That Bathtub Scene In A Quiet Place Was As Brutal As It Looks
In an ironic juxtaposition with the whisper-heavy premise of the film, "A Quiet Place" burst onto the scene with much fanfare in 2018 and did what so few original movies could do in recent years — come out of nowhere, rely on strong marketing and the strength of its original premise, and find blockbuster-level success at the box office. Bonus points: it even forced otherwise rude and noisy audiences to have to quiet down in order to lose themselves in the movie. A compelling plot, effective scares, and serving as a crash course in theater etiquette? "A Quiet Place" was an unqualified win and a net-positive all around!
Directed by and starring John Krasinski, the film follows one nuclear family in a post-apocalyptic nightmare as extraterrestrial creatures, specially evolved to rely on their sense of hearing, land on Earth, and promptly kill off large swaths of humanity. The movie drops us right into the middle of the action, as Krasinski's family patriarch Lee Abbott, Emily Blunt's protective Evelyn, Millicent Simmonds' tenacious Regan (who also happens to be hard-of-hearing, like the actor in real life), and Noah Jupe's willful Marcus all struggle to survive in near-perfect silence. The premise lends a sense of built-in thrills to every single act they carry out in their everyday life.
Even beyond the objectively fascinating elevator pitch of the movie, from a script by Bryan Woods, Scott Beck, and Krasinski, the real strength of "A Quiet Place" comes from how varied in tone, scale, and creativity each set piece and tension-building sequence reveal themselves to be. A rusted nail sticking out of a rickety staircase, for example, ends up creating just as much dread as an all-out assault on the Abbott family farm once things inevitably go awry. And things absolutely go awry, as evidenced by Evelyn's pregnancy coming at the worst possible moment. Her bathtub delivery easily stands as one of the highlights of the thriller, an eventuality that any viewer likely anticipated the minute it was revealed early in the film that Blunt's character was expecting.
As with so many harrowing behind-the-scenes stories of countless movies past, this sequence deserves its own special place among its peers. As it turns out, the cast and crew found themselves just as affected by filming the scene as many of us did while watching it.
'The crew was really upset by it'
Shhhhh, not so loud. Do you hear that? That's the sound of the cast and crew of "A Quiet Place" spilling the beans on just what went into crafting one of the most memorable sequences of the (so far) two-movie franchise. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly soon after the first film arrived in theaters in April of 2018, both Emily Blunt and John Krasinski (who are, of course, a real-life couple, as well) opened up about the rigors involved in bringing to life such a challenging and pivotal scene. To hear the two stars of the show tell it, the amount of hard work involved in preparing, rehearsing, and ultimately shooting this moment put an incredible strain on everyone involved — not just the performers. As Blunt put it with a laugh:
"It's so awful, isn't it. The good thing about it though was that John was like, 'We're going to spend five days doing it and then we are done.' He was very considerate because he knew it was going to be physically demanding. I said, 'Let's just do it then.' And then we were both toasted by it. Everyone on set was feeling rather fragile. The crew was really upset by it."
That's not terribly surprising, given the amount of visible effort Blunt puts into her character as Evelyn goes into labor while an unwelcome alien intruder prowls around inside the house, searching for any little sound that would alert it to potential prey. The stakes of our co-lead bringing a new life into such a horrific world lend all the stress and tension needed to make this sequence sing, though it clearly had an effect on the crew, as well. For his part, Krasinski was quick to heap praise on his leading lady, though he acknowledged that, according to the article, "no one on the crew could make eye contact with Blunt."
"She changes the air in the room. It's not acting, it's like you are witnessing a moment you shouldn't be witnessing. I have a whole new respect for her. Only one guy would talk to her and he said, 'I don't think we were supposed to watch that. None of us should have been there.'"
'So many fun things to play with'
If it seems like the actors brought a lot of their personal experiences into these fictional characters, you'd be right. Krasinski has spoken previously about how his character's central struggle in "A Quiet Place" taps into very real concerns about family and the idea of how having children changes a person. Krasinski and Blunt happen to have two children together, which coincidentally or not reflects the family dynamic of their characters at the beginning of "A Quiet Place" (well, after the opening prologue where their youngest child gets snatched away by an alien in a heartrending sequence, at least). While remarking on giving birth to her real children, however, Blunt had a funny response: "I don't think I could have done that silently."
But as for her fictional counterpart, it was apparently nothing less than a blast to embody such a frightened but strong character at her most vulnerable moment.
It was exciting and then it was just cool to do the different levels — so many fun things to play with: the threat of the creature, the contractions building and having to be quiet and terrified. It's a lot to play with."
The highly anticipated 2020 sequel saw Blunt and Simmonds move into more overt co-leading roles, filling the void left by Krasinski's deceased character (though he remained to direct the sequel and act in a series of flashbacks, as well). The franchise is now set to expand even further with a spin-off film, as well as a third movie in the main series. But wherever the future of the "A Quiet Place" franchise goes, the very solid foundation was first laid with the 2018 film and, arguably, this one bathtub-set turning point where Blunt had to bring everything she had to accomplish one of the film's absolute best, most gripping scenes.