Tina Kakadelis
Peter Warren is a man of many words. He’s been a screenwriter for over a decade, has an upcoming project that will be directed by Taika Waititi, and teaches classes at New York University. With the SXSW-premiering Kill Me, Warren will also take a seat in the director’s chair. Led by Charlie Day, Kill Me is about Jimmy, a man who wakes up in a bathtub with his wrists slit. He’s dying, so he frantically calls 911. An operator (Allison Williams) gets emergency services dispatched to Jimmy and he lives, but he’s also adamant that he didn’t try to kill himself.
Kill Me marks Warren’s directorial debut after sixteen years as a screenwriter. Warren didn’t plan to become a director. He’s had a long love affair with writing that isn’t slowing down, but something about Kill Me had him want to take the directorial leap.
“This script has meant so much to my heart and to my lived experience. I wanted to tell that story using a wider connection to the medium I’ve devoted my whole career to.”
“The other thing, too, is I have very few strengths as a writer, but I like to think that one I do have is a handle on tones that can be fairly tricky in terms of being a little bit of a razor wire. I’m a big believer that a diversity of moods within a story is really welcome and rich. Not everybody feels that way.”
“I also knew this was a tricky one. It was tricky to tell a story that would be this sad and this funny and this scary and this, at times, even maybe grisly. To play all those notes in the symphony was something I felt I could do well. I could cast well for and maintain a handle on a tone that a lot of people, I think, would find daunting.”
Warren is right. Kill Me is an insane razor wire of a film. Jimmy is wholly convinced that he didn’t try to kill himself and, along with the help of the 911 operator, he’s going to prove it. As the story progresses, things become foggier. Sure, it seems at first that this is all in his head, but then clues start pointing to a different ending. On top of this almost-murder-mystery and honest, heavy conversations about mental health, Kill Me is also deeply funny. Talk about a razor wire.
As one might imagine, the ending of Kill Me is a bit thorny.
“There was an early draft of the script that had a more definitive ending. In retrospect, that was absolutely the wrong choice. When Charlie Day came on the film, he really responded to the script and wanted to do it. He was the person who pushed me on the ending.”
“I took a lot of time to think through it and came back with something I thought was way better, not just in terms of the thrill ride of the movie, but in terms of what I’m trying to say with the movie. I’m deeply grateful to Charlie for pushing the script to be better, which is something I always want to do with anything. It’s really nice when you have amazing collaborators to hold you accountable.”
Kill Me tackles suicide, mental health, and other internalized themes in an external fashion. Jimmy’s desire to solve this almost-crime is a manifestation of his mental state. Beyond that, Warren worked with all members of the cast and crew to create a visible look at Jimmy’s state of mind.
“With a movie like this, in terms of how delicate the tone and subject matter are, everything needs to be calibrated really, really carefully, you know?”
“I had an incredible production designer in Ashley Cook. We were trying to render Jimmy’s apartment as accurately as possible, because not only are we going to live there for the movie, we’re going to go through it with a fine-tooth comb and a magnifying glass. I wanted it to feel like a really accurate representation of where his head is at without it feeling broad, without it feeling like the cliched portrayal of a depressed guy’s apartment. We would edit the tiniest pieces of set to make sure it was organic.”
“I remember when we were location scouting, we were looking at a lot of not very nice apartments. There were a couple apartments that we didn’t pursue for the production, but these were the apartments of twenty- or thirty-something dudes. I would be like, that tapestry he hung backward around the corner, can we keep that? Those navy sheets, which are a war crime, can we keep those? There were so many little details that we stole from location scouting various people’s apartments that ended up finding their way in. The thing about mental illness is that there are certain common aspects people who struggle with it will recognize.”
“At the end of the day, it’s a very bespoke experience. We wanted this to feel like Jimmy’s depression and Jimmy’s issues. There are a lot of little details that speak to the ghosts of his ex in the apartment. Things that you may not even pick up on in the movie, but we wanted it to feel deeply lived in. Like picture hangers that don’t have a picture on them anymore. You get the sense that she took half the shit, but he never quite got around to replacing it.”
