John Krasinski: 
On the silence, sound and 
scares in ‘A Quiet Place’

INTERVIEW

“I’m an emotional dude, so I’ll 
tell you everything.”
John Krasinski has written 
a love letter into a horror 
movie. 
A 
self-proclaimed 
scaredy-cat 
with 
eyebrows 
made of charisma, his passion 
is contagious as he talks about 
his latest film, one that is 
simultaneously 
unexpected 
and organic. In an interview 
with 
The 
Daily, 
Krasinski 
opens up about the on and off-
screen scares that came with 
his experience of co-writing, 
directing and starring in “A 
Quiet Place.”
Set in a post-apocalyptic 
world 
where 
mysterious 
creatures hunt by sound, the 
horror-thriller 
centers 
on 
the Abbott family and their 
reliance on silence for survival. 
“I don’t think that anyone 
would consider me the horror 
guy,” Krasinski admitted, and 
considering he is widely known 
as “The Office”’s small-town 
heartthrob Jim Halpert, few 
would disagree.
And yet, he found himself 
drawn to the story beneath the 
scares. Krasinski read the script 

a few weeks after he and Emily 
Blunt, his wife and co-star, had 
their second daughter.
“I was already in the state 
of terror of keeping this girl 
safe, keeping this girl alive,” 
Krasinski said, recalling the 
usual fears that come with new-
founded fatherhood. “When I 
first read the script … I saw that 
it could be a huge metaphor for 
parenthood. I was wide open for 
this one and it connected to me 
in a big way. ”
Krasinski took on the rewrite, 
drawing from his own haunts 
to lead each scene back to the 
central family dynamic. He 
deeply 
connected 
with 
his 
character, Lee, a father whose 
main priority is to keep his family 
safe, 
while 
simultaneously 
crafting a beautiful foil in Lee’s 
wife, Evelyn, a mother who 
persists to nurture her children 
despite the surrounding threats. 
An intricate relationship was 
born on screen and, secretly, 
Krasinski thought of his own 
wife for Evelyn’s role throughout 
the rewrite.
Blunt was working on “Mary 
Poppins Returns” during the 
time 
of 
Krasinski’s 
rewrite 
(“A small little indie movie,” 
Krasinski joked) but once she 
read the script, she was sold on 

the role.
“I’ve been firsthand seeing 
how she makes decisions and 
how incredibly smart she is,” 
Krasinski said. “So when she 
actually signed onto the movie it 
truly is the greatest compliment 
of my career because I’ve seen 
what it takes to get her to say yes 
to things.”
From there, Krasinski and 
Blunt drew from their personal 
relationship to keep honest 
communication on set. The duo 
was constantly talking about the 
film, the relationship that they 
were portraying on screen and 
the visual and audio elements 
that would have to be married 
into a cohesive unit in order to 
pull off the film’s vision.
“We were both really scared 
to work with each other,” he said. 
“But I’ve never collaborated 
with someone who is better. It 
was amazing.”
Krasinski, from the start, 
was all in, generating an energy 
conducive to experimentation. 
“The cool thing was, every 
single member of the crew knew 
that this movie could be special. 
From the production design 
to the cinematography I had a 
vision, but I always love input 
because I think an idea can 
always be beat.”

DANIELLE YACOBSON
Managing Arts Editor

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

His work as an actor was 
especially 
important 
while 
directing and allowed to create 
an intimate space for the central 
four characters. “Instead of 
being a disembodied head that 
yells ‘cut’ and interrupts their 
flow, I actually get to be in there,” 
Krasinski said as he talked about 
working with Blunt and the two 
child stars, Millicent Simmonds 
(“Wonderstruck”) 
and 
Noah 
Jupe (“The Night Manager”).
For 
Krasinski, 
the 
performances themselves were 
never supposed to be scary. 
Drawing from his experience 
on “The Office,” he continued 
to employ creator Greg Daniel’s 
advice: Allow the audience to 
interpret a performance for 
themselves. “I never would have 
done this movie if it wasn’t for 
that advice because I looked at 
this not as a horror movie,” he 
explained. “If I can make you 
fall in love with this family then 
you’ll be scared because you 
don’t want anything to happen 
to them.”
Instead, 
fear 
manifests 
through the sound design and 
the score, which acts as an 
omnipresent narrator created 
by composer Marco Beltrami 
(“The Hurt Locker”).
“(Beltrami) 
wrote 
music 
for so much of the movie,” 
Krasinski 
said. 
“Then 
the 

