Theo James Confesses Scary Movies Made Him ‘Cry in the Toilet’ as a Kid (Exclusive)

We all remember Theo James baring it all on “The White Lotus” — and his fights, too — but now he’s facing his fiercest rival yet! He plays twins in “The Monkey,” from the twisted mind of Osgood Perkins, who also directed last year’s serial killer sleeper hit “Longlegs.”

“Extra’s” Melvin Robert talks to James and Perkins about the horror flick and that terrifying cursed toy monkey.

Theo insisted, “It is unsettling, but it is essentially a comedy at heart.”

Is he a horror guy? James said, “I am… but when I was a kid it kind of scared the sh*t out me. My siblings loved it, and I would run out of the movie theater and cry in the toilet. Why the toilet?” he asked with a laugh. “It’s my safe space.”

Melvin asked about the monkey in the film, and Osgood explained, “I think the expectation may have been that the monkey be sort of small, like when you find one at a flea market… but I couldn’t really put Theo in front of a little thing… so we made it big.”

Pointing out the details, he continued, “We leaned into the classical look of it because that’s sort of indelible in people’s psyche. Everyone kind of has some uncanny feeling about this weird toy monkey thing and then we wanted to add some sort of unexpected real aspects, like his teeth are kind of smoker’s yellow, the way his feet grab the drum underneath. You wonder like, ‘This thing is pretend right?’ We wanted to ride that line.”

The film is based on a short story by horror master Stephen King, who has praised the movie.

Perkins shared, “He’s such a titan in in the art form of scaring people so I really wanted to, I don’t want to say impress him, but I wanted to give him back some part of what he’s given to all of us.”

We also speak to Theo’s co-star Tatiana Maslany, known for her Emmy-winning work in “Orphan Black” and playing Marvel’s She-Hulk.

She revealed some of Perkins’ inspiration behind the film, saying,  “He definitely referenced ‘Gremlins,’ and ‘Death Becomes Her’… tonally all over the place.”

Tatiana said there was horror and comedy, yet he would “play with cartoon level images,” and the film had “grounded performances.”

She recommends heading to the theater for this one, adding, “I hope that it’s personal to people, I hope that it’s an escape and I hope that it’s confronting. I hope that they laugh, I hope that there’s catharsis.”