Summary
- Collider’s Perri Nemiroff talks with Whistle stars Sophie Nélisse and Dafne Keen at San Diego Comic-Con 2025.
- Directed by Corin Hardy, Whistle is a horror film that follows a group of teens who stumble across an ancient Aztec death whistle that summons their deaths.
- Cast members Keen and Nélisse discuss eerie on-set experiences, their characters’ strengths and weaknesses, MCU fan-casting, and Yellowjackets Season 4.
Cursed objects hold a special place in the horror genre and Whistle is about to introduce an especially unforgettable one. While beginning the film’s promotional run at San Diego Comic Con 2025, stars Dafne Keen (Logan) and Sophie Nélisse (Yellowjackets) unveiled the markedly horrifying Aztec death whistle at the core of the film. Helmed by director Corin Hardy, this movie is right in his wheelhouse, as he also directed 2018’s The Nun as part of the iconic The Conjuring universe.
Whistle follows a group of misfit high school friends, portrayed by a stacked cast including Keen, Nélisse, Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead), Sky Yang (Rebel Moon), and Percy Hynes White (Wednesday). They come across the cursed titular object and find out that by blowing the whistle, it emits a piercing sound that summons their future death to hunt them down. Already, it’s a haunting and terrifying premise, evoking the sense of inescapability of Final Destination or the sense of foreboding in It Follows. The group tries to figure out the origins of this mysterious object, all while evading the awful fate that is lurking in every shadow.
The two leads, Keen and Nélisse, sat with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff at this year’s SDCC to discuss their experience on set with this chilling script and prop. They reveal that they never blew the prop whistle while they were on set, had issues with creepy hotel rooms, and wonder how they would survive in a real-life death whistle scenario. They also recall what made them click on set and how their characters contributed to the project, while Nélisse teases future possibilities for Shauna in Yellowjackets Season 4, and Keen reminisces about her time with Marvel. You can hear about all of this straight from the leads in the video above, or you can read the transcript below.
‘Whistle’ Is a Horror Film About a Deadly “Ancient Artifact”
“We never blew it in the three months we were there.”
PERRI NEMIROFF: I am very well aware of what Whistle is, but because this is the start of the promotional campaign for the movie, can I give one of you the synopsis honors?
DAFNE KEEN: I would say that Whistle is a story about this ancient artifact that summons your death, and through it, we get to experience the love story that is Chris and Ellie. We meet this little friend group in a little town, and we try to outlive this death whistle.
That’s a good tease. Like this death whistle …
SOPHIE NÉLISSE: Oh, you brought it?!
KEEN: Oh, no. Keep that away.
I was just gifted a death whistle.
KEEN: That’s expensive. I’m not going to lie to you. It’s expensive.
Watch, I’m going to drop it on camera or something.
KEEN: Please don’t. Corin [Hardy] will hunt you down.
Oh, wow. This is substantial.
KEEN: Right?
NÉLISSE: I’m not sure I want to touch it, to be honest.
KEEN: To be honest with you.
Should I blow the whistle?
NÉLISSE: No, do not! I’m a little superstitious that way.
KEEN: Honestly, we never blew it in the three months we were there.
NÉLISSE: That’s true. We’ve never actually tried.
KEEN: The juju is not something we want to mess with.
Keen and Nélisse Bonded Over Their Dark Sense of Humor
“That’s my girl. We’ve got it.”
Were there any superstitious vibes on set that inspired anyone to cleanse it or anything like that?
NÉLISSE: Did we cleanse our hotel room? The hotel room was so weird. Remember when we first got there?
KEEN: Sophie and I, with the Palo Santo — do you remember this? We were Palo Santo-ing.
NÉLISSE: I’ve always been scared to sleep on my own. It’s always been a thing. But the very first night I got there, I swear to god, I got in really quickly, and then I left to go to the grocery shop, and I came back, and the sheets on my bed had been moved. I do not make this up; they had been moved.
KEEN: I can attest to this.
NÉLISSE: I was trembling. I called Dafne.
BOTH: Also, we had never met.
KEEN: We’d never met at this point.
