Conventional wisdom says that, to be a serious Oscar contender, you need to do a few things: Have a movie about a really heavy subject, open it in the fall, and definitely dont make it a genre. But then, this year, theres both Black Panther and A Quiet Place, two massive hits from early in the year based in very specific genres—superheroes and horror, respectively—that nobody has stopped talking about, even as more “traditional” awards contenders have arrived as competition.
On this weeks holiday edition of Little Gold Men, two stars of those films join to discuss what made them so popular and how they stuck around. First up, Vanity Fairs Yohana Desta talks to Black Panther star Lupita Nyongo about the “very, very deep discussions” she had with director Ryan Coogler while preparing to play Nakia, the deleted scene that reveals even more about her relationship with TChalla, and her starstruck encounter with Cicely Tyson at the Governors Awards. Then, Mike Hogan sits down with A Quiet Place writer, director, and star John Krasinski, who reveals the very real stress he felt when asking his wife, Emily Blunt, to play the lead role, and what hes learned about awards season.
Listen to this weeks episode of Little Gold Men above, and find transcripts of both interviews below. You can also find Little Gold Men on Apple Podcasts, where you can leave a rating and a review.
Vanity Fair: How are you?
Lupita Nyongo: Im doing well, thank you.
Are you working on anything right now or are you just having some down time finally?
I mean, I think Im on celebrity duty. I consider that work. But Im not acting at the moment, no.
Lets get into it. Black Panther, it feels like it came out yesterday but also 2 million years ago, but I do wanna talk about craft and all that sort of thing. I just wanna start: When you were handed the character of Nakia, where did you begin in terms of doing the work to build that performance and build that character?
Thats a really interesting question. Like all Marvel things, everything is top secret, so I only really saw, read the script, when I arrived in Atlanta to start the boot camp, the physical operation for the role, as well as a rehearsal process, which was really a workshopping of the screenplay that Ryan [Coogler] invited all of us to be a part of. It was six weeks before we started shooting when I read it for the first time, and its crunch time. Theres no funny business—you have to get down to it. The first process, I think it started with being in very, very deep discussions with Ryan about what was on the page and where he wanted it to go. It was a development process, to be very honest, and we would meet with him and work, in groups, work on specific scenes. Hed do one-on-ones with us and then wed meet in groups as well and work on scenes and just refine, refine, refine. It was a script that was changing all the time, and it changed until the very end. Id say that meeting Nakia, that first scene where shes in Nigeria and freeing these women, we had a lot of discussions about her being a lone wolf and also being, shes an activist and she is fighting to give power back to women and to people in different areas. That spirit of an activist, someone who knows the rules and breaks them systematically to make the world a better place, was really important. I did a lot of research about spies from history and different women who did amazing things in times when it wasnt expected of them, in ways that werent expected of them.
Were there any in particular that you found in your research?
Yeah, but for the life of me, I cant remember right now. Sorry. I dont remember.
No, thats okay. Were there any specific ideas that after you read the script, ideas from your research, that you brought to Ryan and said, “I think this should be in the movie”?
I mean, I think the thing is he was always on a mission. He really didnt wanna have the tradition, oh, the girlfriend, the love interest and thats the only role that she gets to play. That was the mission of his and I think our discussions and he really invited me to offer up ideas to make her more of a person with agency as well as fulfilling the role of being the solace for TChalla. Yeah, I cant point to one specific thing and say this was me. I wouldnt do that. But I think very much the spirit of Nakia is something that both me and Ryan worked very hard on.
I think one of the themes of the process of making this movie that I keep seeing over and over again is just how much research was done for it. I spoke to Hannah [Beachler], the production designer, not too long ago, and we talked about that legendary 500-page bible. Did you ever get to look through that massive, massive document?
Oh yeah, I did. Yes, yes, I asked for it. I had all the past, I had the comic books, and then I had the bible that they created as well. Yes, leafing through that. Nakias from the river tribe and the river tribe had a lot of cultural and aesthetic inspiration from the tribes of the Omo River in Ethiopia and, which else? It was the Surma and I cant remember the name of the other tribe. I researched those folks and even just the look, the makeup, the traditional makeup, and stuff like that. All of that was very much drawn from the research that was in the bible, the river tribe, their symbol is the crocodile. That played a big role in how I envisioned and worked on her fighting skills. Ryan had always said that Okoye is the more—she has more elegant and a wider movement and the grace and tradition to Okoyes movement—and Nakia is street and its fighting, its necessary. She uses whatever is at her disposal, like the heel of her shoe. She did something rougher, more, what did I say? Just more hybrid.
