Emily Blunt is “afraid” of AI and chose not to rely on it for a key scene in Steven Spielberg’s new film Disclosure Day.
Directed by Spielberg, this science fiction film tells the story of a Kansas City TV meteorologist, played by Blunt, who is suddenly attacked by a mysterious extraterrestrial force while recording a live weather segment.
The actress told “Hot Ones” host Sean Evans on the show’s latest episode that her character speaks in a non-human language during key scenes. “What we filmed was the four minutes leading up to the moment where she gradually disintegrated,” she continued, “There are a lot of ways you can do it. You could go the AI route, but I’m a little scared of that. I thought we could make some really weird sounds.”
Instead, Brandt chose to record the sounds organically.
“I said maybe I could join in and just do all sorts of weird sounds, and that’s what we did,” she said. “We had things like clicking sounds, humming sounds, consonants, weird breathing sounds.” Strategically placed microphones allowed the sound team to capture everything they needed. “The sound designer was gone and we created that weird sound,” Brandt said.
“Disclosure Day” is scheduled to be released in theaters on June 12th. The film also stars Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell, and Henry Lloyd-Hughes.
The logline reads: “If you knew we weren’t alone, if someone showed you and proved it, would you be scared? This summer, the truth belongs to 7 billion people. We’re getting closer…’Disclosure Day.'”
Spielberg developed the story with screenwriter David Koepp, who previously worked with him on the films Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park: The Lost World, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Disclosure Day is Spielberg’s 37th film. The author’s filmography is packed with high-profile science fiction titles, including Close Encounters, E.T., Minority Report, Ready Player One, as well as two Jurassic Park films and War of the Worlds.
Also on an episode of “Hot Ones,” Blunt said that Spielberg’s 1975 classic “Jaws” is his favorite movie of all time. “A lot of people I know watched it when they were kids,” she said. “I think when you watch it as an adult, it’s a completely different form of storytelling. … All of Stephen’s movies have a lot of beautiful themes. It’s high-stakes action, you know, big-scale storytelling. But I think he has this emotional foundation that runs through all of this humanity, so ‘Jaws’ would be that for me.”
Meanwhile, she said Mary Poppins Returns was her most terrifying on-set experience to date. The 2018 film filmed the arrival of a British nanny from above the clouds. “It was scary. We did three takes before we ran out of tolerance and it was done,” she said. “You climb up there and it goes 25 feet, 30 feet, 40 feet, 60 feet. And I thought, ‘No,’ and the only thing you have is hope that the wire holds you up. … So I ended up hanging there, waiting for them to take that action. It’s like looking up into the sky with no reference point, but that was the scariest thing ever.”
