 There were so many great horror moments in the movie. Could you talk us through what makes them so scary? There's a sequence where I'm giving birth, which I think is a pretty hellish sequence that people are sort of disturbed by. So I would say that, having to give birth silently by being hunted by a big creature, not the easiest. What was that like to film? Intense, you know, and terribly exciting at the same time, because I think we all knew the impact that it would have on audience members, not just women who've been through it, you know, I think that it had so many things being infused into it, you know, you've got the agony of childbirth, having to do it silently while you're terrified for your life. So it was just exciting. I've never done a horror movie before. I don't think that my name's the name you see, and you're like, can't wait for a horror movie from that guy. So to me, it was really about family and building this dynamic of this metaphor of parenthood. I mean, for me, we had just had our second daughter three weeks before I read the first script. This is all getting to your answer, I promise. And so for me, it was this wide open emotional experience protecting my kids. The fact that I think one of my favorite scenes was when the kids go into a, there's a silo, I don't wanna give it away, but there's a silo, and they're in peril, potentially drowning in corn. And that was an incredible scene to shoot because, A, it's just very scary to see kids in peril. So as a father, I was very nervous to even shoot it. It's also a stunt, so you hope the kids are gonna be okay. And then when you actually see someone disappear in the corn, it's a pretty, you know you've done a good job because it just looked that scary, and everyone on set is covering their eyes. That was my barometer. I'd always look at the crew, and if people were doing this, I knew we were close. That moment's particularly horrible because it's not anything of a worldly, horrible and a good way, don't worry. That could happen in real life. Yeah, absolutely. It looks like quite easily. Yeah, well I think that was really what, one of the other things that drew me to this movie is that I wanted to ground it, obviously, creatures being in the woods, that are gonna kill you if they hear you, that's sort of out there. But the rest of it, I wanted it to feel really grounded so that you could put yourself in this position. And I think that's one of my favorite compliments that I'm getting from people watching the movie. The idea of making sound, you actually find yourself in the same situation as the family. That's been really, really fun. Can we talk about the creatures? What are you actually acting against? Usually nothing, or a tennis ball, or often John Krasinski in a mocap suit with his huge beard. I think, because he often knew where he wanted the creature in the shot, so you'd see he'd have his little mini monitor, and he'd be sort of moving into the camera and out of the camera, you know. It was really, really cool. So do you remember what moments there are where it's actually him in the mocap suit? It was in the basement, yeah, the standoff. That's awesome, so he actually plays the creatures as well, basically. Sometimes, not always. There was stuntman and then tennis balls, but yeah, and then sometimes John. And how did those creatures develop? Did they sort of change how they were gonna look over time? Well, a little bit. I mean, there was an initial idea, and then I think John wanted them to morph into something just sort of creepier looking and more insectoid looking, because I always find the creatures that scare me the most are ones that look vaguely human as well. I think that throws me. It was like, you don't want it to look like a big old werewolf. He was inspired by Alien and films like that, but I think he also, he designed with ILM, who were just brilliant, who designed the raptors in Jurassic Park, of all things, that the whole head would be like these moving plates, that their whole head is like an orifice for attracting sound, and it was thrilling to see them come together and also horrific when I saw them fully finished. I was like, I missed the tennis ball. You know, one of the best bits of advice, one of my mentors on this is a good friend of mine, named Drew Goddard, who did this movie, Cabin in the Woods. And I think he had 348 creatures in that movie or something. And one of the first things he said was, my only advice when he read the script was, the script's good, it's gonna be good, don't worry, and he said, but make sure you get on this creature immediately because the chance that your first design will be the guy that's in the movie is impossible. A little more like your 12th or 14th design. And he was right, so you have to get into it early and we were thinking about it the whole time. I have tons of notes, tons of drawings. During the shooting, we had an actual creature drawn up and put on a stick so that you could hold them above the kid so they had eye line and things like that. And then while we were editing, this sounds super nerdy, but it's the truth. Behind the actors, you could just see that he wouldn't look right. I don't know how to explain it. We just knew that it didn't look like the movie. The movie started looking so grounded and so real like you were talking about it. You could really feel that you would be in the situation. And he didn't feel like he fit in the world, so we changed him pretty dramatically halfway through editing. And he's still all the same reasons why he looks the way he does. He just looks totally different from our original guy. So it was pretty cool and terrifying. It must be such a treat to make a film with your real life. It is cool, yeah, yeah, it's awesome. What's your funniest or most memorable moment from those days on set? Just probably just the amount of whiskey that we got through to decompress at the end of the day. It was sad, actually, how many bottles were like filling the trash can. It was a very intense shoot, guys. You have to decompress.