NeonTatiana Maslany might be the most underrated actor of her generation, a title she earned after playing countless clones on AMC’s Orphan Black. Such a performance is, unfortunately, something that comes around once in a generation, too: Maslany may be great, but it’s not every day a director or studio actively encourages a true go-for-broke performance. That’s what makes her pivot into horror such an exciting prospect. In teaming up with director Osgood Perkins in The Monkey, Maslany tapped into the same primal energy that made her such a mercurial force on Orphan Black. Her appearance in the film, however memorable, was brief — but fans of this creative duo will be pleased to learn that Maslany is bringing even more to Perkins’ next “dark trip,” Keeper.“It was incredibly freeing,” Maslany tells Inverse of collaborating with Perkins twice over. “I felt very like, ‘Ooh, all of the weird instincts and impulses I have are the stuff we’re making this film with.’”Audiences got just a taste of those instincts and impulses in the first teasers for Keeper, which focus tightly on Maslany’s lead as she scribbles endlessly across a sheet of paper. It doesn’t tell us give us much beyond the odd unsettling feeling characteristic of a Perkins project, but in an interview with Inverse at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Maslany and Pekins pull back the curtain on their upcoming film.This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.I’m curious: what was the moment where you decided to work together again after The Monkey?Osgood Perkins: It’s funny, most people have this backwards. We did this movie before we did The Monkey.Oh, really?Perkins: Yeah. I had come to Canada to make Longlegs. We made Longlegs, I fell in love with a group of people — the crew, my now producing partner — and we were ready to go do The Monkey next. Then the strikes happened, and The Monkey had to wait. Deals couldn’t be made, and I called my producer and I said, “I really want to make a movie. I really want to just keep going, because we had a really great experience on Longlegs. We’re about to have another great experience, and now there’s this dead zone where no one’s going to be working, but I insist on working. I gotta work.”And we made a movie up. We found a non-WGA writer who was willing to write a script for us; we kind of gave him the reins on that. We found a single location — a cabin in the woods, as it were — and I started meeting actors. I was fortunate to meet Tatiana, and the process of making the movie was everybody developing all of the departments at the same time. We did it for no money and no time, and we just did it for the love of it, which turned out to be the best medicine. The development of the movie in total was something like 10 weeks. No prep, and just this playful sense of discovery with no pressure, because no one knew we were doing it, and it didn’t cost any money.Maslany found a lot of freedom working with Perkins: “I’m enjoying my body in a different way, because I’m not being managed and controlled.” | NeonTatiana, what is it that you love about working with Osgood?Tatiana Maslany: He never made me feel self-conscious about anything. Any choice, no matter what direction it was in — whether it was completely counter to what made sense, or was not what was written, or was just a little bit outside of the box — he was always encouraging that and fueling that, as opposed to trying to keep me in something... an idea of this character, an idea of what acting is, or an idea of what the scene needed.It was incredibly freeing. I felt very like, “Ooh, all of the weird instincts and impulses I have are the stuff we’re making this film with.” It was very exciting. He also hires the best department heads and crew, who are... A lot of them are very young.Perkins: They’re so young. I’m so old. Twice as old as them.Maslany: They’re amazing, and they’re all incredibly creative. There were just a lot of beautiful, unexpected things that came out of people’s brains, and those were always welcome. It was super fun. It reignited my sense of, “Oh, you can make things for nothing…” I always knew this, but felt it and really felt it embodied. It can feel so effortless or easy — not without effort, but it can flow.Sounds a lot like that film school kind of energy.Maslany: Totally. There wasn’t like, Money People watching.Perkins: There was no studio visit.Tatiana Maslany: There was no, “Can we make her hair less…?” Or whatever — like, “Can we rein things in or make things more palatable?” It really felt like we were just making it for ourselves.Maslany at the Los Angeles premiere of The Monkey. | Leon Bennett/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty ImagesHave you gotten that note before? Someone comes in and is like, “So, about your hair...”Maslany: Oh, about everything. Nitpicking about women’s bodies on screen and women’s appearance is like...Perkins: It’s the bread and butter of the industry. That’s all they do.That’s so funny, because I feel like your breakout role was very much about challenging what a woman can do on-screen, and how she can look.Maslany: I know. I feel like I have tried my best to make my career out of not being conventional. But even then, when they hire me, they’re like, “But couldn’t you look a little less like yourself?” I talked to my husband, Brendan, about this, but I never had that feeling on this set. So consequently, I was kind of enjoying my skin, and I’m enjoying my age, and I’m enjoying my body in a different way, because I’m not being managed and controlled.Perkins: The industry is built out of long lines of people being like, “Could we do something different?” And they have no creativity, no passion, no anything. They just like to meddle and like to wonder about, “Is the artist doing it wrong?” I’m not trying to sound like a grumpy little boy, but that’s the way it goes a lot of the time.Keeper marks Perkins’ third team-up with Neon, a company the director calls “the very best.” | NeonThere’s a lot of secrecy around your projects, but what can you tell me about Keeper?Perkins: Keeper is a relationship horror movie about two people on a weekend to this cabin. She’s a city girl; she’s not used to this kind of thing. They’ve never had this particular intimacy before: To be in the quiet woods, at his place. They both have doubts. Neither one is safe in the relationship, as we all feel, or can feel, in our romantic relationships. They both wonder about the other person. There’s that disconnect that we all suffer in our relationships. And it’s coming to this place and wondering what lives there beyond their own insecurities — their own good sides, bad sides, positive traits, negative traits, where they’re confident, where they’re afraid. But also, what lives there in the horror movie sense? What is in this place that’s going to threaten both of them equally?We’ve seen a lot of relationship horror emerging in a new way recently. I like this path we’re going down, examining what we are to each other — the mania of being in a relationship.Perkins: Yeah, the horror genre continues to shapeshift around contemporary life. It’s maybe always been that way: Rosemary’s Baby is about a woman in her body when that was becoming something that people were thinking about. And now… take your pick of potential horrors that you can dip into in our world. And then there’s also the ultra-specific, amoebic things, like what’s it like to wake up to someone in your bed and be like, “Oh, that person. I kind of know them totally, but I actually have no fucking idea what they’re thinking or what they want or who they really are. Maybe I don’t know anything.”Perkins calls Keeper a “grown-up” relationship horror. | Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty ImagesTatiana, I know you can’t confirm anything about your future with She-Hulk…Maslany: I know nothing. [Laughs.]But I’m curious, if another season does happen down the line, what would you be most excited to explore?[Perkins laughs.]Maslany: I just don’t want to talk about this around him because he makes fun of me. He just wants to be She-Hulk too, because he’s so tall… Wait, how tall are you?Perkins: 6’4.Maslany: Oh, she’s only three inches taller than you.Perkins: I am She-Hulk.Maslany isn’t sure about another season of She-Hulk, but she’s game to dive into the physicality of Jen Walters again. | Marvel StudiosMaslany: I loved the body stuff with Jen. I don’t know that a lot of it was my own just curiosity, but just about being in that kind of body in a space when you weren’t in that body before, and feeling the difference of how you’re treated and just... All of that stuff was really exciting to me and unexpected.But I think there could be something in that world, some extension of that idea or furthering of that idea. I feel like Jessica Gao, who created the show, had such an amazing sense of the tone of it and such a reverence for the original material, and also updated it for audiences now with a lot of fearlessness. Knowing everything, writing everything into the piece, about how it was going to be received. So smart. I just would trust whatever she would bring to it, whatever angle she wanted to take.Keeper hits theaters on November 14.