John Krasinski on directing wife Emily Blunt in horror movie A Quiet Place

THEY’RE one of Hollywood’s most down-to-earth couples, yet John Krasinski says he was afraid to ask his wife Emily Blunt to star in his astonishing new horror movie.

It’s been an odd year or so in the Krasinski-Blunt household.

While John Krasinski was thinking up terrifying scenarios for his new movie,
A Quiet Place, his wife Emily Blunt was all spoonfuls of sugar, stepping into Julie Andrews’ shoes as the new Mary Poppins.

“She was wearing the brightest colours and singing the cheeriest songs,” says Krasinski, laughing, “and I was in a room writing about a family dealing with trauma — it was very dark.”

THE ONLY THING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT A QUIET PLACE

FIRST LOOK AT EMILY BLUNT AS MARY POPPINS

Husband and wife John Krasinski and Emily Blunt have worked together for the first time on the silent but deadly new horror film A Quiet Place. Picture: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images/AFP

When it came time to shoot A Quiet Place, however, the two were in synch: the acclaimed horror film, about a family trying to survive in a world ravaged by creatures that attack at the slightest hint of sound, marks the first time the couple have worked together.

Krasinski, who directed and stars as the husband and father, insists he didn’t cast Blunt as the wife and mother in his film just so he could torture her. In fact, he wasn’t even planning on asking her.

“Having watched her go through childbirth — a very rare experience most directors don’t have — I knew she would be the best for the job,” he says with a laugh. “But I didn’t want to ask her because I was really nervous, to be honest. It could go one of two ways: one in which she says no, and that makes for very awkward dinner conversation, or she says, ‘Yes, I’ll do it for you’ — and I never wanted that.

BEST APOCALYPTIC MOVIES TO DOWNLOAD

Krasinski said directing Blunt on the set of A Quiet Place made him realise “why she is as good as she is”. Picture: Paramount Pictures

“So when she arrived at the idea that she wanted to read the script all on her own, and then when she said, ‘You can’t cast anyone else in this’, it felt like she was proposing to me. It was like, ‘Are you saying what I really think you’re saying?’”

A Quiet Place doesn’t seem too far out of left field for Blunt, who has played with action and emotional turmoil across films such as Looper, Edge Of Tomorrow, Sicario and The Girl On the Train. She even joked with Late Show host Stephen Colbert that there’s something “sinister” about the much-loved magical nanny she plays in Disney’s upcoming Mary Poppins Returns.

For Krasinski, on the other hand, it seems an odd turn. The 38-year-old is best known as everyman Jim from the US version of The Office and, as a fan, doesn’t even like watching horror movies.

He explains what attracted him to A Quiet Place was not the scares, but the tears.

WHY GIAAN IS HAPPY TO BE ON DRIER GROUND

VANCE JOY’S FAVOURITE MELBOURNE GIGS

“I did it for the ‘making you cry’ part. I connected so much to the family aspect of it. Truly, my DNA is all over this movie because I did it as a father. As weird and as dark as it sounds, in the emotional core of the movie is a love letter to my daughters.”

Krasinski and Blunt are parents to Hazel, 4, and Violet, almost 2. Both strongly connected to a line the mother asks the father in the film: “Who are we if we can’t protect them?”

“To me, that’s what the movie is about,” says Krasinski. “It really is an allegory for parenthood.”

Having avoided scary movies for most of his life, Krasinski took a deep-dive into the genre in the name of research. “If you looked at my iTunes, it would look like I have a serious problem because I watched only horror movies straight for a year,” he jokes.

Blunt and Krasinski with their A Quiet Place kids — Simmonds and Jupe — at SXSW. Picture: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Krasinski as deadpan everyman Jim in sitcom The Office. Picture: Supplied

And as stoic survivalist Lee in A Quiet Place. Picture: Paramount Pictures

His masterstroke in A Quiet Place is building immense tension with barely a word muttered.

Krasinski gives much credit to his deaf co-star, 15-year-old Millicent Simmonds — so wonderful in last year’s Wonderstruck with Julianne Moore — for being his guide to living in a world with no sound.

“I’m pretty sure she’s not from this planet; I’m pretty sure she’s an actual angel,” he says. “It was non-negotiable for me to cast a deaf actress in this role, but I didn’t know I was going to get as lucky as I did with Millie. ”

As director, he also learnt a lot about how Blunt does what she does so well.

Before filming, Krasinski ran into director Rob Marshall, who was editing Mary Poppins Returns. Talk naturally turned to their star in common.

The family in A Quiet Place adapted their lives to avoid falling prey to extraterrestrial creatures. Picture: Paramount Pictures

“Rob said, ‘When do you shoot?’ I said, ‘Next week’. He said, ‘Oh that’s amazing, you’re gonna see’. I said, ‘Yeah I know, I love her so much’. He said, ‘No no no, you’ll see’. I said,
‘I know, I’m her biggest fan’. He said, ‘Nope, not until you’re in the room and she does what she does will you actually know why your wife is as talented as she is’.

“I thought I absolutely knew how good Emily was! But he was right. That bathtub scene that’s in the trailer — we only did one take of that. What she did, the air left the room, all of us couldn’t breathe. It was just so incredibly emotional.

“I immediately emailed Rob Marshall and said, ‘I now know why she’s as good
as she is’.”

A Quiet Place opens on Thursday, April 5.