'The Last House's Secret 'E.T.' Reference Is Only 1 of the Netflix Sci-Fi's Million Easter Eggs

Family sticks together no matter what, especially when it's a family of four stuck in their house with no way out. Netflix's sci-fi thriller The Last House is a survival story where, instead of venturing out to find remnants of civilization, the family is forced to survive inside their own shelter. While it sounds like a foolproof plan, resources quickly become scarce. But leaving the safety of their home for essential supplies is a risky task when mysterious creatures are lurking outside.

Starring Greta Lee and Wagner Moura as parents and protectors of their children, The Last House is the brainchild of director Louis Leterrier. Leterrier's filmography is filled with action, from his involvement in the Fast & Furious installments (which he teases during the Q&A session) to The Transporter movies. However, no other project feels as personal as The Last House, whose script, written by Matthew Robinson, allowed Leterrier to see himself in the story.

In this interview, Collider's Steve Weintraub sits down with Leterrier to discuss the making of The Last House, including shooting on the same lenses used in E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark, building the film's massive water tank set, and using puppeteers to create its creature. Check out the full conversation in the video, or you can read the transcript below.

Louis Leterrier Is Currently Shooting 'Liminal' for Apple TV

The sci-fi movie stars Vanessa Kirby, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Tom Pelphrey, and more.

COLLIDER: As I said to the audience before the film started, you were on set today all day. Normally, I save "What are you working on now?" for the end, but let's start with it. What were you doing today? What are you shooting right now?

LOUIS LETERRIER: I shot the last scene of my next movie today. Somebody died. I killed them. It’s Liminal. It's for Apple TV, with Vanessa Kirby, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Tom Pelphrey, Tracy Letts, Franka Potente, Paul Sparks... Lots of people. Tons of people.

I'm not going to pressure you on this, but there's literally nothing known about this film, and I've been looking. Is that because of you? Is that because of Apple? Do you want to tease anything about what it's about, or is it all under wraps?

LETERRIER: You'll find out. It's pretty cool. It's sci-fi. Very interesting sci-fi.

Louis Leterrier Confirms There's an Extended Cut of 'The Incredible Hulk'

The director is set to helm the final 'Fast & Furious' movie.

Before we get into The Last House, I do like throwing a few things in at the beginning. As most people know, you directed The Incredible Hulk back in 2008.

LETERRIER: I did. I really did.

Louis has what's called a pretty good résumé. I looked online before talking to you tonight, and it says a lot of fans have debated that there's a longer, darker cut of The Incredible Hulk, and that there was an hour of deleted scenes. What's the truth?

LETERRIER: There's a darker cut. Longer, obviously. It's not an hour, but it's very interesting because The Incredible Hulk was the first movie sort of starting the MCU. So there were all these ideas that started many of the stories you're following now, and that was in The Incredible Hulk. It was a little ahead of its time, so we didn't do it. But Captain America was in it. Tony Stark was in it — he's still in it. And the opening was actually quite interesting. It was set in the North Pole. It was cool. A little too dark.

Have all the deleted scenes been seen or only some of them got out?

LETERRIER: Some got out, some are still to be shown.

I'm not going to pressure you. You directed the last Fast & Furious movie. Do you think you'll be helming the final Fast & Furious movie?

LETERRIER: Do I have to? [Laughs] I mean, I have a contract with my name on it. Yeah, I guess so. Hopefully. Yeah. Yes.

I think it already has a release date.

LETERRIER: It has a release date, and movies that have a life of their own. Starting a movie takes time. Starting a big, giant movie takes even longer. It's in the starting blocks. We're revving the engine.

One of the things that I would like out of the last Fast movie is a return to Los Angeles and a return to the first movie, sort of tying it together. Like, first movie, last movie, sort of like a bow. How do you feel about that?

LETERRIER: I'll keep this in mind.

Is that a no comment?

LETERRIER: No comment.

Matthew Robinson's Script for 'The Last House' Had an Interesting Title Page

Louis Leterrier believes the movie was written for him.

