It’s only human nature to have a “Companion.”

Drew Hancock’s psychological thriller and first feature film “Companion” will slash into theaters Jan. 31. When Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) set off on a weekend getaway at a lakeside estate, they encounter a series of unfortunate events alongside Iris’ unnerving friends Kat (Megan Suri), Patrick (Lukas Gage) and Eli (Harvey Guillén).

Hancock, Thatcher, Quaid, Suri, Gage and Guillén spoke with the Daily Bruin’s Natalie Ralston at a college roundtable about the film’s reassuring approach toward AI and humanistic character qualities.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Daily Bruin: “Companion” is unique in its optimistic approach to AI. What inspired you to focus on what could go right, and how did that shape through storytelling and the visual language of the film?

Drew Hancock: When you’re juggling so many genres, you need to have clear direction that you give to your actors, to your department heads. This movie could feel like tonal whiplash, because it’s constantly changing what it is. So you really need to find a through line that just unites everything, and you can give a clear actionable direction to everyone.

This is not a story about a robot gaining sentience. This is a story about a person discovering that they’re in a toxic relationship and that their journey becomes their escape, and them finding empowerment through discovery of self. And so once you have that, it enriches the story because everyone can take that, and that’s something that the costume designer can take, the makeup artist can take, the actors can take. It’s clear, it’s definable, it’s actionable. It’s something they can give more life and shape and shading too.

DB: Your characters Josh and Iris are introduced as a charming and loving couple but are quickly revealed to be in a villainous dynamic, with Josh making his robot companion do his dirty work and Iris fighting to reveal the truth. What do you feel makes someone truly human, and how did you demonstrate this in your performance?

Jack Quaid: What I love about this movie is that the most human characters are not human.

Sophie Thatcher: Yeah, it’s strange and it’s unexpected. I mean empathy, vulnerability, I think those are qualities that I wanted to hold on to as she (Iris) discovers herself, but then also has that in the beginning as well.

JQ: I think with Josh, it’s the opposite. He is doing so many things that have selfish, insecure reasons. I think a lot of the human characters in this movie have forgotten what it’s like to be human a long time ago. And I think a big thing that I love about this movie is what you don’t see. You see the house that we’re all staying in, but you don’t really know what the world at large is like. And humanity has reached this point where we’re not valuing that human connection again. All the humans are in a place where they’re just valuing selfish motivations more than actual human connection.

DB: Your characters Eli, Kat and Patrick are introduced as innocent friends but are revealed to have hidden agendas, some more selfish than others. What was the most surprising or impactful revelation about your characters? What do you think this says about human nature?

Megan Suri: I think when we are first introduced to Kat, she’s kind of cold, and there’s really no likable sense about her. But throughout the movie, as things start to take more twists and turns, she’s sort of the only one left with a somewhat of a solid head on her shoulders, and she’s empathizing for so many different characters that I feel like, especially Josh, kind of loses the plot of – and so I always resonated with that, and also her being the only human woman, and bringing that femininity into a culture that was very toxic at that time was really important, and it just shows the need for women and our opinions and our intelligence.

Harvey Guillén: I think for Eli, the idea that we see a lot of queer characters on screen being portrayed a certain way, it’s very cookie cutter. And just like hetero characters, queer characters are complex, and they’re layered. I think it’s nice to see different versions of that, just to represent all of us as a society, and not see the same trope and same note over and over. So I like that with this character, we got to see the fun, the humor, the endearing, the softness, the struggle, the love and the loneliness all in one with Eli, which for me was a great thing to play. I like to play fun all the time, and to play something that’s really layered is really wonderful.

Lukas Gage: I think for Patrick, the biggest thing he discovers that’s hidden beneath is the ability to unconditionally love somebody, and the ability to understand what love is, and to be able to contextualize it, and put it into what that means, and to experience that and to feel that for the first time as any human would.