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 threaten their survival. If they hear you, they hunt you.
We sat down with stars Noah Jupe and Millicent Simmonds. Check out our exclusive interview.
The Knockturnal: John said you were guiding people with ASL and kind of an informal guide on set. Can you speak about that and why it was important for you to help people get it right?
Millicent Simmonds: Well, I helped some. I would say I helped some on the set, but we also had a ASL advisor on set and he’s the one who translated the lines into sign language. And he helped everyone learn sign language. But, you know if we wanted more emotions, if it was something quick, people would come to me, and ask for my advice. But mostly, I thought about how we would communicate in our relationships. What that would look like? And the deaf supervisor doesn’t come from the acting perspective and I sort of gave the acting perspective of how to sign and communicate.
The Knockturnal: What did you love about working with Millie?
Noah Jupe: She was very cool and in terms of the signing she was awesome. Honestly. She was such a great friend and to have that good a friend right by you, the whole time, made me feel, you know, much safer, in the acting in the scenes. And it really helped me because I could play off her. And she’s such a brilliant actress. So it was really great so I had someone there to help me through the scenes.
MS: It was really cool working with Noah. I feel the same way that there were scenes that were hard to do and if you’re the only kid on set, you feel a little bit out of place. It’s a little difficult. You want someone with you. Someone who’s around your age or close to your age. It helps. But with Noah we had so much fun together. And I didn’t have to mind my manners all the time. I could just be myself. There’s something about him that just made me feel so calm and made everything so fun. And Noah, he was really with me the whole way. Not behind, or ahead of me, but I felt like really side by side. We made this journey together and it made me feel safer and calmer and more relieved.
NJ: I paid her to say that.
*laughter in the room*
The Knockturnal: And we have these two fantastic actors, John and Emily, what’d you learn working with them?
NJ: I learned so much actually. I learned how to be a better person. And from the movie actually I learned how to be more independent, and how you’re not always going to have someone looking over you, and keeping you safe. But I learned from John always surprise yourself emotionally and always take risks. Because you never know you might have a brilliant scene that comes out of something that you didn’t know was going to happen. So, and even if it’s bad, there’s always another take. It’s not like it’s a one off.
MS: Yes. It was an amazing experience to work John and Emily Blunt. I mean, they’re so sensitive and compassionate and open-minded. They were very open to our suggestions, our ideas, our opinions. They were just open. And really allowed us to be part of their personal life. They welcomed us in. And what I learned from them is work hard. It just made me want to work harder for everyone, for people, and they taught me how to be more comfortable on set. I just learned a lot from them.