After watching this movie, I realized: I do not have enough water or food at my house. After finishing this film, did you start thinking about, "We need to keep more water and food in my house?"

LETERRIER: No, I'm still the worst. It really is terrible. But I looked at my dog differently, you know?

Are you prepared for the amount of people that are going to become doom preppers after watching this?

LETERRIER: No, but it's actually quite interesting. And I think it will show us—I hope this has a little bit of a message that sort of spreads—about our imprint and what we do to our home, our planet, our families, and how we deal with one another. I think that's what we wanted to make this movie about.

And yeah, I mean, it's not about doing prepping or anything like that. I feel it's really about helping each other, understanding our differences, and working together. That's really what this movie's about.

I do believe that the human race has done incredible damage to the planet with no thought about the repercussions of what we're doing. Look at climate change and all the fires right now. Were you thinking about that kind of stuff when you were making this?

LETERRIER: Yeah. Obviously, we didn't want to make it a preachy movie. We wanted to make it very subtle and really make it through the eyes and the perspective of one family through one window. Because that's kind of like what we're doing. This is our window, and that's what we were watching all day.

But I feel like there's something about our responsibility in this world that is very important. And we sort of overlook it. And we sort of move on and jump on Instagram or Twitter or anything. It's just like we move on. But I feel like you have to take time to think about what you're doing, how much you use, how much you consume, and the stuff that you really need everything you buy. Says the guy who buys stuff every day.

What was the first thing in Matthew Robinson's script that said, "Oh, yes, I need to make this?"

LETERRIER: First of all, it was a very interesting title page. It was "11 817," written in words. That's the address of the house. Nothing else. It was very strange. I have never read a title like this. So I turned, and I was intrigued. And I started reading.

It's interesting. Obviously, I've done a whole class, like giant movies about God-like superheroes. And this one, as I was reading, I really recognized myself. And I was like, so much so that the name of my wife is the neighbor’s. It was very much so, like everything was like, "Oh, this movie was like written for me," and I know how to direct it and put so much of myself in the movie.

I think it's my most personal movie because there's no artifice. He was like me. I just want to tell a story about how I feel about the world, my family, the imprint I want to have on this, on this planet.

'The Last House' Was Shot With the Lenses Used on 'E.T.' and 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'

The movie combines vintage 35mm cameras and lenses with digital anamorphic lenses.

Something that you guys might not realize is the first half of the film you shot on 35 millimeter. The second half you did with digital cameras. Can you sort of talk about why you did this, and what was the aesthetic reason for doing it?

LETERRIER: Well, it was even more crazy. The first half is shot on 35 millimeter with '80s cameras and '80s lenses. So Primo anamorphic and Primo lenses of spherical. These are the lenses that shot E.T. And then the second half is digital with anamorphic lenses, C-Series from the '60s that actually shot Raiders of the Lost Ark.

And the thing we did—so it was me being a super nerd. But what I wanted was the grain to disappear, but the depth of field to become less. It's almost like the air was cleaner, but it's so less in the second half.

Do you want to explain what anamorphic lenses are?

LETERRIER: A spherical lens is what you have. It's kind of like a flat lens. It sees what you see. It's your eye. And then anamorphic lenses—it’s a squeezer. So when you see widescreen 2.35, big widescreen things, that's where the anamorphic comes in. You need an anamorphic translator up there, a little lens just to de-squeeze the image. But it gives you those streaks, and then a limited depth of field and stuff like that. It's really beautiful. And a vignette around it, like a soft focus.

I am so curious about why these lenses. Was it one of those things where you knew these were, like, the Raiders and E.T. lenses, and you're like, "Let's use those"? Or, like, was it your DP? How did you actually get to those lenses?

LETERRIER: It's through Panavision, through Pål Ulvik Rokseth—our DP—and myself. We tracked those lenses. Every lens—you can tell, you look at when the lens goes out of Panavision, comes back into Panavision, and everything, and you track all the movies it's shot. They used to do that on cameras.

And you could see all the movies like, “The Godfather did it.” They were on your cameras and everything. Now they don't do that anymore, but it's really cool. And it's all glass. My thing is sort of like: film, new glass; digital, old glass. So find something that's really old and crappy, and then it gives you a beautiful image.

