As viewers are discovering, A Quiet Place: Day One features a cat named “Frodo” as a survivor of an alien attack. Now, director Michael Sarnoski is explaining why the feline is an essential part of the new film.
A prequel to the 2018 and 2021 Quiet Place movies, A Quiet Place: Day One stars Lupita Nyong’o stars as Samira—aka Sam—a terminally ill patient from a hospice center who is on field trip with other patients in New York City when aliens attack the buzzing metropolis. Like the two previous Quiet Place movies, the creatures are blind but hypersensitive to sound and viciously attack anything that makes a noise.
After the initial attack, Sam happens upon Eric (Joseph Quinn), a British law student who commits to helping Sam on a personal mission before they join other survivors who are evacuating New York. Accompanying Sam and Eric on their harrowing trip through the dilapidated city is Sam’s support cat, Frodo—played by two tuxedo felines, Nico and Schnitzel—who becomes a key part of the story.
Sarnoski—who wrote the story for A Quiet Place: Day One with original Quiet Place director and star John Krasinski—told The Hollywood Reporter that Frodo “grew naturally out of Sam’s character” since he imagined the cat to represent the life she once knew before her illness.
“A hospice patient isn’t necessarily aiming for survival during the end of the world, and this is a chance for her to reconnect with her life,” Sarnoski told THR. “Frodo became an extension of that. I always imagined that back when Sam lived in the city, Frodo was a savvy street cat, and she started leaving out a bowl of milk for him, and he became her pet.”
As such, Sarnoski added for THR, Frodo “became the one thing she took with her when she left the city as her life neared its end. Frodo is a stand-in for her life that once existed. So when they return to the city together, they re-experience it together.”
Sarnoski Was Intent On Having A Real Cat In The Movie
While discussing A Quiet Place: Day One with THR, Michael Sarnoski said since his screenplay called for a cat, the studio figured they could find the way around the obstacle in the digital space—but he wasn’t having any of it.
“The initial reaction was, ‘Okay, we’re going to have a computer-generated cat. I guess we can pull that off.’ But then I said, ‘No, I really want to do all the cat stuff for real and not ever do a CG cat,’” the director recalled for THR. “Everyone was like, ‘We’ll see about that.’ But thankfully, we managed it with incredible cat trainers and incredible cat performers. Everyone assumed wouldn’t be able to pull it off the old-fashioned way, but I’m really happy we did.”
When THR asked Sarnoski why a cat was needed for the support animal role instead of a dog, the director said in the scenario he created for A Quiet Place: Day One, the feline had more of a natural fit for the surroundings of the Big Apple.
“One, cats have a strong connection to New York City. There’s something about street cats and bodega cats and the survival instinct side of the city,” the filmmaker explained to THR. “And I don’t think a dog would do well in the Quiet Place universe — too barky. Cats are stalking predators and have a natural silence. So they make a lot of sense as a creature that would do well.”
While Sarnoski added that a cat complimented Sam’s vibe in the film as a standoffish character until you got to know her, he said Lupita Nyong’o in reality couldn’t warm up to the idea of having a feline co-star at first because she’s afraid of cats.
“She wasn’t just ‘not a fan.’ She was really frightened,” Sarnoski revealed to THR. “And in one of our first meetings, she was sitting on the floor of my office and slowly crawled towards the cat getting a little closer, a little closer, until she finally touched it, and then eventually she was petting it and could pick it up.”
Now, the director added, Nyong’o has a cat of her own.
In a studio production featurette for A Quiet Place: Day One, Nyong’o talked of her prior fear of cats and likened them at the time to small lions. Then, she added, “That’s how I felt before this movie ... I met Nico and Schnitzel—the two cats who play Frodo in the film ... Now, somehow, I love them.”
A Quiet Place: Day One is new in theaters.