A world in ruins. Bloodthirsty monsters. Desperate survivors. So what had Lupita Nyong'o shaking in her boots for real?
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00:00A world in ruins, bloodthirsty monsters, desperate survivors.
00:04So what had Lupita Nyong'o shaking in her boots for real?
00:12There's an old saying in Hollywood, never work with children or animals.
00:16A Quiet Place Day One star Lupita Nyong'o had her own, more specific rule, never work
00:20with cats.
00:21The actress admitted in an interview on CBS Mornings,
00:24I've been terrified of cats my entire life.
00:27Terrified.
00:28I wouldn't even be in a room with a cat.
00:29I just found them suspicious.
00:31If they were any bigger, they would eat us.
00:33I think cats are actually just small lions.
00:37This created a conflict when Nyong'o read the script for Day One.
00:40The main character is in New York City and carting around her pet cat, Frodo, when suddenly
00:45Earth is attacked by monsters.
00:47Frodo is very much one of the stars of the show, but Nyong'o begged director Michael
00:51Cernovsky to change Sam's pet to be any other animal, saying on Hot Ones that although she
00:55loved the script, her cat co-star was keeping her from saying yes to the part.
01:00When Nyong'o tried to persuade Cernovsky to swap the cat for literally any other animal,
01:03he bluntly told her, quote, it has to be a cat.
01:06Nyong'o ultimately decided to face her fears, and in preparation for the movie, underwent
01:10exposure therapy by having someone bring cats into her house for short periods.
01:14Eventually, Nyong'o worked her way up from being in the same room as cats to holding
01:18cats.
01:19But while A Quiet Place Day One may have helped her to overcome her fears, it still wasn't
01:22the easiest acting experience, because Frodo the cat was a diva from Day One.
01:27Director Michael Cernovsky told IndieWire, early on, a lot of people assumed, okay, it's
01:31a big movie, we'll CG the cat, and it will make everything a lot easier.
01:35But while the monsters in the movie might be CGI, he was determined to keep it real
01:39with Frodo, saying, it was important to me to have a real cat that you could feel connected
01:43to.
01:44As is often the case with animal characters in movies, Frodo the cat was actually played
01:48by multiple actors.
01:49Two cats, Nico and Schnitzel, teamed up to portray the intrepid feline, and Nyong'o
01:54did give credit to her feline co-stars in an interview with the Radio Times, saying,
01:57"...cats are very individualistic and very independent, and so what they were able to
02:01teach these cats to do was astounding."
02:03However, as she points out, cats are natural divas.
02:06They're difficult to train and easily spooked, so whenever a cat was on set, they automatically
02:11became number one on the call sheet.
02:12She said, it was like, quiet on set, Schnitzel is here, and then everybody gets quiet.
02:17Because you have to make it comfortable for a cat.
02:23And while most cats have the stubborn habit of looking everywhere except at the camera
02:26when you're trying to take a cute photo of them, Nyong'o and her human co-stars had
02:30the opposite problem.
02:31Often they would finish a take where both of them were happy with their performances,
02:35only to be told, the cat was looking at the camera.
02:37You have to do that again.
02:39In the end, however, Nyong'o got so into character that she ended up becoming a cat
02:42lover just like Samira.
02:44She told People Magazine,
02:45"...I had to look like I owned a cat, and look like I cared, and look like I loved the
02:49cat.
02:50And in the process of playing that pretend, I actually fell in love with the cats.
02:53They're something that melts your heart when they hold onto you.
02:56It was a bond that I had with them."
02:58She grew to love them so much, in fact, that she ended up adopting a cat of her very own,
03:02Yo-Yo, after filming Wrapped.
03:03She initially fostered Yo-Yo after visiting a few animal shelters, and explained on Instagram
03:08that she's now a self-declared cat mom.
03:10She added,
03:11"...It may look like I saved Yo-Yo, but really, Yo-Yo is saving me."