NÉLISSE: I was like, “Can you come sleep over? Because I’m terrified of sleeping on my own in this room.”
KEEN: And then this became a three-month-long sleepover because I was terrified. I had picked up a knife, and I put it under my pillow, and I was like, “I’m ready.” Then she texted me, and I was like, “Thank god.”
I feel like that might be the answer to this question, but when I saw you at the Saturn Awards, Dafne, you were telling me that the two of you were friends, and it took me way too long to connect the dots via Whistle. Can you each tell me the first thing you saw in the other that signaled to you, “That right there is going to be a good friend and collaborator for me?”
NÉLISSE: We have the same sense of humor.
KEEN: We have the exact same sense of humor.
NÉLISSE: Corin, our director, was like — we just hit it off immediately — and he was trying to rehearse in a very serious way, and we were just ranting and going off on every scene.
KEEN: We were being incredibly sarcastic and trauma dumping on each other. And Corin was like, “Can we do the scene?”
NÉLISSE: It was a little TMI for Corin.
KEEN: We had a good time.
NÉLISSE: It was pretty instant.
KEEN: Honestly, what I love about Sophie, which people don’t really get about me, is that she’s very dry, and she has a very dark sense of humor. She made a joke, and I was like, “That’s my girl. We’ve got it.”
Sophie Nélisse’s Character Is the “Soul of the Movie” in ‘Whistle’
“She brings a lot of heart to the movie.”
Can you each tell me your character’s greatest strength in Whistle, the thing about them that can help them survive, but then I also want to know their greatest weakness, the thing that could do them in?
NÉLISSE: I think my character’s greatest weakness would be that she’s a goody two-shoes. She plays by the rules, which is what really draws her to Chris. She admires that Chris will just do what she wants, and she’s very rebellious and will kick people in the genitals. That’s something that Ellie would never do. She wants to be a nurse, wants to be a doctor, and already has her future set up. I don’t think she’s someone who’s willing to take any risks until she meets Chris, which will change her. But I think that is also somewhat her greatest strength. She sees the best in people. She has this beautiful naïveté, but she’s somewhat the soul of the… Well, I don’t want to say “the soul of the movie,” because…
KEEN: She’s like, “It’s me. I’m the soul of the movie.”
NÉLISSE: [Laughs] No, but she brings a lot of heart to the movie.
KEEN: She does. She’s definitely the light of the film.
NÉLISSE: To Chris’ dark soul.
KEEN: To Chris’ dark and soul-sucking aura. I honestly think Chris’ strength and her weakness is Ellie. I love you. [Laughs] I honestly do think so. When we meet Chris, she’s in a very dark place. She’s just been through some really heavy stuff. Finding someone who can really see her and who wants to care for her and who is just sort of willing to stick around with her is something really special to her. She’s a very loyal person, and so she’ll go to great lengths to protect the ones she loves.
Dafne Keen and Sophie Nélisse Imagine Surviving a Real-Life Aztec Death Whistle
“My mum is a whimsical woman.”
I’ll turn these ideas towards the cast as real people now. Let’s say the entire Whistle ensemble found an actual Aztec death whistle. Which of you would be the most likely to blow it?
KEEN: Definitely Percy [Hynes White]. 100%. You don’t think so?
NÉLISSE: Or Jhaleil [Swaby]… No, not Jhaleil.
KEEN: Maybe Sky [Yang].
NÉLISSE: Maybe Sky.
KEEN: I think it would be Percy, and then Sky. Definitely not you or me.
NÉLISSE: We’re out.
KEEN: I think Ali [Skovbye] would be doing something really diligent and good. We’d be doing some tomfoolery in a corner.
Follow-up question to that though, because you don’t have to be the person to blow the whistle. If you hear the whistle, you’re screwed too. So for each of you, as in real you, if you heard the whistle, who in your real life would you turn to who would actually believe you and also try to help you survive?
KEEN: In real life? Oh god.
NÉLISSE: I mean, on set, you. We’d be like, “We’re screwed.”
KEEN: 100%. We would be bunking together.
