Interview With Fernando González Gómez, Co-Director Of ‘The Passenger’

When I started watching The Passenger, the new film co-directed by and Raúl Cerezo, I had no idea how funny it was going to be. While horror comedy isn’t always my favorite, I can dig if it’s done right. And man, this one is done very right. With a synapsis like this, “Strangers who are sharing a ride have their trip interrupted when the driver hits a woman who’s hiking in the dark of night. They decide to help her but quickly learn that something is wrong and they shouldn’t have let her in,” it doesn’t really prepare you for the absurd, gory, hilarious horror film you’re about to watch. I suggest going in blind because it really is the best way to experience it. To celebrate the release of the film, I chatted with director Fernando about making a film with total freedom, how he became involved, what’s up next, and more!

PopHorror: I really enjoyed The Passenger. I thought it was so much fun so I’m really excited to speak with you today.

Fernando González Gómez: Thank you very much! Thank you.

PopHorror: What intrigued you about the film and made you want to be a part of it?

Fernando González Gómez: Raúl Cerezo, my co-director. I shot my first feature film called Estándar, a small film. Someone defined it as if the Cohen Brothers were born in a small village in Spain. I knew Raúl for a very long time. We were well-known names in the world of short films in Spain, but we never worked together. We started to develop some ideas together, and he told me, “Oh, Fernando. I watched this and I see that you have total freedom in your movie.” I said “Yes. I don’t know if it’s good or not, but they gave me total freedom in order to make the movie.” He said, “I have a script from Luis Sánchez-Polack, The Passenger. Let’s read and we can talk.” When I read it, I fell in love with the film, and he offered to me do it together. I presented the movie to my producers, the producers of my first film, and they were the same producers of The Passenger. And we jumped into a pool with no water together, directed the movie together, and that’s the history.

PopHorror: You say that they gave you total freedom. Was there anything that you were adamant about keeping in the script, no matter what you were told?

Fernando González Gómez: Do you mean from the version that we shot, if the producers gave us the option to shoot everything that we want?

PopHorror: Was there anything that they wanted out of it, but you said no, it’s staying?

Fernando González Gómez: No discussion of this matter with the producers. We have this luck to have José Luis (Rancaño) and Silvia (Melero), that follow our decisions and follow the script 100%. We are very happy because I feel like when you watch the movie, you can feel that we’ve been doing what we really want to do with the movie and we have no one that says no. They give the freedom to develop the characters, and the history, and everything.

PopHorror: That’s awesome because you don’t see that very often.

Fernando González Gómez: No! It is probably going to be the last time in our lifetime that we are going to have freedom because it’s a small production, and they are a risky company. They like to do this sort of bets. But when you are involved in a bigger production it’s impossible because when you are pretending that everyone likes the movie, you have a problem.

PopHorror: What draws you to the horror genre?

Fernando González Gómez: Both of us are happy, or we love that in the genre, anything can happen. You can tell a lot of kinds of stories from drama, to horror, black comedy, thriller. Everything can happen in genre. This is why the freedom that genre gives to us, to the histories, and characters, and situations, it’s total. Then I think this is why we are happy to open histories in genre, even our second movie together is genre because of this.

PopHorror: Anything can happen in horror. This is what makes it so much fun.

Fernando González Gómez: The problem is that the audience, even in Spain, is identifying the genre movies like second edition, like this is not real. Drama is real. No, it’s in genre movies that you can find everything, from drama to comedy, and that’s it. This is why we enjoy a lot and  love histories in genre horror movies.

PopHorror: What is it that made you want to be a filmmaker?

Fernando González Gómez: I can say, I remember when I was really young, like eight, ten, twelve years old, I watched on the TV a documentary or making of movies, I really didn’t know what I was watching, but I felt something familiar. Like I need to be involved in this world. But in those times, I really didn’t know what these feelings came from. But I always have the same feelings when I see something in the making of the documentaries. And then I started to love movies and feeling like I wanted to be part of the movies, and then I started as an electrical engineer. Nothing to do with movies. And then I started to make short films. Fifteen years and 36 short films directed by myself, and then I made my first film in 2020 in the middle of a fucking pandemic. That’s it. The explanation of the story of my life.

PopHorror: What is up next for you?

Fernando González Gómez: Well, we’re presenting now our next film together, The Elderly. It was announced yesterday by Screen Daily that Filmax acquired the international rights to the movie. A genre movie. But I mean, The Passenger is like Blumhouse while The Elderly is like A24. Small Blumhouse and a small A24. It’s more a drama movie, a familial drama movie. I cannot say a lot about it. There’s only one image on the internet from the movie. No more for the movie and there’s no info. We’re really happy with the results and we’re expecting a lot of what the audience is going to say when they watch it because they came from The Passenger, like a party movie more black comedy and then we’re moving to a drama with big influences from like Hereditary or It Follows, even. 

PopHorror: One last question for you today. What is your favorite scary movie?

Fernando González Gómez: Talking about the last ones I watched, probably Hereditary or It Follows. But I love a lot The Prince of Darkness from Carpenter, or The Thing, also from Carpenter. 

Thank you so much to Fernando for speaking with us. Be sure to catch The Passenger or VOD and DVD today!