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Often on a film set, the atmosphere is one of cathedral-like silence. Crew scamper around whispering, the admonishment of ‘Quiet please!’ is shouted regularly, and any on-set dialogue is captured by mics and relayed noiselessly through headsets to those mutely watching proceedings. Amid the disused steelworks of Seneca in Buffalo, New York, on a bright August day before the 2019 Labour Day weekend, the production of A Quiet Place 2 observes no such repose.
In a film with very little dialogue, there’s no need for headsets, and in the cavernous mill building, as dust motes swirl, John Krasinski is enthusiastically bellowing orders to his buzzing team. An upbeat but commanding presence, he’s working fast to make use of the precious hours he has with his two child actors before they have to attend school. “Cillian’s going to come in and hopefully not decapitate my wife!” he jokes cheerfully as he maps out a scene where real-life spouse, Emily Blunt, fearfully rushes through the building with her on-screen kids before being ambushed by Cillian Murphy’s mysterious stranger, whirling her round and clamping a hand over her mouth. As the takes play out, Krasinski shouts out enthusiastic encouragement (“Great!” “More of that!”), and moves with the action as though he’s in the scene with the actors. He was a central character in the first film as well as writer/director, and the muscle memory of performing with this close-knit cast apparently hasn’t left him.