Right.
To Nakias fighting and stuff like that and that married with the crocodile image. A crocodile is an animal that is, you see it on land and its very, very still and then when it attacks, it just barrels forward and its over. That really inspired my way of executing Nakias fighting as well as her grace in just everyday life until she doesnt have to. She doesnt have to be anymore and then shes vicious. Things like that, the hairstyles, everything. There was a lot in that bible.
Yeah, its rich with detail and Ryan did a video for Vanity Fair where it sort of broke down the casino fight scene, and I hadnt realized all the things youre talking about with the street fighting versus the more classical fighting versus superhero fighting. I hadnt realized the depth and depth of thought that went into that. Through that six-week process, thats what you guys were sort of breaking down and working on?
Yeah, but it wasnt as clinical or technical as that. What happened was Ryan started us off the first day talking about these things and those words, you need that kernel, just hearing the word street in juxtaposition to the word classic. Then, it just inspires you and awakens the imagination and stuff like that. We worked very closely with the fight choreographer and stuff like that, but we never, from that point, we never used those terms. It was just clear that was the vision and everybody knew and we all did whatever we needed to do to get to that point. I think thats whats so great about it because we were deliberately talking about these things as we were learning the fighting, but they definitely fired what I would say: Nakia wouldnt do that. This doesnt feel Nakia. There was a shorthand. Thats the Nakia of it all and thats the Okoye of it all and thats the Dora Milaje of it all.
I love that.
But it was very specific. He was very specific to begin with, and then you just talk about it and get to the creative work and then in the end, you realize that its all there.
Im curious, too, because when we first meet Nakia, we get sort of a hint of the spy work that she does. For you, when you were doing your research, when you were learning about this character, did you come up with your Nakia prequel in your mind—your storyline of where she was, what she was doing, and maybe the weeks and months leading up to the moment we meet her in the movie?
Oh yeah. That was all really fun to try to figure out what kind of colorful life this woman had lived until that point. I thoroughly enjoyed that process and in the end, I shared my Nakia bible with Ryan so that we were all on the same page, and stuff like that, about where shed come from. There was also a scene that I think might be in the deleted scenes in the DVD, but I havent seen it, a flashback of when they were children as well. That was also helpful to see Nakia and TChalla as kids and who they were then. It definitely gave me a clue of how she became the woman whom she had become. But I had the whole world to play with. The fact that shes this war dog whose job is to go and infiltrate different parts of the world and observe and report back, it was a lot of fun to do that.
Yeah. Just going back to something that you said, the Nakia bible, was that actually also a typed-up document that you kinda worked on? Was that a document that you had?
Yeah. I did, yeah. I did.
How long was it?
Oh, I have no idea.
Not 500 pages, I assume.
No, it was certainly not 500 pages. But, yeah, the thing about that is it was a document that was continually growing. The thing about creating a character is that its quite chaotic. You strive for order and things like that, but humanity is chaotic. I really dont know. Its not as formal as the Marvel bible. It doesnt have a logo or anything like that. Its just rambling thoughts that I compiled to keep tabs of who she was to share with Ryan. It was really a very internal document.
I think weve talked so much about the lead-up to it, but I think one of my favorite things about when the movie came out is how people instantly went to that character and they were like, “Wait a minute, Nakia is Killmonger without the mess,” and Im wondering if you subscribe to that theory.
Absolutely. I completely do. I mean, thats one of the things that we had a big debate about because I remember the first time I read the script, I went to Ryan and I said, “I side with Killmonger.” I really do. How dangerous is that for our villain to be so empathetic? How do we get our heros story to shine brighter than this one? Because its really powerful. And that was something that didnt terrify Ryan nearly as much as it terrified me. But in the end, I see that as the sophistication of the story, that both the protagonist and one of the protagonists and the villain can be saying exactly the same things. Its just a different means to the same end. It refined the position that Nakia held for me. Exactly what she should say and how she should say it and how she should occupy that space was directly in relationship to the Killmonger storyline.
Right. When I first saw it, like so many people when they saw it for the first time, I was blown away by how radical the idea was and how much Ryan Coogler just went for it in terms of telling the story of black people in America and the relationship to African people in Africa. I was really blown away and I know you said in interviews that you were like, “Wait, is Marvel gonna let you do this?” when he presented his ideas to you about what to do with the movie.
