Michael Sarnoski A QUIET PLACE: TAG EINS Interview (2024)
Check out our exclusive interview with director Michael Sarnoski about his brand new movie A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE - we hope you enjoy!
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00:00Hi Michael, how are you doing?
00:02I'm good, how are you doing?
00:04I'm doing good, good.
00:06I'm looking forward to talk to you about A Quiet Place Day 1
00:09because I so enjoyed this movie.
00:11I really thought it was amazing.
00:13It's such an addition to the ones we've seen before, of course.
00:18Although I saw it in cinema twice, not on VOD yet.
00:23Can I just ask you, what was it like for you to see the reception of the movie
00:29and the amazing box office that it went through?
00:33It was great.
00:35I definitely wanted to try and do something a little different
00:38with a big franchise studio movie
00:40and have some intimacy and some surprising personal moments.
00:44Sometimes that can work, sometimes it won't.
00:47It was nice to see that people responded to that and accepted it.
00:51We're excited by something a little bit different.
00:56You work on something for two and a half years
00:59and you just kind of hope that it hits right with the public.
01:02It was really nice to see that it worked out.
01:05It definitely did.
01:07I think it's especially through that intimacy and personal encounters
01:12that you described just now
01:14because you really feel for the characters.
01:17If I get this right, you actually wrote the story for this one, the screenplay for the movie.
01:23That means you sort of stepped into something
01:27that John and Scott and everyone created before you.
01:31How exciting was that?
01:34It's exciting. It's a lot of pressure.
01:37Scott and Brian and John had created a beautiful world
01:40and there are all these wonderful characters in it.
01:43To be like, okay, I'm not going to use any of them
01:46and try and create a character that I can care about
01:49as much as you made us care about all those other characters is intimidating.
01:52But it's also the whole fun of cinema.
01:55You want to find someone that you fall in love with
01:59and that you want to follow through this world.
02:02It's intimidating, but it's also exciting.
02:05It's sort of why you do it.
02:08We fall in love not only with Lupita and Joseph
02:12but also with Nico and Schnitzel.
02:15In this case, Frodo.
02:17Sam, why was it important for you to involve an animal?
02:22Because I do feel like it's really, really a character.
02:25I love that because I think animals are...
02:28Well, for me, they are as important as human beings.
02:31But I mean, why did you choose to...?
02:34Yeah, I think there were a lot of reasons.
02:37I mean, one, I love animals. I love animals on screen.
02:41But I think for Sam's character, having...
02:44Because she's so detached from her past life in New York
02:47and she's kind of settled on what the end of her life is going to look like,
02:51it was nice to have one kind of connective presence throughout the film.
02:55Her cat, in my mind, was some New York street cat
02:58that she had since when she grew up in New York.
03:02And I liked feeling like there was some sort of
03:05physical connection point there.
03:08Also, I think in a movie that doesn't have a lot of dialogue
03:11and is about sort of these quiet connective moments
03:14and how we communicate without words,
03:17an animal is kind of the perfect tool to use in that world
03:20and as a way of kind of...
03:23Frodo kind of becomes a way that she communicates with Eric and connects with Eric.
03:26And I think that really helped.
03:29And also just I think the image of a dying person
03:32walking through the destroyed streets of New York City
03:35with a cat by her side just kind of worked for me.
03:38So there was a bunch of stuff.
03:41I can tell you it worked for everyone.
03:44I thought it was amazing.
03:47It really added to the story. So well done.
03:53Of course, it's a very big movie in a way
03:56because we see how the world, New York,
03:59gets attacked by aliens.
04:02So there's a horror element.
04:05With this really small story, though,
04:08but there are still the horror elements.
04:11How do you choose between the suspense and surprise?
04:14Because I do believe there's a perfect balance that you found.
04:17Yeah, I mean, some of that's experimentation, conversations.
04:20I mean, yeah, it's the same way of thinking
04:23of how do you pace a story out
04:26so that there's enough emotional depth but also enough momentum.
04:29So it's just sort of figuring out, okay,
04:32how do we keep both of those engines going?
04:35You need that continued suspense and terror
04:38and the world that's happening around them,
04:41but you also want their internal worlds as well.
04:44It happens all throughout the process.
04:47In the writing phase, you're feeling out how this is going to work
04:50and how this is going to balance.
04:53Then you film it and you see how much these actors are bringing to these characters
04:56and you can lean on certain things there
04:59so you're just kind of constantly playing with those scales
05:02throughout the process.
05:05Then, obviously, in editing, you're really honing in on,
05:08okay, we can actually tighten this thing up or maybe we should put something in here.
05:11So it's just always trying to feel it out
05:14and feel that so it feels organic.
05:17It's tricky because as you go through it,
05:20you start becoming numb to some of the scares
05:23and you're like, oh, maybe this isn't landing anymore.
05:27You're not going to be surprised by it.
05:30So you have to also think back on what was the original intention here
05:33and what were we aiming for?
05:36So it's just a lot of open conversations with yourself and with your team.
05:39I think that's the most difficult thing about horror movies,
05:42have that good balance between.
05:45But I think you did an amazing job.
05:48Thank you again and I hope it does as well on VOD as it did in cinema.
05:51Thank you so much.