Emily Blunt on ‘A Quiet Place 2’: It explores metaphor of fractured feeling in the air

PTI, Mar 11, 2020, 3:48 PM IST

New York: From fears of parenthood to capturing the “untethered” feeling across the world, there is a lot to take away from “A Quiet Place 2”, says Hollywood star Emily Blunt.

The original horror film in 2018 revolved around the Abbott family, featuring Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe, trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where alien monsters hunt humans by sound.

The sequel, Emily said, is about empathy and if one looked closely, also about how humans need to stick together to survive the odds.

“People are feeling that on a global scale, the idea of borders shutting down, of not extending your hand to your neighbor. That fractured, untethered feeling is in the air. The film does explore that as a metaphor,” Emily said in a group interview with select international media here.

“I find the film very hopeful as ultimately the characters discover that as human beings we want togetherness, we want to feel that we are meant to be together. It’s an awakening for Cillian’s (Murphy) character who has been broken by this environment.”

In “A Quiet Place 2” the Abbott family must venture out and face the terrors of the outside world in its fight for survival.

Emily, known for starring in films like “The Devil Wears Prada”, “Mary Poppins Returns” and “The Girl on the Train”, felt a bit of “pressure” going in with a sequel but all her fears vanished when her writer-director-actor husband narrated the opening sequence to her.

“There was never really any intention of doing another one initially, we were so reluctant to do another one. When John came up with an opening, and I remember him pitching it to me, it was an undeniably great idea that I thought I’d be an idiot to not do it.

“Both of us tried to abandon the idea that it was a pressure situation and just see it as part two, as what happens to this family… It’s probably my most personal work. Some of the scenes I found more harrowing than the others if it had to do with the loss of a child, a partner,” she added.

The sequel reunites Emily and Krasinski on-screen briefly, with the latter featuring in a special appearance apart from writing and directing the film.

Emily said the couple “really aligned creatively” so working together became effortless.

“Once the domesticity is out of the window, you’re in a different mode when you’re at work. You’ve to find a rhythm where you’ve to allow the fact that your partner is a slightly different person when at work. That was the learning curve we went on and it was pretty easy to figure out.

“John is a force, he comes on set like a hurricane and I know him at home doing finger weaving with our children! It’s kind of arresting watching him like that,” she added.

“A Quiet Place 2” places both the children, Millicent and Noah, as the leads, trying to come into their own.

For the 37-year-old actor, giving children the centerstage and fighting for their survival as a parent was the most organic narrative to follow.

“It’s that feeling, as soon as you have your children, you’re preparing them for eventually having to be without you. It’s a very deep theme which resonates with people, it certainly did with me.

“The idea that how far will you go to protect your children. This character, Evelyn, possesses this maternal ferocity that will take her to the end of the earth for her children.”

Closer home, though, Emily said her daughters do not like watching her or Krasinski on screen as they find their parent’s job “really unnerving.”

“They saw ‘Mary Poppins’ once and that’s it. They don’t like seeing me as anything other than Mummy. They hate seeing me like this. I went home last night and my youngest one says, ‘wash your face.’ They don’t like make-up, heels, anything because they assume I’m going somewhere. My daughter saw the trailer and was so weirded out!”

Exclusively distributed in India by Viacom18 Studios, the Paramount Pictures movie is slated to hit the screens on March 20.