Yeah. It was about, I think, a year, year and a half before. Actually, it was like a year and a half before I actually finally got the script and we were actually working on it and that whole year, I was crossing my fingers cause I was like, I dont know whether this thing is gonna make it to production. That idea that he shared with me and then to read the script and say, “Oh my god, he was not joking. Hes gonna really make this money and they have really green-lit it.” Yeah, its really a powerful thing to behold and at the end of the day, Ryan Coogler, he expresses from a place thats visceral and what hes given us in Black Panther is this discourse between Africa and Africa-America, African-America. Its a discourse long overdue and its such a great discourse to be a part of, the fact that now, the connection over the oceans is really important in this story in such a way that I was in Nigeria and a middle-aged man said to me, “How are my cousins [Chadwick] Boseman and [Michael B.] Jordan?” Thats sentiment that I just never heard expressed so intimately before this film and in such a popular way. I think its really a healthy discourse to continue to have. The film starts it; it certainly doesnt conclude it.
Right. Its still an ongoing conversation, and obviously everybody is waiting to see what happens next. I know you cant really talk about this, but is there anything that you would wanna see Nakia do in the sequel? Maybe something that got left on the cutting-room floor or ideas you have for what you want to see her do in the future?
That is a good, really good question. Its not anything that I have thought about in great detail, to be very honest. At the moment, I dont know. I really dont know. But I definitely want her to keep her man.
I definitely wanna see that, too, in Black Panther 2. But yeah, look, I trust whatever direction Ryan goes, obviously. I was curious if things got left behind maybe in the first one that you were like, “If only we had more time,” or, “If only we could bring this into the future.”
No, I think the film, really, theres the argument that the film is so . . . The film is an argument on the future of Wakanda, right? And what borders really mean. I think its a very taut argument and Nakia starts off by saying Wakanda can help and take care of itself, and the film ends with Wakanda, with the king realizing that for himself through his own personal journey that Wakanda can indeed take care of itself and be a player in the world. The next step is, Okay, now, lets see. Lets see how that plays out. And Im really excited to see because basically, its a rearrangement of world order, right? Thats a very rich, imaginative place to be. I look forward to seeing what they make of that and look forward to Nakia, [who] is part and parcel, very much at the heart of that matter.
Absolutely. I think because this is an awards season podcast, I just wanted to ask about the broader awards season really quickly. I saw that amazing photo of you at the Governors Awards with Oprah [Winfrey] and Cicely Tyson and Shonda Rhimes. Was that the best table in the room? I just wanna know everything about that moment with you and all those women.
I wasnt a part of that table, and I think it was the best table and thats why I made my way over there.
You were like, “Im coming over here, please.”
Oh, yeah. I went obviously to pay my respects and just congratulate Ms. Tyson. At the end of the day, just looking at her reel, the thing they put together of her career and stuff like that, it brought me to tears because really, shes a woman who really paved the way for me and for a lot of us. Shes done it with grace and dignity and humor and shes exactly who she is. Shes uncompromising and shes incredibly beautiful. Through the years, she always had this grace with which she has aged and the beauty that she continues to cultivate is just astounding. Then to be surrounded, yes, by all those other women, Shonda Rhimes and Oprah, I mean, what on earth? I look at that picture and Im like, Wow, I am a very, very fortunate woman.
Absolutely. Was that your first time meeting Cicely Tyson, or had you met her before?
No, Ive met her. She came to see my play at—
Eclipsed?
Eclipsed, yeah. She came to see it.
Thats amazing. Did she come back and speak to you or anything?
Yes, she did. She really did, and she whispered some wisdom in my ear that I will hold close to my heart forever.
Okay, yeah, I wont ask you to share that. That belongs to you 100 percent. Youre like, Dont ask anyway, cause I wont tell you.
Yeah! I just wont.
Speaking about Governors Awards and speaking about the lead-up to the Oscars thats happening, I was wondering how you felt about the conversations surrounding the Best Popular Film category, which we now know is not gonna happen next year. But I was just wondering how you felt about that in general, the addition of this category?
To be honest, when it was happening, I was immersed in a film so I really wasnt a part of that conversation. I was in Jordan Peeles world.
Oh right, yes.
By the time I was catching up to what had happened, it had been announced and unannounced. Thats that.
You had to sort of skip that news cycle of its happening, everyones angry.
Yeah. I havent given it much thought.
Okay. I was just curious, too. I mean, it seems like it will eventually happen and I dont know, its an interesting conversation thats been happening around it, so I was just curious as an Academy member as well how you felt. You mentioned being in Jordan Peeles world, is there anything you can tell us about Us? Has it wrapped yet? And what was that process like?
Yes, it has wrapped. It has wrapped, very happy to say. It comes out March 15. Woot woot! Yeah, it was a phenomenal experience—I can say that much. Jordan Peele has a warped mind and I was honored to be a part of it for the two, three months that we worked on it.