question was, ‘Can we pull 
music out?’ I thought that that 
would be a difficult conversation 
to have with your composer, 
and he loved it. He was along 
for the ride of this experiment 
and could see how every day it 
changed.”
Finding silence was crucial. 
The Abbott family must figure 
out how to live in a world with 
no noise — sanding paths, 
communicating through lights, 
avoiding wooden boards — in 
order to survive the creatures. 
“Not to sound too like hippy 
dippy or out there, but the truth 
is the most fun was actually just 
shooting scenes in dead silence.”
A large component of creating 
that silence was using American 
Sign Language, the form of 
communication 
that 
gives 
the Abbott family a chance 
at survival. “There’s a lot of 
pretty languages out there, but 
nothing more beautiful than 
sign language,” he said.
For Krasinski, it was non-
negotiable 
to 
cast 
a 
deaf 
actress for the role of Regan, 
the Abbott’s deaf daughter. 
Their inspiration, teacher and 
guide came in actress Millicent 
Simmonds and, at the risk of 
sounding 
corny, 
Krasinski 
gushed on the delicate nature 
with 
which 
Simmonds 
approached teaching ASL.

“I’ve never had someone 
take in all of me when we were 
communicating,” he explained. 
“She said, ‘I think it’s really 
interesting that each of the 
characters is coming out in your 
sign. The father is a guy who 
doesn’t care about anything in 
the world but keeping people 
safe, so all of his signs are very 
curt and short. And Emily is 
trying to give these kids a much 
bigger life. So hers are much 
more poetic and gesture-y.’”
And in silence, “A Quiet 
Place” was able to transcend 
beyond the usual horror film. 
“You can overwrite dialogue, 
you can overwrite backstory … 
and in doing so you rob the two 
characters of having an intimate 
moment,” Krasinski said. “I got 
the rare opportunity to have a 
slow dance with my wife in this 
movie. So much is being said in 
that one dance.”
“You’re catching me in a 
moment where I’ve never been 
more overwhelmed by a response 
to a movie,” Krasinski said, that 
emotional dude spilling out a bit 
more than before. “There’s just 
that moment where you have to 
step to the edge and jump or not. 
I’m really glad I took the I took 
the leap.”

“A Quiet Place” comes to 
theaters Apr. 6, 2018.

An evening with Lorde

In the never-ending whirlwind 
of bar and club shows, it’s easy 
to forget the magic that occurs 
alongside the detail and attention 
given 
to 
full-scale 
concert 
productions. Lorde’s show on 
Wednesday night at Detroit’s 
Little Caesars Arena was truly 
nothing short of pure magic.
Before her set, Lorde received 
some fantastic support from the 
inimitable queen of indie rock, 
Mitski, and explosive hip-hop duo 
Run The Jewels. With an early set 
time, Mitski unfortunately played 
to a half-empty arena while seats 
slowly filled, but was nonetheless 
spectacular, with a set that 
included the anthemic “Your Best 
American Girl” and closed with 
the scathing “Drunk Walk Home.” 
Run The Jewels played most of 
their hits like, “Call Ticketron” 
and “Stay Gold,” upping the 
rhythm and energy of the crowd 
in preparation for our Lorde and 
savior to take the stage.
Within a matter of seconds 
into her opening song “Sober,” 
the entire arena was transformed 
into Lorde’s own dreamscape, 
a 
transmutable 
playground 
for her to share her deepest 

secrets and darkest emotions. 
Background dancers flooded the 
stage when necessary to set the 
scene — an intimate party during 
“Homemade Dynamite” and a 
sensual dance between lovers 
during “The Louvre.” All at once, 
Lorde left everything and nothing 
to the imagination with settings 
as personally subjective as needed 
but altogether objective in their 
presentation.
Lorde 
herself 
transformed 
throughout 
the 
performance, 
starting the show with a sleek black 
outfit, changing midway through 
the show on stage into a flowing 
pink gown that she then later 
exchanged for flared red bottoms 
with a matching ruffled top. 
Lorde took the crowd through the 
emotions of her music with these 
expertly timed changes, reflecting 
the deftly planned setlist. Melding 
cuts from Melodrama and Pure 
Heroine together, Lorde presented 
a young and intense love broken 
down to the sweet innocence of 
intimacy, eventually bringing us 
to a spiteful but reflective post-
breakup independence.
This is the artist of a generation 
at her most affecting, most genuine 
and truly most breathtaking. 
Her show was both a visual 
and auditory spectacle, blended 
perfectly into a story deeply and 

