In the modern horror thriller “A Quiet Place,” a family of four must navigate their lives in silence after mysterious creatures that hunt by sound threatens their survival. If they hear you, they hunt you.
We sat down with star Emily Blunt. Check out our exclusive interview:
The Knockturnal: What was it about Evelyn that you most connected with?
Emily Blunt: Well, it’s so close to home for me. You know, I really understood that idea of just wanting to fill your kids’ life with warmth and the desire for their happiness and their safety- is very important in this film and I just felt so deeply for her. I kind of admired her fierceness and she was cool.
The Knockturnal: You said reading the script, she tapped into your deepest fears as a mother-
EB: Yeah
The Knockturnal: What was it like? Was that cathartic for you to play out these scenarios?
EB: I don’t know if cathartic is the word. It would probably be the opposite, more sort of traumatic to go through some of it. Yeah.
The Knockturnal: In this movie, you’re mostly doing ASL and it’s very physical. Can you speak about how that impacted your approach to character or forming her?
EB: It was wonderful. We had this great ASL expert on set, called Douglas. He really inspired us to make [it] our own … sort of put our own personality into the sign language. How would the characters sign? So, John’s character is very economical with it and it’s very direct. And Evelyn’s warm and funny, and loving, and it’s big. So I think that was exciting to kind of make sure the character was in line with the way that you signed.
The Knockturnal: And you have some wonderful child actors in this. What do you admire about Noah and Millie?
EB: Well honestly I can’t even consider them as child actors. They’re just better and more professional than so many actors I’ve worked with, you know. They’re just so talented, and so, deep, and they think about everything. They have so many layers to them. They were really exciting to be in a scene with. Like really exciting.
The Knockturnal: There’s maybe six actors in all but it’s just the four of you on the farm, in the forest. Can you speak about what that experience was like? It seemed very intimate.
EB: It was very intimate. Sort of an insular world. It was like everyone was living at this spooky farm for six weeks. It was a very intense world to be in for that space, but the location was gorgeous. I mean, John found it online, like months before we started and it had a farmhouse, a barn, and a silo, and they planted corn and incredible production design. It just made it feel, as creepy as possible.
The Knockturnal: There are a lot of difficult scenes to watch in this. What was one of the more difficult ones for you to actually do?
EB: It was probably the birth scene. I mean, that’s the sequence that is rough. That whole sequence like it includes the nail, and all of it, it was just pretty rough.
The Knockturnal: Now that John has directed you in a project, do you hope to direct him in something one day?
EB: Oh God. I mean I’ve seen how all-consuming it can be to direct something. So I don’t know if I’m quite, sort of, up for that yet, but maybe in a few years. We’ll see.
The Knockturnal: Do you have any favorite horror films?
EB: I don’t love horror films but the only film that I keep coming back to because it was John’s sort of homage is Jaws. You know, this is really what he wanted to make was sort of ode to Jaws, which we love, you know, I love that film. I like films with suspense. I don’t need to see people sawing their own heads off. Like that’s not something I need.
#AQuietPlace hits theatres April 6.