Oh my gosh. Im excited and scared. That warped mind.
You should be very afraid. I can say that.
Also, just to wrap it up, is there any update you can give us on Americanah? Is the miniseries still in the works? Ive just been so curious about this project.
Yes. The miniseries is definitely in the works. Danai [Gurira] is penning it and we are well on our way. It is truly frustrating how long these things take to develop, but I think at the end of the day, we gotta do right by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies book, and I feel like were getting there. Were definitely getting there, and do not lose faith, do not lose hope.
Yes, okay. I mean, above all, I think, I told people I was doing this interview, they were like, “Ask her about Americanah! Please, we gotta know whats happening.” Yeah, youve got a lot of excited fans ready and waiting.
Yeah, no, its definitely still happening. Were still working on it. Its coming. Stay tuned.
Im excited to see it. All right, thank you so much, Lupita.
Okay, thank you. Bye.
Vanity Fair: Im thrilled to be here talking to John Krasinski. John, thank you for joining us here at Little Gold Men.
John Krasinski: Absolutely.
Where are you right now? Are you shooting Jack Ryan at this precise moment? .
Im not shooting at this precise moment. We are still shooting season two, but I am currently at my house about to get on a plane to head to L.A.
Im really excited to talk to you about A Quiet Place. I saw it I think at a theater in D.C. I saw it at one of those nice theaters where you can have drinks and stuff, and it was really funny because you know how theyll come and deliver drinks in these fancy new theaters?
Yes. You have a fancier theater than I, but Ive heard of these futuristic wonders.
Yeah, like iPic, and it turned into a thing because everyone wanted to kill the guy who was bringing in the drinks because he thought that he was going to get all of us killed because everyone watching the movie is just totally terrified of any sound happening.
Exactly.
So, I want to start talking about that. It was a totally new theatrical experience for me. How did you approach that? Were you thinking about that from the beginning, or was that kind of a side effect of a story you wanted to tell? I just was curious about that.
No, it was definitely a side effect. We knew that sound would be a main character if not the main character in this movie. I always knew that. Writing the script, it came to me as a spec script but I rewrote it, and as I was writing it, I was very, very aware that sound would be everything, but I think it was one of those things that you are lucky to be an actor who has an opportunity to direct. One of the things is you get to take all of the lessons that youve learned from being an actor on all these different sets, and one of the biggest lessons Ive ever learned is to collaborate and to leave room for the most organic idea to come in. And so what I mean by that is I always knew that sound would be a huge part of this movie, but I would be lying to you if I said I knew exactly how I was going to go about doing it. So I had a plan, but I always allowed room for that plan to change, and it was kind of the most amazing experience and probably one of the best parts of the whole movie for me. So for instance, the scene where the familys walking across the bridge on the sand, that day that we shot that I remember hearing crew members saying, “Wow, the woods sounds so cool.” Then you realize that people havent been listening to their environments for a long time ever since cell phones and all these things came into being. And then the second thing was when I was watching Emily [Blunt] do a scene with the kids, and obviously with no dialogue and sign language, theres a huge risk there that, “Are people going to get this?” And I remember, I think it was day three or four, I watched Emily do this scene, and of course Emily was amazing in it, but these kids especially were wowing me because there was something so honest, something so emotional about their emoting pure feelings without speaking, and it blew my mind. I remember turning to my producer and [I] said, “Oh my god, this actually might work.” And he was like, “Hey man, it is way too late to be saying, It might work. ”
But I can see that, right? In the end, you cast an incredible spell, but there must be moments where youre thinking, “Are people going to actually sit through a movie where nobody talks for 90 percent of the time?”
I had that exact conversation something like eight hours before South by Southwest, which was one of the best moments in my entire life and career together. But before we went into South by Southwest, I was still editing picture and still editing sound right up until eight hours before when we got on the plane. I remember turning to my amazing sound designers and sound editor, and the stuff where we took sound out, where we. . . . One of my favorite parts of the movie is the envelope that [Millicent Simmondss] character has that, because shes deaf, when we go into her perspective, we cut out sound with her, and I remember thinking, “This is so cool.” And then, after a few weeks of doing it, youre like, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Are people going to go with this, or is this way too out there?” And I remember my sound designer going, “I dont know, man. Lets give it a whirl.” And Im like, “No, we cant just, give it a whirl. This isnt the Wild West. We have to prepare.” So we gave it a shot, and Im so glad we did.
