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NEW YORK, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- The young stars of the new psychological thriller, Never Let Go, say they loved playing Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry's sons, even when her character swung from nurturing to terrifying. "She's such a kind, amazing actress," Anthony B. Jenkins, age 12, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
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"She teaches me a lot of things to stay focused -- don't stop working, always keep going -- and that my superpower is my eyes."
Percy Daggs IV, also age 12, said he felt there was immediate familial chemistry when he and Berry started working together.
"It was an honor working with Miss Halle. I would work with her as many times as possible. I hope she would love to do the same," he said. "She's always willing to hang out to get to a better relationship with you and that's really, really cool."
Opening in theaters Friday, the contemporary film was directed by Alexandre Aja, whose credits include The Hills Have Eyes and Crawl.
Never Let Go follows Mama (Halle Berry), who lives an isolated existence in the woods, where she protects her fraternal twin sons, Sam (Anthony) and Nolan (Percy), from monsters only she can see.
Mama believes their cabin has magical powers and that they are all safe as long as they remain connected to it via ropes.
But as the food supply dwindles, Nolan starts to question whether the evil actually exists outside of his mother's heart.
His doubts cause her to quickly unravel emotionally and psychologically.
"She loved the script. She wanted to be the character, but she wanted to be sure. That's why we met [before she signed on]," Aja said about Berry, who also served as a producer on the project.
"She wanted to be sure that we were not going to compromise on the complexity of the character, that we were not going to give up on any of the layers that the script was kind of presenting as seeds, that we were even going to develop and push her character even further in the darkness."
The director and star were equally committed to fulfilling the script's disturbing promise, Aja said.
"From that first encounter to the movie the way you saw it, we were working together, pushing, exchanging, challenging each other to be sure that we were going to give Mama the most [effective] dual existence," he said.
"She's at the same time that mother that loves her kids more than anything and will do anything to to protect them, and also that mother who might become the most dangerous one for them, holding them on the rope and keeping them almost prisoner in that house."
Although their characters were raised under the same bizarre circumstances, Anthony and Percy said Samuel and Nolan responded differently to them.
"I see Samuel as a hardworking, trustworthy kid who would do anything for his family. He'll do anything to keep them protected and safe from the evil," Anthony said.
"The difference from his brother is that he'll trust Mama and he'll believe Mama and he'll believe anything that she says."
Nolan is more adventurous and practical, according to Percy.
"He always wants a better understanding and, just like Sam, he's willing to do anything for his family, but he does it in a different way," Percy said.
"Sam is willing to do anything for his family within the boundaries that he can, and Nolan is willing to push those boundaries and get things going faster, and get things moving better," he added. "He's willing to go past his restrictions to make life better."
The brothers also have different perspectives toward the danger about which Mama is always warning them.
"Samuel thinks that the evil is something that's trying to hurt the family, trying to hurt Mama, trying to trick us, trying to get into our brains to make us think that it's not real," Anthony said.
Percy added: "Nolan doesn't truly believe. He slightly believes in the evil. I can't disclose too much because that would be a spoiler."
Aja credited Kevin Coughlin and Ryan Grassby with penning a screenplay that conjured up a horror-movie atmosphere -- rife with fear and suspense -- but that wasn't overly gory or violent.
"Something else that kind of struck me in a deep way was the [concept of] questioning. Those two kids living with a mom outside of the world -- that has been destroyed by an evil force -- are, in fact, starting to question her," Aja said.
"I wanted to reflect on what it is to be a parent and what it is to over-protect your kid, and what it is to be a kid and start questioning your parents," he added.
"Dark fairy tales somehow help us understand the darkness inside us or all the monsters living in our world. I wanted Never Let Go to create a similar experience for the big screen."
