BIRD BOX Press Conference Highlights with Director Susanne Bier, Screenwriter Eric Heisserer, and Co-Stars Sandra Bullock and Trevante Rhodes

Currently playing in select theaters and arriving on Netflix this Friday is Bird Box, director Susanne Bier’s adaptation of Josh Malerman’s dystopic novel of the same name. The movie follows a woman named Malorie (Sandra Bullock) and a handful of other survivors (including Trevante Rhodes, who plays Tom) who are forced to navigate their way through a post-apocalyptic setting after mysterious entities cause people to commit suicide en masse. The only way to survive is to keep your eyes hidden, which causes many problems, especially for Malorie and the two young tots she must keep safe as they make a dangerous pilgrimage to a compound where they’ve been promised that they’ll be safe from all the danger lurking around them.

At a recent press day for Bird Box, we heard from co-stars Bullock and Rhodes, as well as director Bier and screenwriter Eric Heisserer, who was tasked with bringing Malerman’s novel to the big screen. They discussed everything from the physical challenges they faced being sightless on the set of Bird Box to their approach to the material and these characters, as well as why it was important we never see the entities in the film, and so much more.

Let's dig into this character of Malorie, who seems somewhat unconventional. I mean, this is a character where the core is not defined by her relationships. What attracted you to this character?

Susanne Bier: She's a mother—she's a reluctant mother, in the beginning, or a reluctant pregnant woman. And then she becomes an incredibly forceful, strong, not entirely kind mother who will do anything it takes for her kids to survive. For me, when I read the script, the only one who could do that would be Sandra Bullock because it takes someone who has an extreme honesty and sincerity and a basic kindness to do that without me disliking this character. That's actually what Sandra manages to do with this pretty unconventional, at times almost controversial person.

Sandra Bullock: I mean, it's funny, because Susanne will bring up things that I'm like, "I never even thought of that." This is a mother and also a human being. Men and women alike, when we're forced to deal with things that are tragic or horrific or fearful, it brings out a side of ourselves that doesn't necessarily get tapped into. And everyone has it. As a mother, I know myself how fearful I am and what I would do for my children, and what I feel myself doing for my children, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. How Malorie was, was obvious to me. It makes sense. You do everything in your power to protect your child, and this is a reluctant mother and she was willing to go this far. To me, this film is about family. It just was about how families exist and come together.

This truly feels like a Susanne Bier film, where it speaks to the heart. But, you really upped the ante here with the physicality of this film and expanding it into a wholly sensory experience for the audience. I'm curious how you went about designing that in creating this film.

Susanne Bier: Thank you very much. Those are really kind words, first of all. I think part of what drew all of us was the desire to stay within the understanding, the comprehension of the characters and specifically Malorie. So, any visual design is a result of trying to understand what she felt at any given moment. It's less about being crazy and it's more about staying emotionally connected and being with that. I always find that the way that beauty and sensuality informs a story is usually a result of staying with characters. At least for me it is.

How did Bird Box come together during the scriptwriting process, Eric?

Eric Heisserer: For this, the currency was trust. Trust in strangers, trust in family. For Malorie, her arc is really sort of a trust in herself. Can she love enough to take on a new role? Could she be competent enough and confident enough? It started with that. I think we realized pretty soon that we wanted a larger role for Tom in the movie once we had Trevante involved, so many other dynamics came into that. It's important to listen as much as possible when you have a stellar cast to find a way that will be integrated into the material beyond what was given to you from the book.

How graphic were you allowed to be? Did Netflix rein you in at all?

Susanne Bier: I can't say that Netflix had any inhibitions at all. We pretty much wanted to do it so that it felt real. It, at times, was harrowing, but not so that would become the essence of it. It's pretty much done so it's relatively realistic.

Eric Heisserer: Also, we're dealing with a subject matter where it's all about seeing is dangerous. I don't know if any of us wanted a scene in this movie where we were asking the audience to turn away from the screen.

Can you talk about being deprived of sight and how you prepped for that?

Trevante Rhodes: We were coached on the proper means in which to maneuver blind. For me, honestly, it was kind of liberating in the sense that it was just something I had never done before, and it was an opportunity to step into a space that was completely new to me. It was fun—rewarding.