Well, one of the great things about it is, I mean, the kids are incredible. Its obviously a small cast, but you and Emily Blunt, its wonderful to see the chemistry that you presumably, I dont know you guys, but you presumably have together, translate on screen. Was there any trepidation on your part, on her part, of working this closely together? I always kind of feel like with my wife it seems like a good idea in theory if we would work on something, and then were kind of like, “What if were not that couple who works well together?”
Oh my god, no. We were told by everybody before we did it. They were like, “So, youre definitely going to get divorced. Are you sure you dont want to rethink this?” Which I thought, “Oh, yay! Thanks for the positivity.” But it was one of those things where, for me, if Im being really honest, I didnt ask her to be in the movie. I wrote the part solely for her; she was the only person on my mind. We had just recently had our second daughter only weeks before I started writing. She was also in the middle of this tiny indie movie called Mary Poppins [Returns], and so she had things on her mind. And so I just thought, “I cant have her. . . .” The two things I was worried about was that she would say no, and that would make a really awkward dinner conversation, or she would say, “Yes, Ill do it for you.” And thats what I was more afraid of because shes the type of person who would do that. She is that loving, that caring, and that respectful of the fact that this was a big moment in my career and that I was taking a big swing, and so I really didnt want her to say, “Listen, its not my favorite movie, but Ill do it for you.” Because Ive sat next to her, whether its in bed or on the couch or wherever, every time shes made the decision to do a movie, pretty much Ive been there at that moment, and the look on her face and the dedication she has, no one has more class or more taste in this business. And so I didnt want that perfect, instinctual machine to be like, “Well, Im putting all my instincts away and saying yes to you just because youre my husband.” I couldnt have that. As it turned out, we were on a plane one day flying to L.A., and she said, “Are you ready for me to read the script?” I was actually going to Paramount to pitch them how I was going to direct it, and I said, “Yeah, sure. Go ahead.” She had actually recommended a friend of hers already, another actress who we were in very, very early stages of a conversation, and then after she finished it, she looked gray. She looked almost like she was going to be sick, so I was reaching for a barf bag, totally true story, and as I was reaching for the barf bag, she turned to me and said, “You cant let anyone else do this role.” It was kinda like we were in a romantic comedy. I said, “What are you saying to me right now?” And she was like, “Will you let me play this role?” And I just screamed, “Yes,” very, very loudly on a commercial flight, and Im surprised we didnt emergency land in San Antonio or something because when people just scream, “yes,” its not the best.
Well, thats great. So you didnt have to worry after that. You could tell she was in.
Yeah, thats the thing is when she came to it on her own, it changed everything. What I said to her was, “We gotta treat this movie like we treat our marriage. We have to be completely and totally honest at all times. Youve got to go through every line in the script, every scene, and lets be really honest. Is there anything that youd change, is there anything that you think can be better or not necessary, or all those things?” And then I stood in the living room for a few hours and went shot by shot what I was going to do with the movie, and we basically collaborated all those months before shooting so that by the time we got on set, all my directing and all her acting with the director was done. All our rehearsal was done. We were just ready to rock on set.
You guys knew what you wanted to do.
Yep.
And how do you approach directing yourself? Im always curious about that. Do you have someone there as your trusted person, maybe in this case its Emily, to just say, “Just keep an eye on me. This is what Im trying to do; let me know if it works”?
No, its one of those things where first of all, working with me, Im a total diva. I learned that the hard way working with myself. No, its one of those things where if Im really honest, its something where being the actor actually helps me so much as the director. I dont always have to be the actor in the movies that Im directing, which is hilarious because I think I have been in all the movies Ive directed, but its not necessary. What it is for me is the ability to. . . . When actors actually start conjuring a little bit of magic, and I do feel that it is magic, when you hit that zone, something special is happening in the room. The one thing I didnt want to be was the disembodied head behind a monitor yelling, “Cut,” and then just ruining everything the actors were doing. So actually being a guy who gets to stay in the scene and whisper to them, “That was really great. Lets do another one,” or, “Maybe try this,” or whatever, and keep the cameras rolling and keep that magic in the air, it actually makes it feel more like were doing a play altogether, and we just happen to have cameras shooting at the same time.
Thats really cool. Well, its such a fascinating film because it was a huge hit in the theatrical experience that was both an excellent accomplished film and, like, a really fun thing to go do, which I think is really cool and great for the business.
Oh, thats awesome. Thank you for that.
That was my feeling, but also now it is awards contention, which I think it certainly is worthy of that, and I wanted to ask you about, are there films that you look to that kind of set the template where its a thriller, it maybe is even kind of horror, its an alien movie, and its also prestige: Its a film that can be discussed in the same context as other films that we think of maybe as more traditional awards contenders. Get Out kind of was that last year. Are there other movies like that?
Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. For me, first of all, the fact that were in conversation for awards contender is overwhelming and surreal because we just thought it was a really special small movie, and I guess the best movies are: the movies that you dont think could ever be all of the things that this became. You just sort of make it because, “Hey, my wife and I thought it was cool.” That plain and simple. Now I think the people have connected to it in the way that we connected to it, which is the universal idea of parenthood, and family, and protecting your own, and making sure that you fight the forces of darkness out there, and all those things is exactly what I was hoping people would feel because thats what I felt when I was putting it together. And certainly, it was more of the classic, more throwback movies that I was using as a template. So theres Jaws, theres Alien, theres all of Hitchcocks stuff, theres Rosemarys Baby, but those were the ones I was really watching constantly. That said, I had never been a big genre fan, so I had to watch a ton of stuff before directing this because I basically checked out in the early 90s when I saw A Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time, and I was like, “No thanks. I am no longer going to attempt this ever again.”
Because theres a technical aspect to scaring people, an audience. Thats a technical accomplishment.
Yeah. Well, thank you. The truth of the matter is my only way into this was to make a family drama and make a family drama that you Trojan horse as a genre film, and I think thats what the throwbacks do. I think thats what these classic movies that were talking about do. Certainly, I think Jaws is not entirely about a shark. Its about three men overcoming their fears that theyre forced to deal with that sort of manifest itself as a shark. But for me, it was also learning about genre, and the first thing I learned, I was so ignorant. I was so ignorant to not be watching genre this whole time because in the last five or 10 years, some of my favorite films, some of my favorite filmmaking, writing, cinematography, are all done in the genre space. I became a huge fan really, really quickly. You say, Get Out. That movie was mind-blowing in so many different ways, and Jordan [Peele] did such an incredible job. But then theres The Witch. Let the Right One In is one of my favorite movies. Its one of the best love stories Ive seen in forever, the original one. Its just that thing of storytelling becomes kind of magical in genre films, but it wasnt at all my intention. In fact, I remembered this one bit of advice when I was back on The Office. I remember Greg Daniels, who ran the show, one day said to me, “Your job is not to deliver these lines funny. Your job is just to deliver these lines, and if people think theyre funny, theyre funny, and if people think that your relationship with Pam is loving and sad and they cry, thats up to them, but your job is just to deliver it honestly,” which, of course, was because we were in a fake documentary, but also it kind of was a piece of advice that I remembered for the rest of my life. I remember the day that I decided to sign on to this movie as writer, director, and actor, I thought the only reason why I was doing it was because of Gregs advice, and what I took from it was, “Do what you know, and if you do what you know, all the rest of it will fall into place. Youre not going to guarantee that people laugh and youre not going to guarantee that people are scared. What you can guarantee is that they feel something.” And so what I did was I just wrote what I was experiencing. Like I said, we had had our second daughter who was only a few weeks old, so as any new parent knows, youre actually checking their breathing. Youre actually checking to see not only are they happy, are they healthy, but are they alive? And so that sort of raw terror, that much more primal idea of putting something much, much further up the list than yourself, were all the things that were running through my blood, and so I just decided, “Why dont I put that into the movie?” And thats sort of how I went about it is if you can feel something for this family, youll be much more scared when the scares happen, and luckily, it worked out.
Well, and that makes perfect sense that its a metaphor in a sense for a father whos kind of anxiously saying, “Can I protect this family?” But also in the macro sense. Theres something about this story that chimes with a lot of . . . were living in kind of an apocalyptic time. Was that something that you had in mind, too, this notion that things could go really sideways at any moment, and are we prepared for that?
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely that was on my mind, and I think less politically and more universally, and what I mean by that is the idea that I have very young kids. Its very difficult to explain anything in the sort of macro sense right now. Theyre much more into whats tactile, right in front of them. And so this idea of creatures landing and responding to sound, and if you make a sound, youre dead, is so impossible to explain, so you just live through it, and the only thing that matters ever is love and support and sort of a universal sense of family, and thats all this family is about. One of my favorite dichotomies in the movie, actually, is the relationship between Emily and I, and what I mean by that is I loved the dichotomy of surviving versus thriving, that my character, when we lost our son, was so distraught, so completely shut down that he was willing to sacrifice all joy in his life to just ensure that he gets to put his kids to bed every single night. And Emilys whole thing is in the moment of the darkest loss, we must move forward. There has to be hope. And so theres this idea from the smaller sense of decorating this bizarre barn that we have, trying to hang a mobile for the new baby, having a new baby at all. People ask me about that a lot, and its certainly one of those things where, first of all, it was in the spec script the idea that she was pregnant, but for me, it was an idea of if there was a night where they created a child, the conversation would come up of whether or not this is a smart thing to do, and Emilys character being so hopeful that theres a new dawn coming that she says she has to go through with this, I just thought was one of the more powerful messages you could tell, and so thats where all that came from.
