‘There are still some things we want to keep private’

Alison Brie and Dave Franco speak with Adam White about their marriage, their very grisly new horror movie ‘Together’, and their love of watching one another die horribly on screen

- By Adam White

A few years ago, while he was playing a villain in the Kristen Stewart thriller Love Lies Bleeding, Dave Franco was fitted for a facial prosthetic. It was essentially a melange of sinews and smashed teeth, from which a meaty flap of torn-off jaw dangled precariously. "I was horrified by it in the best possible way," Franco beams. He sensed his wife would love it, too.

Much Alison Brie, the ebullient star of Mad Men and Glow, very did. "I was like, 'Yes, babe! Get it!"", she says, recounting this lovely tale today alongside Franco in a London hotel suite. "The gorier the better!" This, they quickly assure me, is a mutual quirk for the two of them: Franco is equally as adoring of Brie's onscreen fatalities. "Alison dies in Scream 4 and that's like a badge of honour to me. Like, my wife got killed by Ghostface I'm so proud of her!" Franco and Brie have been an item for 13 years, and married for eight. Some couples go on date nights to maintain that spark.

Others like to watch one another be gruesomely killed in movies. Who are we to judge? All of this is to say, then, that Franco and Brie are sort of kooky - a Hollywood It-couple drawn to the strange and horrifying. At least now. Years ago, they were mainly known for being funny.

Brie rose to fame in a succession of TV roles perfectly attuned to her slightly manic comic zip, notably the cult adult-education comedy Community. Franco, meanwhile, was a consummate scene-stealer, as the jock who wet himself in Superbad, or a slappable frat-house toady in the Bad Neighbours movies. But their respective second acts have involved directing, writing, producing and starring in some of the weirdest indies of the past five years.