NÉLISSE: In real life, it’s hard because I would want to say my family members, but actually, in that kind of circumstance, you need someone who will take your fears seriously. I feel like my family is very rational. They’d be like, “Sophie, you’re being a little delusional.” They would try to calm me down, but I feel like I would need someone to embark on this journey with me.
KEEN: For me, if it was on set, you. But if it was off-set, it would definitely be my mum. My mum is a whimsical woman. She’d definitely know some sort of witchy person in some part of the world.
NÉLISSE: Your mom was a witch in a previous life, like the good sense of a witch.
KEEN: Yeah. My mum reads tarot. My mum would definitely be like, “So what was the energy like?” Do you know what I mean? So I definitely would go to my mum.
Could Shauna Turn Into a Dictator in ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 4?
Nélisse shares her thoughts on what Shauna’s headspace is like after that Season 3 finale.
I’ve got to wind down with you both soon. Luckily, we get to talk more about Whistle later, so I am going to veer into, first, Yellowjackets because you know I’m totally obsessed. I’ve gotta admit, I was losing my mind waiting for that Season 4 renewal announcement. Is it a situation where you all know it’s coming, or are you sitting there and eagerly awaiting the news as well?
NÉLISSE: The way Season 3 finishes, we were all like, “Truly, this cannot be the end. There is no way this is not getting a renewal.” The fans have been so engaged, and I feel like people are loving it more and more every season. I felt pretty confident that we would get Season 4. So, I feel like we all saw it coming, but we were just really thrilled when we finally got the approval.
One story question I’ll ask you, and I don’t know if you’ve seen any Season 4 scripts, so this might be in theory territory, but what do you think will change in terms of Shauna’s leadership style and how she goes about getting what she wants now that she’s surrounded by a bunch of people who essentially plotted against her?
NÉLISSE: I’m very curious. I haven’t seen any of the scripts. I kind of have a feeling that it will go either way. Either she becomes even more isolated and meaner, if that’s even possible, and just finds this leadership on her own, where she just terrorizes everyone, and it becomes some sort of dictatorship, or I feel like this will be where she hit a wall, and she’ll need to take a step back and fall under everyone else’s control.
Dafne Keen Has the Perfect Marvel Fan-Cast
“She’s so powerful and cool.”
Dafne, I have to ask you an MCU question, and I was thinking about how I posed that question to Sophie, and I want to apply it to Laura a little, especially with how much she’s been through and what just happened in Deadpool & Wolverine. At this point in her life, what do you think it means to her to be not only a good hero all on her own, but also a good teammate if she were to team up with other heroes in that universe?
KEEN: What was so special to me about putting her in a group was that I think the Wolverine character is an archetype, and therefore Laura, as an extension of that, is a lone wolf, and I think putting her in a group shows that they do work in a team. There was something so lovely about also getting Logan and Laura back. It was really fun to play with other people, and I think she works really well in a team, weirdly, even though she is such a stubborn, independent creature.
I’ll squeeze in one more question that puts you both on the spot a little bit. I know I can’t press you for too much information about the future, so this feels like a safe way to talk a little more MCU. Let’s say you had the opportunity to fan-cast Sophie in the MCU in the role of your choice. What role would you pick and why?
NÉLISSE: Something athletic. Make me do backflips.
KEEN: Oh my God. Wait, this is a really good question. There are so many. I feel like you’d be a good Mystique. I feel like she’d be a good Mystique. You’d be shapeshifting and back-flipping.
Gymnastics background!
KEEN: No, wait. I see this for her.
There are also a lot of fans out there that are rooting for Jean Grey, and I could see that.
KEEN: I think you’d be a great Jean, too. I did think that.
NÉLISSE: I don’t know who that is.
KEEN: Sophie, don’t say that.
NÉLISSE: I would be a great Jean Grey. Thank you.
KEEN: She’s so powerful and cool. And she’s hot, and she has fabulous red hair.
NÉLISSE: Perfect, I will be her. Sign me up!
KEEN: Honestly, I want her to be in anything that I’m in.
Whistle opens in theaters in 2026.
Whistle
- Director
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Corin Hardy
- Writers
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Owen Egerton
