‘Passenger’ Director Recalls His Own “Scary” Real-Life Nighttime Driving Experience [Exclusive]

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of the release of Passenger this Friday from Paramount Pictures, directorAndré Øvredal shared a personal story about a nighttime drive that left him shaken.

Asked whether he’d ever had a moment driving at night that left him uncomfortable or spooked, the Norwegian filmmaker said he’d been fortunate to avoid encountering any “weird passengers” of his own across countless nighttime drives. But one memory has stuck with him.

“I remember once I was driving in from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, and it was when I was a film student,” Øvredal said. “I was so tired, and I had to stop and just sleep for 15 minutes.”

When he woke up, he was stunned to see a bright light peering at him from outside the car window. Eerie stuff, alone in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road. Turns out it was the flashlight of a cop, which is its own kind of scary…

“It didn’t take many minutes before I got woken up by a flashlight in my face and a policeman who had obviously seen my car sitting along the roadside,” Øvredal continued. “That was scary.”

The unease of the story fits the lane of Passenger, which Øvredal called “really classic in its scares and in its setup.”

Passenger, written by T.W. Burgess and Zachary Donohue, is a supernatural horror film directed by Øvredal, whose previous credits include Trollhunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

The film opens in theaters this Friday May 22. Get your tickets here.