"Joshua"'s parents.

Director George Ratliff didn’t have much money to lure actors to his deft demon-seed thriller, Joshua, but he nonetheless managed the coup of casting Confessions of a Dangerous Mind's Sam Rockwell and The Departed's Vera Farmiga as the title character’s increasingly freaked-out father and mother.

How’d he do it? By telling the two indie stars that they’d be playing opposite one another.

“Sam really wanted to work with Vera, and Vera really wanted to work with Sam,” Ratliff explains. “They’re two rock stars of Method acting, and they were eager to do a project together.”

Joshua is currently playing at the Ritz at the Bourse, the AMC Plymouth Meeting and Showcase Cineart at the Ritz Center/NJ.