear. And really, that’s with faith and love,” Sikora concluded.