One year after Jordan Peele shed his image as a sketch comic to become one of horror cinema’s most visionary and resonant directors with Get Out, John Krasinski shed his image as The Office’s Jim Halpert to do the same with A Quiet Place. In a movie-going landscape where ear-piercing, robots-on-robots smash-‘em-ups rule supreme, Krasinski managed to make a huge splash at the box office with what is essentially a silent movie.
What made A Quiet Place work so well is that it’s not a movie about bloodthirsty alien invaders hunting humans; it’s a movie about a family. Here are ten unheard behind-the-scenes facts about A Quiet Place.
John Krasinski Played The Monster In A Motion-Capture Suit
The final design of the monsters in A Quiet Place wasn’t nailed down until well into post-production. On the set, John Krasinski himself played the monster in a motion-capture suit. In the first few test screenings, audiences were laughing and the producers panicking, worrying that something about the movie’s terror wasn’t clicking.
However, as it turned out, they were just laughing because the CGI was unfinished, and in some shots, there was no CGI at all and Krasinski could still be seen playing a monster in a motion-capture suit. Test audiences responded a lot better when the effects were finished.
Millicent Simmonds Made John Krasinski Cry With An On-Set Suggestion For The Climax
Along with Baby Driver, A Quiet Place is one of the few recent blockbusters that have been blazing the trail for authentic representation of disabilities. Millicent Simmonds, who plays the deaf character Regan Abbott, has actually been deaf since she was a baby.
Simmonds brought John Krasinski to tears with an on-set suggestion for the movie’s climax. Originally, Lee was going to sign to Regan, “I love you,” but Simmonds suggested changing it to “I have always loved you,” which made Krasinski cry.
The Filmmakers Almost Didn’t Subtitle The ASL Scenes
The production team behind A Quiet Place hired deaf mentor Douglas Ridloff to teach the actors how to speak in American Sign Language. Originally, the filmmakers planned to leave the ASL scenes unsubtitled, leaving the audience to figure out the context from how the actors were communicating with each other non-verbally.
However, in the editing room, John Krasinski realized that the scene in which Lee and Regan argue in ASL wouldn’t work as well without subtitles, so they decided to add subtitles to the whole movie.
The Original Script Only Had One Line Of Spoken Dialogue
Bryan Woods and Scott Beck’s original script for A Quiet Place only featured one line of spoken dialogue.
After John Krasinski came aboard and made revisions to the script, the final film ended up with around 25 lines of spoken dialogue, but the first spoken line doesn’t appear until a full 38 minutes into the film.
Theater Owners Hated A Quiet Place Because The Silence Made Audiences Less Likely To Buy Popcorn
Despite the fact that A Quiet Place was a huge hit at the box office, theater owners hated it. The fact that the movie was almost entirely silent meant that anyone eating snacks in a theater was frowned upon by their fellow moviegoers.
After a while, the theater owners began to notice that audiences watching A Quiet Place were less likely to buy food at the concession stands, which is one of the primary sources of income for movie theaters.
Emily Blunt Nailed The Bathtub Scene In One Take
The pivotal scene in which Emily Blunt’s character climbs into a bathtub and tries to stay silent while giving birth was nailed in just one take.
According to John Krasinski, as soon as he called “cut,” Blunt dropped the character instantly and asked the crew members, “What’s everyone having for lunch?”
The Opening Scene Was Shot Last, Because Of John Krasinski’s Beard
A Quiet Place was shot in 36 days, and the opening sequence – set a few months before the events of the plot, setting up the grave tragedy that this family has just suffered – was the last scene to be shot.
This is because it required John Krasinski to have a much shorter beard than he had in the rest of the movie, so he waited until the end of filming to trim it off.
There Were Discussions About Making This A Cloverfield Movie
When Paramount first acquired the script for A Quiet Place, executives considered slotting it into their Cloverfield franchise. Paramount previously turned unrelated scripts named The Cellar and God Particle into 10 Cloverfield Lane and The Cloverfield Paradox, respectively.
After discussions with John Krasinski and screenwriters Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, they decided it was best to let A Quiet Place be its own thing. Now, it’s spawned a franchise of its own.
The Movie Was Edited To Be Able To Work With No Sound At All
When John Krasinski first started editing A Quiet Place, the initial rough cut and the second cut were pieced together without any sound.
Krasinski wanted the movie to be able to work with no sound at all before he started adding in the spoken dialogue, musical score, and sound effects. So, if you watch the movie on mute, you’ll probably still be able to enjoy it, because it was edited that way.
John Krasinski Was Initially Reluctant To Do A Horror Movie
However, when the premise of A Quiet Place was described to him and he realized that it was a story about a family, he decided that it was a movie he wanted to make and signed on immediately. Having recently become a father himself, he connected with the fears and anxieties of the Abbott family, embodied by the alien creatures roaming the Earth.