'The Last House' Is the Smallest but Hardest Movie Louis Leterrier Has Ever Made

"The exhaustion in front of and behind the camera was real."

You shot this also in order, which is really, really hard to pull off. But because you were basically in one location, I would imagine it was a little easier. Talk a little bit about what that added for the actors and for yourself.

LETERRIER: We had to, because as you see, the house is transforming. It was kind of like a Russian doll. Kevin Jenkins, our production designer, and myself, designed this set. It's like, the outside is the newest, and then every day we're stripping a layer and lifting the floor and everything.

But what you need to understand is that everything is real in this movie. The grass was real. The tomatoes they grew inside were real. We had sunlight at night just to grow vegetables. The animals were all real and pissed off at us for waking up at 6 a.m.

I really tried to make it as real as possible. Including the evolution of the actors and the characters. As you can see, Wagner [Moura] and Greta [Lee] — they gained weight, lost weight, aged up. It was four months, very grueling. It's possibly the smallest movie I've ever done, but the hardest movie we've all collectively done. We still talk to each other like, “You still have nightmares?”

I interviewed Greta and Wagner, and they both said to me, they signed on thinking, "One location. How hard will this be?"

LETERRIER: Yeah, I tricked them.

Yeah, exactly. And they both said it was the hardest shoot they've ever done.

LETERRIER: I tricked them. But I knew it would be tough. No one knew it would be that tough, honestly. Because we built this house—normally, you have a movie set. You can leave the floor, you bring AC, you do this, you do that.

We built, because of the ending, a tank. So the walls were this big. It's the longest housewarming party of all. It was one way in, one way out. The same people every day. We went crazy. People went crazy. The exhaustion shows. The exhaustion in front of and behind the camera was real. The struggle was real.

There's "a Million" Easter Eggs in 'The Last House'

The kitchen in the movie is the exact same kitchen from 'E.T.'.

It's funny because you mentioned the E.T. lenses, but I also read that the kitchen was inspired by E.T.

LETERRIER: It’s exactly the kitchen from E.T., including the weird triangular table that they had.

Did anyone catch that? I did not catch that when I was watching.

LETERRIER: If you rewatch the movie, there's a million Easter eggs. Like, a million, including—and I'll never say who it is—the halo at the end. Kori [Adelson] doesn't even know who it is. These guys don't know. It's the most iconic person in the world, but you'll never know, and they'll never see. If somebody finds out, I'll invite them for dinner.

How much are you thinking about when someone watches this for the second time—seeing things that were sort of cluing you in to where it's going, or Easter eggs that you'll only see the second time?

LETERRIER: I love rewatching movies. I watched E.T. on Saturday. It's just my make-me-happy movie kind of thing. So I watched it again, and I rediscovered stuff that Steven [Spielberg] did to George Lucas, to other people, to Tobe Hooper. Directors have little winks. We make little wink-winks at our friends and the other directors.

So what's your wink-wink?

LETERRIER: You have to watch it again. It's pretty easy. Friday on Netflix.

Are there certain shots that you love to include in all your movies? Spielberg has that slow zoom-in on people. Is there a shot that you consider your shot?

LETERRIER: I do a lot of rotating stuff and everything. This one, I couldn't do it. And I was telling Kori, "I cannot do my stuff. I can't do my stuff on this one." It's just these big, heavy cameras and walls everywhere. I can't do my stuff. This one is very different from anything I've done. This one is pretty normal filmmaking.

The Production Design for The Last House Requires Tons and Tons of Concrete

"It took possibly longer to destroy the house than to actually build it."

One of the things about the production design—and you talked about it—is the fact that it has to degrade with the water with take after take. But it also has to stand up to the water and all the repetition of what you're doing. What was the build really like in terms of making sure it could withstand everything you needed it to do?

LETERRIER: It was like tons and tons of concrete. I remember when we built this thing and people were so excited because we put the concrete in, and then the concrete broke while it was drying. And then we'd do it again. It was insane. It was so insane to build this house. It took possibly longer to destroy the house—to take it down—than to actually build it because it was built like a bunker.