Sandra Bullock: We had an extraordinary coach who was not sighted. He walked into my house and said, "Your wall is three feet away. This wall is about nine feet tall." Outside he goes, "There's a fence. There are some kids' toys right here." I was like, "How?" It was extraordinary and what he gave us were the tools and the tricks that they use, with the cane, the clicking noises, or if you make a sound you can hear the sound bouncing off of something else. If you shuffle your feet, you can hear what's close. You hear an open field. You can hear that. You can feel it. So, by the time we got on set we could navigate the scene. We had an amazing steady cam operator, too, Roberto. His job was just to get out of our way should we switch directions, which happened a lot. Susanne just let it go. I said, "If I fall, let it happen. If I hit something, let it happen unless I stop it." I only stopped it once when I drew blood.

Susanne Bier: We had a few stunt men who were seriously terrified because Sandra was kind of unstoppable. They made sure it was never dangerous, but it was pretty daunting having Sandra blindfolded, and then at times, having the kids, too. The kids had semi-transparent blindfolds. Sandra did not have any transparent blindfold. She was literally falling over trees and things like that. Having said that, the most important thing of the blindfold is really communicating. I think for actors, their eyes are a tool. It's like a painter's brushes. It's a little bit like telling a painter that, "You have to make this beautiful painting, but you can't use your brushes." Well, how do you do that? They were literally left with communicating without the most important tool they have, which is kind of a testament to their brilliance.

What was it about Trevante that made you want to choose him for the role of Tom in particular?

Sandra Bullock: I'm happy to do this question. So, I wanted more of a love story. Susanne wanted more of a love story. I miss love stories. So she says, "I want you to meet Trevante," and I went, "Okay." We sat down. I remember how he looked, and it's how he is right now. You know, he was this great human being who hears you, who respects you. You felt his connection to the ground and to the greater—there was insight. There was kindness. I mean, the talent was already there. We saw that, but then you meet a human being and you want that in the movie. And I walked away from that meeting and I said, "If we don't cast him, we can't make this deal." I was very dramatic.

Susanne Bier: She said it all very, very, very dramatically. 

Sandra Bullock: There were very, very dramatic things said. But to me, I go, "This is the story I want to tell, and I want this human being to be my 'ride or die' in this process." It's rare when you get that, because usually you only get certain pieces of the pie. Trevante is the whole pie and he's just great.

I want to know if you guys learned anything about yourselves in making this film, and do you feel prepared in the event of a national disaster now or even a dystopic apocalypse?

Trevante Rhodes: I still don't feel prepared. For me, personally, the best thing that I liked in this was Sandy and owning your power in a sense. Own your space. I was taught that growing up, but just realizing it and seeing it in this space in this industry, being a woman is really impactful. It's an inspiration. That's what I liked about this experience.

For the creatures, you guys decided to hold back in terms of revealing anything on the screen. Can you talk about that decision? Was it conscientious as a “less is more” scenario in terms of the tension you were building without actually giving these physical entities time on the screen?

Eric Heisserer: I think it started with Josh's novel. He never really described them in the book. He described everybody's idea of what it could be. It was never definitive about the actual appearance of the enemy. We found while we were in development, the producers and I, that every time we got even a suggestion of what it we could show, whether it's an appendage or a particular silhouette, there was always somebody in the room saying, "Well, I'm not scared of that." That sort of diminished it. We realized that this was one of those moments where we needed to be not only true to the novel, but let the audience fill in what they feared most in that space. It was probably as metaphorical an enemy as possible.

Susanne Bier: Firstly, whatever those beings are, they tap into your deepest fear and everybody's deepest fear is going to be different from the other person. I think to summarily take upon a concrete shape in order to illustrate that becomes weak. Where the conceit is really strong, then trying to illustrate it is almost meaningless. It would have been the wrong decision. Of course, there were times while shooting you go weak and think, "Well, maybe we have to see the creatures." And then, we had beautiful designs developed and you go, "No, no, no. We're not gonna do it." I think it's a scary choice to make. It's challenging sustaining the tension, but I think it was the right decision right from the beginning. I think it was important sticking to that.

Eric Heisserer: I think you have to see something at some point to realize you didn’t need it. It forced me to write essentially a nightmare sequence with Malorie–

Susanne Bier: And we shot it. But every time I would look at it, I was like, "Shit. That's a different film.” It also was like a green man because of the effects.

Sandra Bullock: It was a green man with this horrific baby face. When we were shooting it, I was like, "I don't want to see it when it first happens." I told them to just bring it into the room and we'll shoot the scene. And I turned and it's like this crazy looking thing–

Susanne Bier: And she started laughing. And that's the whole thing. It's so easy for it to become funny. We actually spent lot of energy on this idea, too. It was like every time I saw it I was like, "This is not gonna be tense. It's just gonna be funny."

Sandra Bullock: It made me laugh. It still makes me laugh–this long, fat adult-sized baby that’s all green. It'll definitely be in the outtakes.