Director Nicolas Winding Refn’s neon-soaked revenge sci-fi slasher “Her Private Hell” debuted to mixed reviews after its premiere on Monday, but all hearts were sympathetic toward the Danish director on Tuesday for the film’s press conference, alongside stars Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Froseth, and composer Pino Donaggio, as he articulated a near-death experience that served as the creative impetus for his first film in ten years. 

“Her Private Hell” follows two narratives: a woman, Elle (Thatcher), who sets out in search of her father, and Private K (Melton), an American GI who is trying to save his own daughter from hell. 

Speaking about the idea, Refn shared how the project is really three ideas, held together by Donaggio’s operatic score. “I had an idea about a young woman who came to a city that didn’t exist,” he said. “Then I had another idea about a man who wants to go to hell and come back, and those ideas weren’t really talking to each other very well. I had to come up with a third idea, and I created a monster. These three created a triangle and then suddenly I could fill the triangle up with everything that I wanted to do, like a kaleidoscope.”

The director got emotional when describing how his being dead for twenty-five minutes rattled and reshaped his creative life. “Dying is very interesting,” he noted wryly. “Before I died, I had come to the end of my career because I didn’t have anything left in me. I suddenly had what is called a leaking heart, which means your blood runs backwards in your heart. I was dying as my lungs were filling up with blood. Two weeks later, I was operated on and put back together with electricity like Frankenstein.”

Getting teary-eyed, he said, “When I came back, I realized I had maybe 25 years left, but I was going to make damn good use of those 25 years. … I’d been given a gift I could start over again … like how many people in their lives get a second chance? I was given a second chance by God. I was going to use that chance for something that was going to be good. How can I expand my kids’ horizons? How can I expand everyone’s horizons? It’s for the kids.” 

Speaking of the score, Donaggio joked, “It wasn’t simple to work with [Refn] because he’s extremely demanding.” He further articulated: “It’s a lengthy piece of work, and it‘s the work that needs the longest amount of time for me to write. He asked me to write a complete opera.” 

The actors all praised their experience working on the set, with some describing it as one of the most fulfilling artistic experiences they’ve had. “[Refn] really pushes you into the deep end, but with so much love and care, and he believes in you, and he makes you challenge yourself in the best way possible,” Froseth said.

“He’s one of the great auteurs in cinema,” Melton shared. “We filmed for 56 days, and I think one of the many beautiful things throughout the journey was that we shot in order. It was the most collaborative experience I’ve had, and there were so many revelations and things that were revealed in the process of making. My favorite note from Nic is ‘One more time.’”

Concurring, Liu said, “I think one of the coolest things about working with Nic is the way he holds space … he holds this atmosphere … Nothing is clear cut, everything is poetic, every answer you want, you get a question and I think that it keeps you in sort of a creative liminal place that I really have never been challenged that way before as an actor. It did keep me very mobile and challenged my desire to hold things into a real level of certainty that just had to go away.”

Lead actress Thatcher shared, “It was one of the most artistically satisfying experiences of my life. He would turn the monitor around so we could see ourselves. I learned how to inhabit a space in an entirely different way. He would play music on set, and music is the easiest way to transport your emotions,” listing the “Don’t Look Now” and “Dress to Kill” soundtracks as mood setters for the set. 

The question of AI was also inescapable, and Refn offered his thoughts on the use of technology.  “I think human to human will always act predominantly better. I think AI is an amazing creative canvas. Having now tried it on something later on that may show here, I really love the creativity. For me, it’s like a brush. And obviously, no one really knows all the implications of what this is going to do and what’s going to happen, but from the perspective of creativity, it’s a new invention. With every interaction and intervention, something changes, something dies, something is reborn. So, in a way, I think the best time ever to be creative is now.”

TheWrap asked a question to Melton, connecting his work in the second season of “Beef” with his role of Private K, and the gift of being able to explore the Jungian idea of “shadow selves” across both. “It’s a gift,” Melton said. “I feel like with each thing I do, a part of my soul rises to the surface to be channeled and lived in. There’s a lot of exploration and internal violence and pain, and agony, which is reflective of the armor Private K wears.” 

He articulated about the immersiveness of working on the project, sharing, “life and the art of the set was the same thing.” Towards the end of the film, where Private K meets his daughter, he shared that he understands that scene better now because of having a daughter himself. “Right before that scene, I was FaceTiming with my wife, and I heard my daughter’s heartbeat on the ultrasound for the first time, and then I filmed that scene,” Melton explained. “I don’t know. I was meant to go on this journey with Nic. I think everything we do is to explore the roles to explore the shadow self, and it only takes an author like Nic to turn that unreality into a reality or the reality into an unreality.”