True story: I was sitting in my office the other day when all of a sudden I heard five notes and thought, “Wait a minute, I KNOW those notes!” My coworker had the Close Encounters of the Third Kind theme as her text ringtone! She seemed surprised I recognized it, but y’all know I love my movie soundtracks. It’s been nearly 50 years since Close Encounters came out, and Steven Spielberg is about to release a new foray into the sci-fi/aliens genre. Disclosure Day comes out a week from Friday, which really feels like it snuck up on us because the cast is only just starting to do press. (I guess I’ve gotten used to the prolonged roll outs of Devil Wears Prada 2 and the Wickeds, but I digress…) And speaking of Devil/Prada, Emily Blunt has a starring role in Disclosure Day. We thought she plays an alien (based on the trailer, that’s not a spoiler!), but it turns out it’s a little more nuanced than that, which Emily explained in a recent appearance on Hot Ones. (Many thanks to Pajiba for putting us on the scent of this!)
Emily Blunt is revealing how she was “terrified” to use AI in her upcoming film Disclosure Day, directed by Steven Spielberg, so she decided to find another way to pull off one of her character’s most unusual scenes.
On a recent episode of Hot Ones, Blunt appeared to promote Disclosure Day, which hits theaters June 12. In the film, she plays Margaret Fairchild, a TV meteorologist and former journalist who suddenly gains abilities after an encounter with non-human life. In one scene, Margaret has a major vocal change and begins speaking a non-human language during a live weather segment.
“It’s a four-minute oner that we shot that leads up to that moment where she’s gradually sort of disintegrating,” the Devil Wears Prada 2 actress said. “There’s various ways you could do it. You could go the AI route, which I’m a bit terrified of.”
So Blunt found another way to create the sounds her character required without relying on AI.
“I thought I could make some really strange sounds,” she continued. “I said maybe I could come in and we’ll just do a range of weird sounds. And it’s what we did. I did sort of the clicking sounds, I did sort of humming sounds, consonant sounds, breathing, strange sounds.”
There were also microphones placed around the set as needed to achieve their goal. “The sound designer went away and created that weird sound,” she added.
Disclosure Day explores what could happen if humanity had proof that we are not alone. In addition to Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colman Domingo, Eve Hewson, Colin Firth and Wyatt Russell star.
Earlier this week, the first wave of social media reactions from journalists and critics who attended preview screenings described Disclosure Day as one of Spielberg’s best films in years. The three-time Oscar winner is well known for his work in the sci-fi genre, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Minority Report, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Super 8, War of the Worlds and Ready Player One.
So basically, instead of handing off the pivotal sequence to AI, Emily chose to, you know, be an actor. Brava! I’m not surprised Emily shut down the AI option. Last fall, when “AI actress” Tilly Norwood was rearing her pixelated head, some reporter showed Tilly to Emily and mentioned Tilly was being pitched as “the next Scarlett Johansson.” Emily was HORRIFIED, and said, “But we have Scarlett Johansson.” Not to mention, Emily is in a huge upswing in her career, and working with Steven Spielberg is a BFD for any actor — why wouldn’t she want to show off her chops when working with such a storied filmmaker? Honestly, my only bit of hesitation with this movie (besides all the deers we see in the trailer), is the clicking sounds/language, which is clearly in the script and not just a choice of Emily’s. Maybe I’m overreacting, but I’m nervous of a possible negative othering result towards clicking sounds, by ascribing one to the aliens, given that Khoisan languages are used by humans. Obviously we’ll have to see how it plays out by watching the movie. Which I intend to do, this cast is stacked! Judging from the trailer, Colin Firth is continuing his Villain Era, Josh O’Connor is continuing his I Can Do Anything! Era, and Colman Domingo is continuing his Era of Benevolence in gifting us with his presence. Fire up the spaceship, I’m in.
photos credit: Best Image/Backgrid, Iammeysam/Backgrid, Getty Images
I am so excited for this movie. It looks sooo good. I think someone (maybe spielberg?) said at one point that the trailers only show you the first third of the movie, but not sure if more recent trailers have changed that. Spielberg does drama really well. But he also does these kinds of summer blockbusters that are still a little serious (or a lot serious) really well too. (heck even Jurassic Park has its serious side.)
I feel like this is going to be a good summer for movie studios and the box office, starting May with Devil Wears Prada, then Backrooms, Disclosure Day, the Odyssey, etc.
I saw that episode of hot ones and she did pretty well!
And I’m kinda excited about this flick I’m not going to lie. It’s been decades since I’ve seen a Stephen Spielberg movie in theaters and this is right up my alley.