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"Heeeeey, it's my birthday, and I don't gotta pick up the phone!" You can bet Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) isn't too happy to hear that song again when she gets stuck in another deadly time loop in Happy Death Day 2U. Writer-director Christopher Landon returns for the surprising sequel to Blumhouse's 2017 breakout Happy Death Day, the timey-wimey slasher movie that followed the mean girl sorority sister on a journey of transformation through life and death (and back again and again and again) when she got caught in a time loop on her birthday -- the same day a masked murderer came to kill her.

For the sequel, Landon shakes everything up, explaining the source of the time loop and taking the leap from horror to sci-fi thriller, including new time loops and an alternate dimension -- a dimension that throws a new wrench in Tree's relationship with Carter (Israel Broussard). With Happy Death Day 2U  now in theaters, I recently sat down for an interview with Rothe and Broussard to talk about the sequel, dropping Tree in a different genre, and rekindling their characters romance in a new way. Watch the interview in the video above and check out a list of what we talked about below.

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Image via Universal Pictures

Jessica Rothe and Israel Broussard:

  • If they got kicked into a parallel universe, what movie would they want to stay exactly how they know and love it?
  • How did they approach re-booting their chemistry in yet again in the sequel?
  • When they read the script, what was the moment they knew they wanted to make the movie?
  • How did they approach taking a final girl and dropping her in a different genre.

Here’s the scary sequel’s official synopsis:

Jessica Rothe leads the returning cast of HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U, the follow-up to Blumhouse’s (Split, Get Out, The Purge series) surprise 2017 smash hit of riveting, repeating twists and comic turns. This time, our hero Tree Gelbman (Rothe) discovers that dying over and over was surprisingly easier than the dangers that lie ahead. Jason Blum once again produces and Christopher Landon returns to write and direct this next chapter, while Happy Death Day executive producers Angela Mancuso and John Baldecchi are newly joined by EP Samson Mucke (Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse).

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Image via Universal Pictures
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Image via Universal Pictures
happy-death-day-2u-jessica-rothe-israel-broussard
Image via Universal Pictures