Jimmy and Margot, the 911 operator, become a ragtag team working to prove Jimmy’s innocence. From the start, Jimmy has believed he didn’t do it. He admits to previous suicide attempts, but this one, he insists, is different. Margot doesn’t initially believe him, but is willing to hear him out. Jimmy’s family members, however, immediately think he’s lying. They’re adamant that he consciously tried to take his own life. In Warren’s director’s statement, he explains that at various points in his life, he’s been each of these people.
“I took some breaks writing the script because it was rough on me in a way that projects haven’t been before. Margot interrogates Jimmy and he talks about his experience of what a lot of people will call passive suicidality – a feeling that he’s not actively trying to kill himself but sometimes he no longer has the energy to stay alive. Those types of things were difficult to write, to put out there, and to hear myself write.”
“I remember Allison Williams asking me about a detail in that monologue, and she was basically being like, I know this must be coming from your specific lived experience because it’s so hyper-specific. That’s the only way that sort of writing occurs. It’s both challenging and cathartic. There’s something beautiful about bringing a huge number of loving collaborators into this world, because sometimes it feels like you’re opening up the dark cave of your own brain to have people come in and throw a party there.”
“That’s really lovely, but it’s taxing work. It’s taxing to live in this. When you write well, you’re really trying to embody these characters’ experiences. That means often embodying their distress and trauma and those types of things. It doesn’t not take a toll. I wept on set a couple of times for sure, mainly at my own terrible direction, but also periodically from the power of the performances.”
Warren expresses that to be able to combine the genres of comedy and murder mystery was an utter thrill for him. He refers to himself as a “genre lover,” but not in the way film people tend to use the word “genre.” That’s often shorthand for horror or sci-fi, but Warren means it in its original sense. That he simply loves films that are firmly rooted in a specific genre.
“I love stories that have a strong canon, tradition, and storytelling. I would describe myself as someone who doesn’t really want to make a movie that’s just a whodunit about who did it, you know? I also don’t want to make a somber slice-of-life movie about being depressed. I don’t get excited to go to the movies and see that either.”
“What I really want is a sense of artisanal popcorn movies. Deep in my heart, I’m a movie guy more than a film guy. I love the idea that something can be much deeper, more nuanced, and more valuable than it has any right to be without sacrificing being a fun-ass movie you want to go see. In general, the heavier the subject, the more fun I want to be having in the movie’s genre backbone.”
“The murder mystery genre deals with issues of life, death, and crime scenes. But also, all mental health treatment is an investigation, right? It’s all an interrogation. It’s all trying to solve the mystery of why do I feel this way? How did I end up here? How did I end up on the floor? What is trying to kill me? How do I stop them from trying to kill me? To me, Kill Me is a perfect marriage because it’s a movie about a guy trying to figure out who’s trying to kill him. Or you can see it as a movie that’s entirely about him investigating his depression or about chasing a killer. Both are right.”
Kill Me will have its world premiere at the 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival. In their long history together, SXSW and Austin have always been a place for people who like to keep things weird. People who want to see something new, unexpected, and special. For Warren, SXSW was always the right choice.
“It truly is the perfect festival for it. We said that from the get-go. We were like, this is a SXSW movie. Without question. You may absolutely disagree with me, but it’s fun as fuck and it’s also painful and powerful. It has really cool performances. It’s got a comedic mastermind flexing gears that I don’t think anyone has seen him do before.”
“SXSW has described itself as “not a golf club audience.” There’s a rowdiness and a raucousness, so it’s perfect for a movie that’s a fucking freight train right out of the gate, you know? I was like, man, if SXSW doesn’t get it, then who would? They’ve been so unbelievably jazzed about the movie and so supportive. I can’t wait to get into a really full theater and watch people laugh their ass off, cry, watch scenes through their fingers, and then come harangue me about the ending.”
When pressed about if he actually wants fans to harangue him about the ending, Warren is entirely unphased.
“Bring it. Let’s go. I’m telling you, my anti-depressants are so well-calibrated, I’m fucking Teflon, dude. I am absolutely, but I’m built for this shit. The only person really haranguing me about it is my mother. She was like, I got theories that we need to talk about it. I was like, well, see you Thanksgiving.”
