PURE IMAGINATION

DURING THE DARKEST DAYS OF THE PANDEMIC, JOHN KRASINSKI DREAMED OF AN ESCAPE FOR HIS YOUNG CHILDREN. THE RESULT IS IF – A DEEPLY FELT FAMILY MOVIE ABOUT AN UNSEEN WORLD OF IMAGINARY FRIENDS, STARRING RYAN REYNOLDS. TOTAL FILM CATCHES UP WITH KRASINSKI TO TALK BIG DREAMS, BIG EMOTIONS AND BRINGING A SENSE OF WONDER BACK TO SUMMER MOVIE SEASON.

Cast your mind back to March 2020. While half the planet binged Tiger King, cultivated sourdough starters and stockpiled loo roll, John Krasinski was hard at work on Some Good News – a charmingly low-rent YouTube show with a single purpose: to put something positive into the world when the world needed it the most.

‘When I saw the power of that, and certainly how much I got out of it, I just said, “Well, what if I did a movie that was basically Some Good News in movie form?”’ a typically affable Krasinski tells Total Film during a break from filming Guy Ritchie’s Fountain of Youth in the UK. ‘I thought, “Let’s make a movie that is a hug waiting there for everybody if they need it.”’ The process took on even greater urgency as the multi-hyphenate filmmaker observed the ‘lights go out’ behind his children’s eyes during lockdown, with imagination and courage rapidly taken over by uncertainty and fear. ‘All of a sudden, I was like, “Oh my god, I can’t stand by and allow this to be their reality.” So I immediately had the idea: “OK, I’m going to start writing the script, and see where it takes me.”’

Involving his two young daughters from the get-go (‘I think they have producer credits on this movie,’ he quips), Krasinski developed a pre-pandemic idea, about ‘imaginary friends, and the importance of them’, in a way that would speak to the moment. ‘Instead of making some zany comedy, what’s the heartfelt version of this?’ Krasinski asked himself. ‘I was actually doing a bunch of research into child psychology, and realised that kids and their IFs [imaginary friends] are projections of things that they need, whether it’s a bodyguard if you’re getting bullied at school, or if your parents had a divorce, it fills in the blank of someone who you could talk to about that. So it was really powerful stuff. Then, of course, the pandemic hit and my idea was: “What if you made it about coping?”’

Played by Cailey Fleming (The Force Awakens, The Walking Dead), Bea is going through a tough time at home when she suddenly develops the ability to see a world of wacky imaginary friends, abandoned by children who have outgrown them. Krasinski himself plays Bea’s dad, who, in a development that any therapist would have a field day with, ‘is trying to do everything he can to keep his daughter knowing that you don’t have to grow up’, he says. ‘It’s heartbreaking!’

‘RYAN AND I HAVE ALWAYS BATTED THE IDEA AROUND THAT IT’D BE REALLY FUN TO WORK TOGETHER’

JOHN KRASINSKI

IF also reunites The Office (US) stars Krasinski and Steve Carell on screen for the first time in the 11 years since that beloved comedy came to an end, with Carell voicing supremely huggable IF Blue. ‘We were front row to the idea that this was our tiny Office reunion,’ Krasinski says. ‘But as much fun as it was to work with him, the most powerful part about it was he came in with the most heartfelt speech about how proud he is of me to be making movies. He said in reading the script, “I’m just so honoured to be a part of it. I’ll do whatever it takes.” So when I thought that I would be laughing all day, I was crying all day.’

After years immersed in the brutal, nerve-jangling world of A Quiet Place and its sequel, Krasinski considers IF another ‘huge departure, and a big swing’ following his unlikely transition from sitcom star to lauded genre filmmaker.

‘It’s very hard to step out of your comfort zone – all the way from The Office, to deciding to do a genre movie. And the same holds true here. It’s not that I’m ever running away from anything, but I’m actually running towards something new… and it was certainly a much brighter world to live in than A Quiet Place. Let’s put it that way!’

NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH

Before Krasinski committed a word to (digital) paper, he had his leading man in mind. ‘Ryan [Reynolds] and I have always batted the idea around that it’d be really fun to work together,’ he says. Initially intrigued by Krasinski’s ‘imaginary friend idea’, and the opportunity to make a film his four children could watch without earmuffs, Reynolds became ‘really, really excited’ as Krasinski zeroed in on the movie’s emotional core: ‘a movie about what it’s like for kids to go through hard times’.

Sharing the same perceptive ability to see IFs as Bea, Reynolds’ neighbour Cal is reluctantly drawn into ‘a live-action Pixar movie’, as Reynolds told audiences at last year’s CinemaCon. ‘The two of them became something purely magical once they got to act together,’ Krasinski says of his co-leads. ‘Cailey is a full-blown shooting-star, beam-of-light type of person, and the whole process with Ryan has been a true joy. It’s been a partnership the whole time where you’re not just cold-calling an actor and asking him to be in it, you know you’re getting a partner from the beginning. He’s a force of nature, for sure.’

