ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Knock at the Cabin star Abby Quinn about M. Night Shyamalan‘s latest movie (watch and read more interviews). The actress discussed wanting to work with Shyamalan and the challenges of filming in one location. It is now available on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD, and digitally and streaming on Peacock.
“While vacationing at a remote cabin, a young girl and her parents are taken hostage by four armed strangers who demand that the family make an unthinkable choice to avert the apocalypse,” reads the synopsis. “With limited access to the outside world, the family must decide what they believe before all is lost.”
Tyler Treese: One thing I really liked about the movie is there’s such a mystery to all the characters and you really doubt if they’re being honest. What did you find most fascinating about that aspect — that the crowd is going to be very curious and untrustworthy towards your character while you’re acting?
Abby Quinn: Well, I think what I found interesting is that I had to find the balance between my character’s feelings and then myself reading the script, because I think I would be a person in the audience thinking that these people are crazy, and if this were me in this situation, I would definitely … I think my gut instinct would be to believe that these people are crazy and that we have to get them out of the house. So it was interesting to find truth for the character and to not write her off as crazy or these Four Horsemen and to really find a truth and a reality in their situation and what they’re saying and what they are believing, because you don’t really know, as an audience, what is happening and who to believe. So yeah, it was really interesting.
There are so many heavy themes throughout Knock at the Cabin. I’ve continued to think about it ever since I first saw it. What about the script really sold you on this project and made you want to come on board?
Well, I wanted to work with [M.] Night [Shyamalan] for a long time. I’d been a fan of his for many years, so that was … initially, even before I got the script, I just got a character description and the audition sides, and that’s really all I had to go off of. My audition was my final scene, like that long monologue right before I die. So I knew it was going to be really intense. [Laugh]. And in the audition, the email … I think it said, “More intensity will be required of this character.” So, already, there was a vagueness about it, but I just kind of knew that I would be so lucky to play this role.
The fact that she’s a young mom and it’s a horror film … there were so many elements that are new to me and that I haven’t done, so that was also really exciting. And so many of the actors, too, I’m huge fans of. As I started to hear more about who was going to be in the cast and who was a part of this, it felt like I was going to be so upset if I was not in it. [Laugh]. So yeah, it was many things.
Talk me through filming that death scene, because like you said, they are so intense and there’s this heaviness to all of the intruders knowing what their end is going to be and doing this anyhow, because this is how they’re going to try to save the world. Can you speak to filming that death scene? All of them are just crazy to watch.
Yeah, I think — at least for my character — she’s the youngest of the four of them and she’s naïve a bit, even though she has had to mature at an early age and is now on this mission. I just kept feeling like my character is wanting to postpone these feelings for as long as possible. So even the morning that she knows she’s going to die unless they make this choice, she is cooking breakfast and trying to have a conversation with Wen [Kristen Cui] and you wouldn’t really know what’s about to happen in 10 minutes based on her behavior.
So that was really fun to play because it was this person totally in denial up until she has to plead for her life and to not die. So it was really this slow burn and then she just erupts because there’s no time left and she just has to get everything out that she’s wanted to say to these people in order to survive.
The cast is phenomenal, and I thought this was such an interesting way to see Dave Bautista‘s range as a performer. How was it seeing him as this soft-spoken, very emotional character? That’s not really the roles we have typically seen of him, and he’s very much up to the task here.
Well, it’s interesting because that’s kind of how I know him now. When I first met him … he really is very gentle and kind and soft-spoken, especially when you first meet him. Like the first night I met him, we were having dinner at Night’s house, and I was sitting next to him and for 30 minutes, we talked about veganism and how we both don’t eat meat. So it was this really bizarre … whatever preconceived notion I had of him and how nervous I was to meet him, it was just totally not what I expected.
To see him play this character, too, he was very much the guiding force for the Four Horsemen. I think our characters look up to him and are looking to him for guidance. Then as actors, too, we were very much looking to him in many scenes to set the tone, and we were following his lead. He’s just very kind and sweet. So I feel lucky that, that he was at the head of this movie for us.
This movie does so much with very little and there’s only one real central location — the cabin. How was it filming a full-length feature in it? It’s not a big mansion, it’s a nice cabin. How was being in that one location for the entire film?
I think because it was built on a stage that also had this element and made it feel even more surreal than it would be to just film in a cabin in the middle of the woods … we would walk outside of the cabin and it was just this industrial building that we’re walking out to and we’re dodging lights … it was this really bizarre Truman Show-esque feeling for like five weeks when we would leave set. But it was really nice because at the end … those scenes outside at the beginning of the film when we’re walking through the woods, that was what we ended with. So it felt really nice to be outside and it felt like we were leaving the cabin and breathing fresh air for the first time in like five weeks. So it was cool to end in nature and outside and it felt like a big sigh of relief for everyone, I think. [Laugh].
You mentioned wanting to work with Night for so long. What really stood out as him as a director? I think it’s been really great that we’ve seen him get more appreciation lately. It seems like he was taken for granted for a while, but he’s getting his flowers, which is wonderful.
Yeah, I agree. I had been a fan of his … I have two older brothers, and they definitely introduced me to those movies and influenced me in my taste. He was always someone that I admired and I just enjoyed his work. Then I was auditioning for him at … like 13, when I first started acting professionally. I auditioned for him a few times, so he was always on my radar and I had hoped that I would work with him and that a project would work out. I was always so excited when I would see his name in an email that he’s making another movie or a TV show.
I think the movie that stands out to me — and I rewatched it right before filming — is The Village, and also Signs. But really The Village, I feel, perfectly encapsulates what he does best, which is he’s able to add humanity and humor and then also horror. I think, to me, that movie just reminds me why I love his work and admire his filmmaking.
