Interview With "A Quiet Place: Day One" Director/Writer Michael Sarnoski

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[00:05:08] Alex Wolff is a crossover here from Pig, now an actor you've worked with on both of your films. Can you just tell me a little bit about what it is that he brings to specifically Acquired Play State 1 that you were looking for in that character?

[00:05:22] So I've never written a role for an actor. So I wrote the character Ruben and then it just sort of became obvious that this would be a really interesting role for Alex to play. I had an incredible time on Pig with him.

[00:05:35] I love him like a brother and he's a very like, I mean, he will go there and he will risk himself in a role. And it's really nice to be in a place with an actor like that where we feel comfortable with each other.

[00:05:46] And he feels comfortable to do that on my set. And I feel comfortable to give him the space to do that. And so he was, I mean, it was just kind of wonderful to see him play a completely different character from Pig.

[00:05:56] I mean, I think a lot of people will barely recognize him from Pig and he just really embodied that character. I don't know. I love working with him and I'm so happy that he came onto this project.

[00:06:07] Yeah, I think he's one of the most exciting young actors we have working today and fully bearded in this film too. I almost didn't recognize him for a brief second. He's got real beard. I'm like 10 years older than him and his beard is so much better than mine.

[00:06:19] And it's really, it's, it's, I'm very jealous of it. How dare he? Yeah. One thing I noticed about this film in contrast to the previous two as well, and I'm wondering like in the screenwriting phase, if this was a unique challenge for you, your characters

[00:06:34] don't yet know to sign, to communicate. So they have to communicate a lot non-verbally. So when you're writing a screenplay, you have so many long stretches where the film goes without dialogue.

[00:06:46] Can you just tell me a little bit about the writing process of how you're able to kind of navigate through that? I mean, I think a big part of that is being focused on the characters, what, what the characters want, what they're feeling.

[00:07:21] And then also just kind of trusting in the actors. I mean, sometimes in the script, it would just literally say they, they gesture to try and communicate this. And some of it was just watching the actors figure out what that would look like.

[00:07:36] And it would be a little sloppy and a little like, oh, do you? So I mean, a lot of that was kind of giving the seeds of it in the script and then working with the actors to sort of figure out what that would feel like.

[00:07:46] And I think that gave it a nice authenticity. Now Joseph Quinn, I know blew up about two years or so ago with the release of Stranger Things season four. Was that how you were introduced to him?

[00:07:57] Or was there something else that he had worked on that you saw him in? How did that come to be? Like a lot of people, I was introduced to him through Stranger Things. And yeah, he was incredible in that and such like a fan favorite character, which, you

[00:08:10] know, I think is sometimes a little nerve wracking. Like, okay, he's really known for this role. Is he going to be able to do something else? And very quickly from talking to him and seeing his audition, it was like, oh, this guy has

[00:08:21] multitudes of like, he just, he is so talented at portraying so many different types of characters. And Joe had to play a pretty hard character, a character that couldn't say a lot, had to convey a lot of emotion, was going through a lot.

[00:08:34] And he had to sort of track that character through the whole movie or a good portion of it. And yeah, I mean, he was incredible at it and we put him through a lot. He was soaking wet and freezing cold half the time.

[00:08:44] And yeah, I could not have asked for a better actor at my side. And speaking of not asking for a better actor, I mean, Lupita Nyong'o, I think is one of the best to ever do it.

[00:08:57] She is remarkable in every single role that I've ever seen her in. And I think here, one of the things that I found to be so remarkable about this particular story was how even in the most dire circumstances, the most depressing and bleak of times, there's

[00:09:13] still humanity that can be found and hope in like these small glimmers. So can you just tell me a little bit about how you and Lupita collaborated to develop Sam as a character? Yeah, I mean, the first step is kind of the script.

[00:09:30] And Sam was really the beginning of this movie for me. That was, you know, initially it was day one, New York City, but then what's the end to that going to be? And the character Sam and what she's going through in her life were the thing that kind

[00:09:42] of hooked me and fascinated me about this idea. So it was very much about exploring this world through her lens and being with her and sort of from everything from the big stuff to the small stuff, making it feel like we were experiencing

[00:09:54] this with her character, boots on the ground. And I mean, she just threw herself into it. There was a lot to deal with in that, you know, she's dealing with this massive event, but she's also dealing with some really trying and difficult and specific stuff that required

[00:10:09] her to dig very deep. And she really did. And she put a lot of thought and a lot of effort into it and was so focused. And she approaches her characters so intelligently and just deeply.

[00:10:22] And I think it really comes across because she's doing a lot in this movie and it feels so natural and her character feels so real and realized. Yeah, I was blown away by what she did. And my final question, an easy one as a fellow New Yorker here.

[00:10:38] What is a slice of pizza that you would go through the end of the world for in order to eat? I mean, I really like Patsy's Pizza. It's I mean, up in East Harlem, Patsy's is beautiful.

[00:10:49] It's one of the older pizza joints in the city and it's pretty special, but it's hard to find a bad slice in New York. There's there's great pizza. Totally agree. Yeah. The best pizza in the country by far, maybe the world even, I would argue.

[00:11:01] I could not think of a more relatable motivation for a character than that when I watched this. So thank you for that. Michael, thank you for your time here today and congratulations on the film and look forward

[00:11:12] to seeing what comes next, because this leap from pig to this huge and I think even bigger things are on the horizon for you. Thank you so much. Take care. Hey, everyone.

[00:11:23] Thank you so much for listening to my interview with the director and writer for A Quiet Place Day One, Michael Sarnosky here on the Next Best Picture podcast. A Quiet Place Day One is now playing in theaters from Paramount Pictures.

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[00:12:01] Thank you all so much for listening as always, and we will see you all next time.