PLUSH HOUR

Despite making A Quiet Place and its 2021 sequel, which feature far less friendly CG creations, Krasinski initially felt unprepared for the challenge of a full live-action shoot populated by an extensive cast of digitally rendered characters. ‘A lot of times in my career, I’ve lived by the whole “ignorance is bliss” adage. I probably should look into that…’ To prepare, Krasinski shot a test scene, glimpsed in finished form in the trailer, in which Cal meets main IF Blue (‘Who, yes, is purple, but his kid is colour blind, so that’s why he’s called Blue,’ Krasinski clarifies) for the first time. ‘I shot that whole scene as a test for the studio and for me,’ he says. ‘It was secretly a huge advantage for me to run through this whole thing in my head, and see what it would look like.’

Krasinski also came up with a creative way to represent the IFs on set. ‘I said to this incredible group of puppeteers, “Let’s build stuffies [soft toys] of these things, just so that they can interact [on-set].” And then, because I, probably to a very annoying degree, love to get hands-on, I was the one shoving these stuffies into Ryan and Cailey’s faces at all times. I probably took it a little too far. I was getting very, very excited to attack people with stuffies.’

SPEAKING UP

To play Blue, Krasinski turned to an old friend from work. ‘I definitely, when I was writing, had Steve [Carell] in my head,’ Krasinski says of his fellow American Office alum. ‘He is a person that you want to just run up to and hug, and that’s exactly what Blue is.’ Carell’s character is one of three central IFs, alongside Phoebe-Waller Bridge’s Blossom and Louis Gossett Jr.’s Louis, the bear. ‘He’s basically the de facto head of all the IFs, the one who gathered them all,’ Krasinski explains. ‘Imaginary friends always want to be around either where kids are or have been. So Louis has the great idea to have them all congregate under Coney Island so that they can always be around kid energy.’

Krasinski had all three main imaginary friend actors record a first run of their lines before the shoot, ‘just so I could have their voices on board for the actors to reference. And then everybody else [recorded] in post.’ And by everybody, Krasinski means everybody, with the well-connected star thoroughly mining his contacts app. ‘As I started writing all the great side characters, I just called all my friends and asked if they would do it. And I’ve got to say, I’ve never had quicker yeses, especially from people who have kids,’ says Krasinski of a supporting cast that includes Matt Damon, Sam Rockwell, Awkwafina, Jon Stewart, Maya Rudolph and his wife, Emily Blunt. ‘I know that I will never assemble a cast like this again. Mathematically, it was half of Hollywood.’

VISION QUEST

Much like Bea and Cal, Krasinski was the only person on set who could truly see his cast of imaginary friends. ‘Every director has to sort of incept the rest of the crew with their idea. But this one was very, very singular, and it was one of those things where I had to become as articulate as possible about what the hell was going on in my head,’ Krasinski explains. ‘It was like, “So we’re under Coney Island where all the imaginary friends live. This girl is going to transform the world completely, and walls are going to fall down. The rug is going to turn into floor tiles.” And people would say, “Whatever drug he’s on sounds real fun.”’

Despite working with visual effects on the Quiet Place films, Krasinski describes the post-production process on this film as ‘unequivocally different’ owing to the extent and involvement of the all-CG IFs. ‘Most of what’s happening in A Quiet Place is through the actors. You have creatures just sort of scuttering around here and there. Here, your main characters aren’t even there yet.’ Instead of shooting with visual-effects restraints in mind, Krasinski was encouraged by VFX house Framestore to shoot as though the IFs were real actors on set. ‘They said, “You just shoot the movie you would shoot if they were here, and let us figure out how to do it,”’ Krasinski recalls. ‘We really did set up all the shots as if this was their close-up, and their medium shot, and their wide. We did some incredible stuff. It’s what makes the movie work, in my opinion.’

KIDDING AROUND

Krasinski didn’t just make IF for his kids, he made it with his kids. ‘I’m a horrible artist, but I would sketch out a tiny drawing, and they would know the characters before I had even finished the script,’ he says. ‘We’re lucky enough to have toys made for this movie, and I got to bring the prototypes home. They were like, “He’s so great. But his hair’s longer than it is in the movie. Can you trim it?” And I was like, “Oh my god, this is unbelievable.”’ Despite their invaluable quality-assurance contributions, Krasinski’s children have yet to see the completed film when we speak, as the finishing touches are put on the visual effects. ‘I’ve never been more scared of showing anyone anything than I am to show my kids this movie,’ Krasinski notes. ‘Watching my kids watch the trailer was one of the most emotional things I’ve ever been through, certainly in my career. We’ll do our little family premiere – and, in a good way and a bad way, they’re the only reviews that I’ll be concerned about.’ Imagine that.