(This story contains spoilers) 

A Quiet Place: Day One is a thriller about tuxedo cat named Frodo navigating his way through apocalyptic New York that’s under attack by aliens. There are several human actors in the cast, led by Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o.

My Oscar Book:

Frodo represented a major gamble by writer-director Sarnoski (who previously helmed another animal-centric title, Pig). Cats are difficult to direct, and Day One was Sarnoski’s first major studio project.

His script (co-written with John Krasinski) puts Frodo in the center of dramatic moments and action set-pieces, and he didn’t want to use CGI. Sarnoski teases a potential Day One sequel.

But if the cat didn’t work, the movie wouldn’t work.

The Quiet Place prequel has been drawing rave reviews (some critics say it’s the best entry in the franchise), for its harrowing survival tale following Frodo, hospice patient Sam (Nyong’o) and law student Eric (Joseph Quinn).

Original inspiration for Frodo as part of story?

Studio’s reaction to script? 

Lupita was wary of working with cat 

Lupita was terrified of cats. She wasn’t just “not a fan.” She was really frightened. In one of first meetings, she was sitting on the floor of my office and slowly crawled towards the cat getting closer and closer, until she finally touched it, and then eventually she was petting it and could pick it up. Now she has pet cat of her own. It showed how brave she was and how willing she was to commit.

Nervous about first big studio film?

The things that make me nervous are also the things that excite me. There is something about, “What a stupid idea to put a cat in every scene when you’re going to do huge set pieces. Do you really want to tie your hands?” But sometimes in those limitations you find the most authenticity and fun. I was nervous, but I want to be nervous. I want to be not sure if idea is going to work out. If everything feels safe, the audience is going to feel that and I’m going to be bored.

I don’t think thematically. But Frodo was standing for the connection Sam had with her past and what sort of connections she was willing to make with people. Frodo ends up becoming big part of connection with Eric, what they mean to each other.

Characters caring so much for “just a cat” 

To care about just a cat, to care about just a slice of pizza, to care about just a stranger. When there’s so much going on that you feel overwhelmed by the world, being able to refocus on the things that really matter and make us feel human is essential. We all experienced that with the pandemic, which was big thing I wanted to explore in this moment.

That was very early scene that I wanted to hit perfectly. I wanted this moment where the cat almost hypnotizes Eric when he’s in most traumatized state. He’s in complete shock, and then he sees this cat and locks in, and that really drives his character moving forward. Through Frodo and Sam, he finds this campfire in the storm that becomes the thing he follows. And that’s what Sam’s grappling with– “I can’t be that to you, you need to find your own strength.”  Landing that moment was really important. “Can we pull this off? Is this going to be ridiculous? to be felt?” There is certain humor to it, but there’s also something sincerely emotional about it. It’s a specific tonal moment.

Version where cat doesn’t survive?

No. It always made sense that the cat is passed along and would carry on. If you’re gonna kill an animal, it’s got to be for meaningful reason. Otherwise, you’re just being cruel. He meant something to these characters, and it would have just been mean to kill him.

Toughest cat shot to get? 

The pizza wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t the hardest. They trained him with that piece of pizza. It was all the water stuff and keeping him in flotation device near rushing water. The subway stuff was tricky. He was afraid of the water, but sometimes he wanted to jump into the water to try and get away from it. A lot of it was Joe and Lupita forming a real bond with the cats that played Frodo so that when they were around Joe and Lupita, they felt at ease. It was about taking the time that cats needed to feel relaxed and safe. It turns out cats don’t love water.

In the original script, there was more of Frodo hissing and arching his back. I learned from the animal trainers that we can’t do that. It’s natural reaction they have when they feel threatened or traumatized. We won’t traumatize a cat. Back in the day when using cats in film and TV, they used to scare and torment cats for a reaction. But we don’t do that anymore. So if you want a cat to hiss, you need to replace its mouth with CGI. I decided against that, and leaned into other ways to express fear or anxiety.

Cat never hissed

He does meow a couple times. He’s a service cat and early on, she says, “Hey, keep quiet.” She’s trained the cat to not annoy everyone at the hospice center. I read a study about how a lot of meowing is learned behavior. It’s how they communicate with human beings. When cats are on their own, they don’t meow that much. So I figured that when the apocalypse happens and everyone’s gone, they would maybe keep it down. I also felt like cats are natural, silent predators and game recognizes game. They would see these aliens and see what they’re doing and understand their predatory nature and realize, “Oh, I better better keep quiet.”

Eric and Frodo’s future? 

I mean, definitely a good portion of those people probably ended up on the island that we see in Part Two of A Quiet Place. I think there’s a good chance that they’re there, and definitely there’s a good chance we’re going to see them again.

Sequel tease?

I just think they did an incredible job. And I think Paramount would be really happy to see where they ended up. I don’t think there are any super specific plans. But I would not be surprised if that happens. So that’s a very loose, unofficial sequel tease.

After doing Pig and this, you have animal as central character 

It’s not something I’m going to try to do. It’s probably going to sneak its way in occasionally just because I’m fascinated by them. My next one is The Death of Robin Hood and there are definitely some  animals in that. If it happens, I’m not going to force it.