It was just insane because of the pressure of that water, because we wanted—not just water—we wanted a storm inside the house. The pressure was immense. And I also wanted, not just to build a house inside a tank, but a tank that is a house. So the outside—you can see all the shots from outside looking in. The windows are this thick, and where it comes in, where it comes out. It was pretty intense. You should have come.

What was it like with the line producer and the producers when you were looking at the cost of actually building this? Was everyone like, "What is this?"

LETERRIER: They said yes to everything. No, it was crazy. It was like, "What? Really? And you want to shoot on film? What?" It's really—there's a lot of this. But at one point, I was so sure of what I wanted to make. Like, really. We thought, you know, Kori, and myself, everybody, you know, Andrew, everyone—we saw this movie. We fought so hard to make this movie a reality. And we saw it. With this cast, at this level, this budget, with these young actors who hadn't done much, if anything. When you say passion project, it really was a passion project because we left it all on the floor in the dirty water.

What's funny about this is that people talk about how—”Don't work with animals, don't work with kids, don't work with water.” And it's like the list of everything not to work with is like, "I would like all of that, please."

LETERRIER: Honestly, that's what we told ourselves every day. We said, "Accept the wet." That was our motto. Accept being wet all day. Miserable. The worst.

Originally, you said the title was 11817, which was the street address. How did the title end up moving to The Last House?

LETERRIER: You remember that thing? No one could remember it. Even me. I couldn't remember it. After a while, I could remember. But it was very hard to remember. I loved that title because it was so mysterious. But The Last House evokes something. It makes sense. It's a double meaning about this house, about our planet, about everything. That title was great.

There's no right or wrong. I'm just curious how it morphed into, you know...

LETERRIER: Yeah, yeah. No, it's just this is kind of like… At one point you need to name a movie. Every movie has a title. The movie I'm making now is called—the secret title is Ghost, which is actually a problem because everything we do, everybody thinks we're remaking Ghost. But no, it's not.

I actually didn't. I thought the title was something else.

LETERRIER: Yeah. But anyway, these are secret titles. Like Oliver's Arrow, whatever. We always have secret titles. That was our secret title.

Who Were the First People to Watch 'The Last House'

Filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón also watched the making of the movie.

I love talking about editing because it's where it all comes together. You have a cut of the film that you're semi-happy with. Who are you calling and saying, "Please watch this and give me really honest feedback?"

LETERRIER: Oh, you mean the other directors?

More like, friends and family? Who is in your inner circle for that very first, "Be brutal with me."?

LETERRIER: A lot of people watched the movie.

Can you give an example?

LETERRIER: Alfonso Cuarón.

Oh, it's a nice name.

LETERRIER: Because the editor is Alfonso Cuarón's.

So you show it to these filmmakers. It's an early cut. I'm sure it's not done. What are you learning from those early screenings? When you're showing it to other filmmakers, how brutal do people really get in terms of… Are they being friendly but also trying to provide feedback? What is it actually like?

LETERRIER: As filmmakers, amongst ourselves, we're polite. But also, we have no problem telling each other what works, what doesn't work, and what we should protect ourselves from. Because afterwards, there's these friends-and-family screenings, and afterwards you go into a larger audience, test screenings, and then a general audience will say, "Well, I was expecting this. I'm getting that."

You have to sort of accept some of the—take some of the good, take some of the bad, accept the stuff. But still, you have to keep your compass. As a filmmaker, I need to keep my compass pretty straight. But I'll take a good idea from anyone, anywhere, any time. But I feel like if it's—if I believe that, you know... I mean, yes, the thing with the dog...

Getting to the dog…

LETERRIER: That was very important to me because that's really something that is powerful. So that obviously was this thing… Not great.

It's like, you can kill a million people in a movie, and the audience is totally on board. You hurt an animal and you can be fucked.

LETERRIER: There's a website called “Does the dog die?”

Your story justifies why it's happening. Totally makes sense for the story, but it's really hard. How much was that a point of contention in terms? Because it's a major plot point.