universally resonant. Prefacing 
“Ribs” off of Pure Heroine with 
“This is a song I wrote when I 
was 16,” she reminded the crowd 
of her former outlook as a teen, 
tracing the messy path to young 
adulthood with an incredibly 
perceptive eye. She took the time 
to thank the crowd for being 
with her, reflecting on the fact 
that she was once writing her 
songs alone in a bedroom without 
ever imagining she’d be sharing 
them with arenas full of people. 
Lorde also interposed a gorgeous 
cover of Frank Ocean’s “Solo” 
between “Writer in the Dark” and 
“Liability,” reflecting on her own 
efficacy in the messy melodrama 
of life through these three tracks. 
“Supercut” had the entire crowd 
screaming along, reminiscing on 
the purest, happiest moments of 
life scattered throughout the dark.
If Lorde’s performance showed 
us anything, it’s that we truly do 
not deserve an artist with such 
overwhelming talent. Without the 
words to do her justice, I’ll leave 
you with this: Few artists are able 
to so magnificently capture acute 
emotion the way Lorde has with 
her music, and her performance 
follows suit in a way that is so 
immersive 
and 
tangible 
it’s 
almost impossible not to feel the 
melodrama.

DOMINIC POLSINELLI
Senior Arts Editor

CONCERT REVIEW

Mohja Kahf creates unity 
through masterful poetry

Last Friday, poet Mohja Kahf 
performed readings from her latest 
poetry collection, “Hagar Poems,” 
at the Rackham Amphitheatre.
“Performed” should not be 
taken lightly. Out of the myriad 
of poetry readings I’ve attended 
since the age of 15, Kahf’s was by 
far the liveliest. Kahf’s reading 
was theatrical and inviting, while 
politically informed and incredibly 
moving. She didn’t stand behind 
the podium, but rather in the 
center of the stage, moving freely 
and expressively as she read.
To me, this came as a bit of 
a surprise. Kahf was born in 
Damascus, Syria, in 1967, but grew 
up in the American Midwest. 
Her 
poetry 
encapsulates 
her 
experience as a Syrian woman 
living in America — all the 
similarities 
and 
differences 
between her native and adopted 
countries.
It’s clear that Kahf’s poems 
carry 
an 
American 
poetic 
influence, evident through their 
use of free verse and informality of 
language. However, Kahf’s work 
is also heavily informed by Arabic 
poetry, reflective of Qur’anic suras 
and the prominence of the Arabic 
oral tradition.
Kahf’s poetry both addresses 
and reinvents stereotypes about 
Muslim women, encapsulating 
issues of femininity, sexuality and 

gender. Her poems ruminate on 
Islamic traditions — which non-
Muslims often view with an air of 
ignorance and misunderstanding 
— in a way that is emotional, 
personal and, frankly, hilarious.
Kahf addresses the satisfaction 

of 
self-mastery 
that 
occurs 
during Ramadan, despite the 
almost torturous struggle that 
occurs when beginning to fast, 

the experience of being a mother 
in moments of frustration and 
the misunderstanding, trial and 
devastation that exist in the 
current state of Syria.
In the context of the American 
political moment as well as the 
Syrian 
crisis, 
addressing 
the 
overlapping themes within Kahf’s 
poetry is incredibly important. 
Kahf’s work, however, is infused 
with emotion — pride, sadness, 
anger 
— 
complicating 
these 
themes that are often viewed 
as one-sided. Kahf reveals the 
multilayered and complex issues 
of what it means to be a Syrian 
woman and an American citizen 
today, while allowing room for 
happiness and humor as well.
Kahf invited the audience 
to participate heavily, reciting 
moving call-and-answer poems, 
engaging in conversation and 
asking questions as to what the 
audience wanted to hear from her. 
The audience’s reaction iterated 
the wave of emotions felt as 
Kahf read — passion, sorrow and 
happiness.
Through 
her 
bubbly 
and 
inviting 
personality, 
theatrical 
and potent poetic voice and 
genuine and kind engagement 
with her audience, Kahf created a 
humanizing conversation around 
the current state of Syria that, 
many times, is not talked about. 
Kahf’s reading created a powerful 
unity that spread over the entire 
room — a kind of unity that, today, 
we need more of.

JENNA BARLAGE
Daily Arts Writer

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Her poetry 

encapsulates 

her experience 

as a Syrian 

woman living in 

America — all 

the similarities 

and differences 

between her 

native and 

adopted countries

5 — Friday, March 30, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com