Thats great. So hows it going with fatherhood now? Have you chilled out a bit, or are you still a nervous wreck?
I just run around the house consistently, but never make a sound. My kids think Im bizarre. No, fatherhood is . . . you know whats funny is I was trying to sort of wrap it all up for a friend whos about to have a child, and I basically said, “Theres nothing I can say because its all been said, and the beautiful part about fatherhood is all the clichés are true.” Thats what I keep telling him is all the clichés are true, which is like the Grinch, your heart grows 12 sizes, the universe completely changes, you see colors differently; everything just changes, and that idea that you have put someones life in front of your own at all cost is a beautiful, terrifying, and wonderful thing. Its all those things wrapped in one.
Let me just tell you one thing: As a Yankees fan, Im a little concerned that youre going to be raising these children as Boston Red Sox fans. Is that in the cards here?
Oh, 1,000 percent. Yeah, we already painted a Green Monster in both their rooms. The wall, not the actual mascot. No, its nice that . . . I will tell you, one of my favorite days ever is when a friend bought them, I dont know if youve seen these new toys. Im not quite sure what they are, but they all have giant eyes. Its like all these different animals that have huge colored eyes, and you see them at the airport or whatever. Well, they made those for [the] Red Sox, and its just basically a ball of skin with a hat and a jersey, with giant eyes, and they call it Red Sox. So the girls now come up to me every morning saying, “Daddy, you love Red Sox. Daddy, you love Red Sox.” And Im really concerned that they think that when I say I love the Red Sox, I love these bizarre creatures. Thats my biggest fear.
Did you get to watch any of the World Series with the kids?
It was too late for them to stay up, but I actually made it to game one. Im sorry for all the Dodgers fans out there, but I was lucky enough to be invited to game one, and it was at Fenway, and I thought, “I have to go to this game.” I was actually working, but I had to go to the game right after I finished work because I knew they werent coming back. I knew they were going to win it in L.A., and all my Dodgers fans friends hate me now.
All right, well, I ruefully congratulate you on that.
Thank you.
I noticed you were all over the get-out-to-vote Twitter. Are you a political guy at the end of the day? Is that something thats important to you?
Yeah, I think thats more important than . . . Politics, I think, is always one of those things that Ive been . . . I was raised that politics and religion and all of those things stay at the dinner table, which obviously has evolved since then, but what I do believe is in the soul of this country, I feel like its one of those things where. . . . One of the biggest things of my career is getting to know the military and getting to be more involved with the military after 13 Hours and Jack Ryan, and I remember asking a group of Navy SEALs, I said, “Where do you guys stand politically?” Ever since then, that question of, “Where do you stand politically,” has always felt slightly bizarre to me because their answer was so good, I almost felt stupid for asking them. And I said, “Where do you guys stand politically?” And they said, “The one thing you learn when you put your life on the line for your country is that politics and politicians will come and go, but its the soul and the fabric of this country that were fighting for.” I was like, “Oh my god.” It overwhelmed me at that moment, and it stuck by me for the rest of my life. So, for me, whatever you feel and whatever you believe in, if youre learned and youre boned up on why you like the candidate you like, then go vote however youre gonna vote, but vote for your own country. Get out there and do it. So voting, to me, is nonnegotiable.
Yeah. So tell me more. Im interested in the interactions that youre having with actual folks in the armed services as you make Jack Ryan. How does that work?
Well, for Jack Ryan, it was really more about getting to know the CIA. So it all started for me, I come from a huge military family, so I have 11 aunts and uncles and cousins that have served and are currently serving, so for me, the military was something that was omnipresent in my life. We were constantly having cousins or aunts and uncles ship out, ship back in. We were celebrating their safe return. We were nervously anxious when they left. So it was something that was in my life the whole time, and so Ive always wanted to do something in our, its bizarre to say, but I always wanted to do something in our business that would somehow represent to them or that I could somehow represent them in a tiny, tiny fraction by doing a story like 13 Hours. So when 13 Hours came around, I jumped on immediately because it was one of those things of heroism for no other reason but heroisms sake, that way beyond the political realm of emails and all those things was actually six men that night who put their lives on the line not knowing what the outcome would be, not knowing any politics whatsoever. That night, there were no politics—there was just heroes.