LETERRIER: Kudos to Netflix because they could have said no. And they said, “Yeah, we understand.” They were going to get killed for that. And I was like, “Yeah, but it's so important,” because that really is the term for the family, like, “It's okay. It will survive,” to, “Brraagh.”

It's a very important plot point for the progression of how bad it's getting. And for the severity of their situation.

LETERRIER: And also the split in the road in how far they are willing to go to survive.

100%. I understand the plot point, but I also understand I think we all agree it's hard.

Louis Leterrier Wanted 'The Last House' to Be About Survival Through Ingenuity

How editing helped the movie maintain its fast-paced storytelling.

One of the things that I really admire is the fact that the people survive through their ingenuity and not brute strength. How important was it for you to show that using your mind and your skills is how you survive?

LETERRIER: I think it's kind of like, because I wanted to portray a realistic family. When you have a father who does pull-ups and everything, it's just like—I mean, they exist, but we wanted to portray something that's sort of like a regular family, almost an international family. Different skills, different attitudes, people taking different tactics to survive.

But I feel, it was not an action movie, obviously. Although I put a car chase in it. I mean, they had a car chase, in the garage.

Something I'm also curious about is you demonstrate with the cast how they can't get out of the house. How much did you debate how much to show, and how long it should go, with them trying to break out versus, okay, you know what I mean?

LETERRIER: What I didn't want was repetition. You didn't want this movie to feel like, okay, well, you know, look at my watch. So this had to evolve and move quickly. And this idea of, like, day to day, you know, week one, da da da da, and then five years. So you really don't have time to sort of settle in anything.

So there was this idea of ever-changing, but in a realistic way and not the... Yeah. The moment they said, "Oh, you know, if they find some kind of a solution," something else happens. That was interesting for us.

Well, something that I found interesting was, in a lot of movies, when you have the neighbors and the couple talking on the little chalkboard or whatever, when they're writing the words, often you sit there, and you're watching as they write out everything, and then you're watching the neighbors write out everything. And it can be a little slow.

You had an editing style where it's like you were zooming through things, including even when Greta is talking to Wagner about "I don't want to know about it." And then all of a sudden you see the knife, and then you see the—I think it's the freezer or the cut-up things. It's a very fast edit, but everyone knows what's going on and it keeps the story moving. Did you know when you were making it that it was going to be that kind of editing style? How much was that working with your editor to figure out that style in post-production?

LETERRIER: I knew it, and I also knew that I had to vocalize what they were saying. It was important also because Netflix is a multilingual world. I just wanted people to not have to read subtitles. It was kind of like a mix of both, this sort of like jumping through and speeding things up, the script had too many montages. Montages are sort of like this moment where music kicks in and then you see another family that does that, and then we sort of combine those.

It's very much thanks to Kori and the producers and Netflix because they were, like, noting me on this very often. It's always the note behind a note. And when the note comes once, you're like, okay. No. Three, four, five times, it's also giving us great ideas. And it's Kori’s idea to put the day-to-day, one day, this, which gave structure to the movie, to the edit in a sense, and it was great.

The thing is, I'm not a painter and sculptor. I'm the director. It's great to have this back and forth with your producers, with your studio. You put your ego, you sit on your ego, and you're like, okay, well, you know, they're right, and do that. But you have to have the goods. You need to have the coverage. You need to be able to have shot a lot. That's one thing I know after having done a lot of movies. I know the coverage I need. We never picked up, we never reshot anything. We barely—maybe there's half a scene, maybe a couple of mini scenes that are not in the movie, but everything else is in the movie. You have to be very aware of your editing when you're shooting. In a sense, you shoot for the cut, but, like, a wider cut.

Louis Leterrier Reveals Why 'Air Force One' Was the Perfect DVD Choice for 'The Last House'

The director also explains the challenges of securing movie rights.

How did you decide on the two DVDs that would end up in the house? Because you have to pick two movies. Did you have something else but couldn't get it with the rights, and you ended up with these two?

LETERRIER: I mean, Air Force One…Kudos to Kori again. Kori is like the champion of this movie.

