James Morosini was skeptical when he first read the script for buzzy thriller “It’s What’s Inside,” which debuted at Sundance earlier this year.
“I don’t know how he’s going to pull this off,” says Morosini of his initial reaction to the concept of the film, which marks the feature directorial debut of Greg Jardin. Morosini stars in the lead role, but takes on the personality of several other characters throughout the movie, a body-swap thriller with many permutations. “Whenever you make an independent film, you really never know what’s going to happen. This script was especially ambitious. I mean: eight characters are swapping bodies.”
Morosini was drawn to the challenge, which paid off in the form of a $17 million deal to Netflix, the biggest sale during this year’s festival. “It’s an incredibly fun thrill ride of a movie that is both extremely subversive and also very appealing to really anyone who watches it,” says Morosini, who was in Atlanta for Geeked Week — “it’s like Netflix’s Comic Con,” the actor says of the inaugural event — shortly before the film’s wide October streaming release.
A film still from “It’s What’s Inside.”
Courtesy of Netflix
“It’s What’s Inside” was executive-produced by Colman Domingo, and features an ensemble cast that includes Brittany O’Grady, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Devon Terrell, and Gavin Leatherwood. The film takes place the night before a wedding, when a group of college friends with complicated history gather to celebrate the occasion. An unexpected guest arrives with a mysterious party game that allows them to swap bodies, and the group are left to figure out who’s-who — fun, until it’s not.
Although this year’s Sundance was Morosini’s first time at the festival with his own project, he’d attended many times before as an audience member. “I would just hang outside the theaters and ask people if they had a spare ticket, and I would buy one off of them and then I would just go see movies,” says the 34-year-old filmmaker. “And so it was so full circle to go there and have a film with a bunch of people that I love and that we’re so proud of.”
Devon Terrell as Reuben and James Morosini as Cyrus in “It’s What’s Inside.”
Courtesy of Netflix
Morosini grew up outside of Boston making videos with his dad’s camcorder before moving to California to attend the USC School of Cinematic Arts. “It was just something I felt naturally drawn to,” he says of his lifelong interest in filmmaking. “My uncle was the actor Christopher Reeve, so from a young age I was watching a family member play pretend on the world stage. And it just seemed like something you did. As a family, we took playing pretend very seriously, and there were constant talks around craft,” adds Morosini. “I was also obsessed with magic as a little kid, and I kind of saw the whole process as akin to a magic show.”
While Reeve inspired his commitment to acting, Morosini’s father inspired what would become his breakout filmmaking project: “I Love My Dad.” Morosini wrote, directed and stars in the film, based on his personal experience of being catfished online by his father, premiered at South by Southwest in 2022. The film went on to win the festival’s Jury and Audience Awards. As an actor, Morosini also starred in the first season of HBO Max series “The Sex Lives of College Girls” as an assistant soccer coach.
James Morosini at the “It’s What’s Inside” BeyondFest premiere in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Netflix)
Getty Images for Netflix
This summer, Morosini signed with talent agency CAA, and announced his next film project: a psychological thriller, tentatively titled “Mommy’s Home,” that Morosini wrote and will direct. Asked if he might also cast himself in the film, he says that it’s all up in the air; he’s focused on finding the right actors for each role.
Still early in the pre-production process, Morosini describes the genre-blending film in the vein as “Fatal Attraction” and “Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” with the big narrative swings seen in recent films like “Fresh.”
“It’s about a guy who brings his mom back from the dead, because she was in a state of cryogenesis. And now she’s younger than he is, and she starts to think that he’s not really her son; that he’s actually his dad and that his son is actually him,” says Morosini. “And, his wife wants her out.”
He hopes that the film will ultimately strike the balance of being extremely commercial while exploring transgressive themes — and also terrifying. “I want it to feel like the kind of movie that your friends dare you to go see with them,” adds Morosini.
James Morosini
Courtesy Ryan Pfluger