Ever since then, I kind of got to know all these guys who were training me, and getting to pick their brain and getting to meet their friends and their crews, and now going to these charity events and all this stuff, you realize that, Im saddened to say that I think the idea and respect for the military has diminished only because the awareness for it has diminished slightly. I think that I am trying to consistently bring that back up over and over, and I think its one of those things that we have to constantly remind people to say thank you or just say a prayer or something. And I think, for me, the coolest part about Jack Ryan this year was not only representing the CIA, which is a whole different group of heroes who are putting their lives on the line, but also we got to do the premiere on a warship with the USO. So we did the premiere basically just for the men and women in the armed services, and for me, thats what its all about.
Thats pretty cool. And how many of those folks are fans of The Office? Probably 80, 90 percent of them, right?
It was pretty awesome, Im not going to lie. There were Office fans, and as everybody knows or doesnt know, these deployments can be long and blow through the holidays and things like that, so they were saying that The Office not only got them through one time, but over and over I think people were telling me, “Yeah, Im on my sixth Office run or my seventh Office run.” And I was like, “Oh my god.” Were just so lucky to be a part of their lives while theyre out there.
Well, you know what people say that for all of the new kind of content and all of the stuff, the infinite amount of stuff that you can watch on Netflix, its like 20 percent of it is just people watching The Office at any given time.
Is that true? Oh my god.
Nobody knows, but thats the suspicion.
I love it. Its one of those things where I think were more popular now than we were when we on television, which is crazy. It is a show that people really seem to find over and over, and it blows our minds. Its one of those things where I think at every awards show or whatever people say, “Id like to thank the fans,” but we actually have to thank the fans because we wouldnt be on air if it wasnt for the fans, and what I mean by that is we were going to be canceled every week the first season and the first half of the second season because nobody knew what it was. NBC didnt know what it was. And two things happened: one, the second season was all original stuff and it was really, really good, but also iTunes had come out, so NBC saw that people were paying $1.99 for a show they could watch for free, and their brains exploded. They were like, “All right. Well, we cant stop this. This looks like its just going to make its way into the world.” And so we genuinely owe everything to our fans for that show.
Thats amazing. Well, I think its so cool that you and Steve Carell are both on the circuit this year in the Oscar hunt. To your point earlier, its a comedy but its at least a deadpan comedy, and nobody was like . . . well, I guess Steve Carell was acting pretty ridiculous. But anyway, both of you guys are now Oscar folks. Have you run into each other on that circuit?
I havent run into him. Ive literally missed him at several events. I think he was on the stage at one of these contender events or something just before I was, and its one of those things where seeing him is always wonderful. I know hes doing Saturday Night Live this week, and if I wasnt flying to L.A. right now, I would so be there, and so there to support him not only because hes my friend, but I think hes also the funniest human being thats ever lived, so going to witness that would be fun.
Well, listen, before I let you go, and this is such a fun conversation. Thank you for taking time.
Oh man, thank you.
I always like to ask people about their past awards night experiences. Do any stand out in the various events that youve been to over the years?
Oh, well, for me personally, or awards shows that Ive seen and remember things from that?
Oh, I guess either one. I was thinking you personally, but you can answer as you wish.
Well, I think for me, again, I havent done the awards thing. I was never nominated for The Office or anything like that, so I dont do the awards thing all that often, so this is my first real push on it, so Im sort of gathering experiences as we go. But two things about certainly the Oscars that I remember vividly, I remember watching the Oscars when Tom Hanks won for Philadelphia, and I have no idea why, but I felt so moved when he won, and I was younger. I was probably, I dont know, 13, 14. And I remember pushing in a VCR tape to record his speech because it was so beautiful, and I had missed the first third of it because he was obviously speaking, and I had the idea to do it too late. And then the next morning, the Boston Globe where I was living ran the whole speech, and I remember thinking that this is one of those things where awards can seem like, “Oh, its just a Hollywood thing or whatever,” but when people make inspirational words and make their experiences universal, thats hopefully the power of what we do. Were all so lucky to be doing what were doing in this business, and it is a giant fantasy camp, but every once in a while, you can have something that means something to someone else, and I think that thats always the beauty of what to celebrate for me. So I remember that speech very vividly.
Thats great. Well, I wish you all the best, and thank you for coming by to talk to us today, and good luck with the rest of the season.
Absolutely. Thanks so much for doing this.
All right, thanks, John.
See ya!
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