Kori is getting a lot of credit tonight.

LETERRIER: Kori’s getting all the credit, but she deserves it. No, Kori was like—it's insane to get rights for a movie. I was like, "Oh, Air Force One is so important." So we had backup plans with backups of backups and backups.

I was like, "But Air Force One is such a bad movie." It's such a shitty, amazing, bad movie. And also the fact that they have to watch it together and the little girl goes, "Get off my plane." So I love this idea.

And eventually Kori found the one person—he'll explain one day. It's pretty funny. It was like no one has the rights to Air Force One. It's like this one person. Like, "Hello?" Yeah, great.” So you found that person, and she got them to sign. All the actors were like, "Yeah." They were like, "Yeah, no problem."

Who was this person?

LETERRIER: I don't remember, but that was it. It was so hard to get the rights to everything. And I'll tell you a story. I'll finish this, and I'll tell you another story. There were other movies. It was written for Shrek because I just—I would have loved to hear, like, imagine the hell of being trapped with one Shrek DVD and Smash Mouth for five years. So anyway, that was really hard. And it's just this idea of putting Tomorrow with the dog. I thought it was great.

And then, the hardest thing to get, like, at the last second, we almost lost it, was the entire piracy. In the beginning, you press the DVD, and that's something from us kids from the '90s. There's like an anti-piracy thing. That thing was pirated. So the anti-piracy thing was a lawsuit from a—they pirated a composer, so that music in it. So anyway, that was the big thing at the last second that we had to sort of say. And Netflix was great. They're like, "Yeah, come on, go for it. That's fine."

That's crazy.

LETERRIER: But anyway, that was that. And then did you notice the Netflix DVD sleeve?

Oh, I did see.

LETERRIER: That was fun. That was for our friend Ted Sarandos.

Do you think anyone else survives or is it just the family?

LETERRIER: No. You hear a voice at the end.

When you're making something like this and when you're with Netflix, who have made some sequels, how much are you thinking where this could go, and how much is it sort of like, "Got to put it all on the screen, and I will worry about anything after later"?

LETERRIER: We thought about sequels, and we went, but—Okay, here's the kiss of death. As a filmmaker, think of a sequel when you're making a movie, and make your movie with a wink-wink to the sequel that will kill every chance of having a sequel, you know?

But also, I love those movies from the '80s that didn't have a sequel. All these movies that were amazing, and those great movies, and we'll never have a sequel. I do not want to watch E.T. 2, ever.

We're on the exact same page. I definitely feel like not everything needs a sequel or a prequel or whatever after this.

How 'The Last House' Created Its Mysterious Creatures Without Explaining Everything

One of the things that I also enjoy is that the film doesn't explain everything, and how only what they see with their own eyes can they sort of take in. How much is it sort of like—there's a lot of the audience that likes having things explained to them, and there's also people like me who don't want it explained. I think your imagination is more powerful.

What is it like behind the scenes debating with the studio and as a filmmaker, how much do we want to pull back and explain things?

LETERRIER: Ultimately it's up to us, the filmmakers. Sort of like less is more. Let people imagine. The thing we talked about—mermaids, Kraken did it, did this, we just keep it open. Aliens. Not aliens. Other dimensions. Who knows? The theories are mainly given by an eight-year-old daughter. So you can imagine that they're like, "Yeah, it was this." It could be anything. There's no practical explanation at the end. I think it's better this way.

Yeah, we're like that. But there's a lot of people who like having things—I don't want to say spoon-fed, but you get what I'm saying.

LETERRIER: Yeah, but I think our world is changing a little bit. And I think audiences want to also—small audiences—they really want to watch a movie and sort of make up… They want a story that they can close themselves and then talk about.

Again, your imagination is always more powerful than anything that the film could do. Talk about designing the creatures and how you wanted them to look and interact and all that stuff.

LETERRIER: The design was amazing because it was over a Christmas meal with Kevin Jenkins, the production designer—he did Star Wars and Jurassic Park. He's amazing. He was doodling something in the corner while we were having a meeting with Kori and everyone, where we were talking budgets and everything. I looked at it and asked, "What is that?" He said, "I'm doodling." I said, "This is our creature. This is it. This is what I wanted."

