Though his film is titled “A Quiet Place,” actor, director and writer John Krasinski has a lot to say about his horror film, which has received glowing reviews since its debut at 2018’s South by Southwest Film Festival. The Daily Texan participated in a roundtable interview with Krasinski alongside 15 journalists from different universities.
On the film’s inspiration
John Krasinski: (Emily Blunt & I) just had our second daughter about three weeks before I read the script. And so I was already in the state of terror of keeping this girl safe, keeping this girl alive and whether or not I was a good enough father to be her father. And in comes this script about a family that relies on each other, about parents that would do absolutely anything for their kids. It doesn’t take a lot for me to cry, but I was wide open for this one, and it connected to me in a big way.
On designing the creatures
JK: It was one of the most fun experiences of my life getting to work with ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) … I had all these notes, all these drawings. I even got down and crawled like the creature on camera for ILM. Let’s hope that footage never makes it to the light of day. But what I did was, I said to ILM, “Here are all my ideas, but I don’t know what I’m doing.” And they were so incredibly excited by that because it wasn’t a director telling them what to do. They were involved in the process, and they have said to me many times that this is one of their most favorite experiences because they felt like they were part of the team.
On the power of image
JK: I’ve never been more overwhelmed by a response to a movie or a project that I’ve had because it means so much to me, and what people are getting from it is the emotional core as much as it is the scares. And I think a lot of that has to do with the images. I think that where you can get in trouble is overwriting … in doing so you rob the two characters of having an intimate moment.
On the use of sign language and working with deaf actress Millie Simmonds
JK: There’s a lot of pretty languages out there but nothing more beautiful than sign language. And you know it was non-negotiable for me to cast a deaf actress for this role which is a deaf character, but I didn’t know I would get so lucky and having such an incredible guide in Millie. Learning ESL was just one of the things that she made so much easier, because I know it sounds poetic, romantic and corny, but it’s true. I’ve never had someone take in all of me when we were communicating … to watch someone actually watch every little gesture that I made.
On taking so much responsibility on the project
JK: If you look at the jobs individually, they’re overwhelming if you say I’m going to do all four of these things every day. I think it’s really overwhelming, and, weirdly in this movie, once we started shooting I was so, I felt so lucky to have all those jobs because I cared about this project so much. I was able to use every single aspect of each job to craft it exactly as I wanted it.
