The star opened up about donning a motion capture suit to portray the bloodthirsty monsters while sitting down with Jimmy Kimmel.
In John Krasinski's A Quiet Place, the affable actor pulled triple duty, directing, co-writing and starring in the tense thriller. However, it turns out his involvement went even deeper than anyone realized.
The star sat down on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday, during the show's week-long trip to Brooklyn, New York, and Kimmel got Krasinski to open up about a secret role the actor played in the acclaimed horror thriller that really no one knew about.
"Nobody knows it because I've kept it quiet," Krasinski said, as he got a little embarrassed by Kimmel's line of questioning.
As it turns out, Krasinski didn't just star as Lee Abbot, a devoted father doing his best to protect his family from the bloodthirsty aliens who have overrun the planet -- he also plays the murderous extraterrestrial beasts themselves.
The actor donned a full-body motion capture suit and provided much of the physical performances for the horrifying alien antagonists, and Kimmel had a photo from the set to show what it looked like.
"The commitment level was very high," Krasinski joked, as Kimmel showed the audience a picture of the actor wearing a skin-tight mo-cap suit and screaming into the sky while portraying one of the vicious predators.
"The amazing people at [Industrial Light and Magic] asked, 'So how does the creature move?' and I said, 'Well, this is how I think he's gonna crawl,'" Krasinski said, recalling how the whole opportunity came about. "And they said, 'Well, why don't you throw on the suit?' And I was like, 'Totally!'"
"Then they took that picture and I thought I was auditioning for Lion King," he added, laughing at himself.
In the film, Krasinski starred opposite his real-life wife, Emily Blunt, who played his wife in the movie as well. While Kimmel has been friends with Krasinski for years, he still pointed out that casting his wife in the movie could have been a dicey proposition if something (such as an ugly divorce or even just a marital spat) might have happened right in the middle of production.
"To direct your wife in a movie, it's a risky thing to do," Kimmell said.
"Yeah, that's why I didn't ask her to do it," Krasinski said. "It's true. I never asked her to do the role. I wrote the movie with her in mind… but I got so scared.
According to the star, there were two things that made him nervous. "First, that she would say 'no,' because that's just gonna be an awkward dinner," he said. "But I was actually more afraid that she'd say, 'Yes, I'll do it for you."
"I've been next to her when she's made all these amazing decisions and she's without a doubt the classiest, smartest, most dedicated actress I've ever known," Krasinski said, marveling at his wife's regalness. "And when you see how much she puts into every role, I didn't want her to come to set just for me."
Apparently, he never even asked her to read the script. In fact, it was Blunt who asked to read it while the two were on a plane trip together.
"[When she finished], she genuinely looked sick," he recalled. "And I was reaching for a barf bag thinking she was gonna throw up, and instead she said, 'You can't let anyone do this movie.'"
"It was like a romantic comedy, where she was like proposing to me? She was like, 'You have to let me play this part,'" he continued. "And I think I just screamed 'yes' on this flight."
In the end, the two starred in one of the best-reviewed horror movies of the year, and took home a worldwide gross of $334.5 million off a modest $17 million budget.
Given the film's wild success, it's hardly a surprise that the filmmaker has been thinking about how a sequel might come together.
Speaking with ET in September, Krasinski revealed, "I’ve been tinkering with an idea for a few months and it just started to percolate and we’re all really happy about it." Check out the video below to hear more.
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