Because I wanted this elegant mermaid creature, kind of like a ghost, but practical. So we designed that, and I wanted to make it practical. We had this amazing creature designer called John Nolan, and the guys who did Dark Crystal, this puppet show for Netflix. I used all these puppeteers from Henson. We had this amazing puppeteer…And we put this suit on top of him. It was so heavy, plus the rain and all that stuff.

But then you enhance it with digital effects. You always want to have around 75 to 95% “real” in your image and the rest is digital. So that's why we did it. But it was really about shadows, and you barely see it. You see them at the end, but that's it.

Well, the thing that I found—did you guys ever see Real Steel? Yes. Okay. So when you see Real Steel, like, a lot of the robot, when Hugh is interacting with it, like 90% is practical and like 10% is CG. And because most of it's practical, it tricks your brain because you're seeing something practical. So when you see a little bit of CG, you don't really notice it.

LETERRIER: Yeah, you don't know it. It's a mixed bag of tricks. You need to know. People rather accept something that looks okay than something that looks perfect. That's a problem with AI these days because you're entering the uncanny valley where you know it's not real, but it kind of looks real.

But there's something, so we're like—when you know it's real, you know it's real. It's something instinctive that we humans know and we accept. And that's the thing, it goes back to your previous questions. We're willing to take the leap and accept something that's just like these puppets. Like, you know, it's just puppets, mouth flapping, and the eyes don't move, but you're like, "Oh, yeah, Kermit the Frog, get you."

Well, Kermit's real. This is not a discussion point.

LETERRIER: Oh, can I tell you? Something really cool. That's the cool thing about being a filmmaker. So the other day, I'm shooting my movie here.

What's the title of that again?

LETERRIER: It's called Ghost. No, it's called Liminal. But I'm shooting this movie, and I'm on stage and everything, and they're like, "Have you been to Sesame Street?" I'm like, "No…” “It's upstairs." So I walked up, and I walked onto Sesame Street by myself. I went inside the trash can of Oscar the Grouch.

You’re saving this for the end of the Q&A?

LETERRIER: No, but that's what's amazing. I love—that's the magic of cinema. You go there, it's empty. The puppets were like, they're on the side and everything.

They were sleeping.

LETERRIER: Yeah, exactly. It's amazing. I love it. It's like cinema. It's amazing. We're so lucky to do this.

Listen, one of the coolest things I've ever done—I've been doing this for 20 years—was the Muppets junket. And I swear to you, like Miss Piggy and Kermit and others, and there might have been puppeteers there, but I swear I did not see them. All I saw was Kermit, Miss Piggy. Like, it was full-on. It's one of the best things I've ever done.

The 'The Last House' Dance Scene Was Louis Leterrier's Favorite Moment From Filming

The director explains why watching the cast dance to David Bowie felt like capturing a real family.

When you think back on the making of this film, what is the day you will always remember? What's the first thing that comes to your mind in terms of, you know what I mean?

LETERRIER: I think it's when we started dancing—when they did that dance number.

I think when you started dancing, it was like, what?

LETERRIER: The French don't dance. But when they started dancing, they really felt like a family. It's hard to do a dance number. We didn't have a choreographer. It was just like, okay, it's there, put this song. But it was actually David Bowie when we played it.

But they were dancing and I was like, "Oh yeah, you're capturing truth." When you capture, you do a few takes and everything, but when you do one take and you're really capturing love, like true love between two actors, the chemistry is real, the kids were real, that dog was dancing. I mean, it was amazing. Really, I was like, "Okay, that's rare." Movies are so technical that if you just leave your camera and then this happens, it's pretty amazing. That's how I remember.

It's just because we had this amazing cast. Without Greta, without Wagner, without Riley, Gabe and Emma.

And Kori.

LETERRIER: And Kori. And Remy the dog. And George the asshole squirrel. That guy. Trust me. The worst squirrel in the business. But they were really amazing.

The Last House is available to stream on Netflix now.