So she has the most to lose whenever any of it spills.

She isnt sure if she can trust them or anyone else who isnt kin these days.

But with already one loss in the family, she isnt eager to see another member vanish.

So youve been in horror movies before, but none quite like this.

Could you talk about what you mightve expected the script to be and how you reacted upon reading it?

So I went to that film, which is calledKrisha.

I was like, Who else is probably going to be cast?

So there were so many reasons to be excited.

How much of yourself do you look for in the subject?

That was probably the case for me.

I know it was the case for Kelvin.

I didnt know until today that he had gone through in some form or another Hurricane Katrina.

So he lost a home.

So its bound to inform the kind of professional choices you make too.

Did you call on anything specifically to find Sarah?

Its all just emerging.

Its all just beginning to blossom in him.

Trey is apparently heavily influenced by Pieter Breughel paintings, specifically about medieval plagues.

Obviously, theres a painting in your characters house in the movie.

We definitely talked about why we keep the painting for sure.

One of the things that became a fixation for all of us was timeline.

How long does it take to die from it?

How long has Bud have it before he gets the blisters?

But then there are other things he had no intention of letting us know or understand fully.

He wanted to keep us in the dark.

I think to fester a certain amount of paranoia among ourselves.

I dont know if we were ever completely on the same page to be honest.

I know we all did it as part of our process.

I had several dinners with Trey to talk about what I thought might make sense in terms of profession.

Is this a rich family or a poor family?

You know, where do we land on that stuff?

So we definitely got into that.

But as I said, some of the things would really live within ourselves.

So if it makes sense to us, given the kind of family performance we were hoping for.

Who do you think Sarah was before the plague then?

And thats also why I have an aptitude for putting together the water system or doing ABC.

I can use guns it seems.

Its not a big thing for me to get readythere are parts of the movie where Im using guns.

So that was certainly something we explored.

Yeah, I knew and I know nothing about Chris and Rileys characters.

Other than what you see on the screen?

So these are things that arent on the page.

This movie can at times be bleakly nihilist.

It goes back to Breughel and The Triumph of Death.

What do you think the appeal is in such grimness from our art or even entertainment?

I think theres something a little nihilistic in every one of us.

Whether its self-inflicted, whether its apocalyptic events, whether its pandemics, whatever it might look like.

On a somewhat lighter topic, I just recently rewatchedFantastic Beastsagain.

Have you heard whispers yet about Seraphina Picquery returning for another wizarding adventure?

JK Rowlings vision of nationalist forces on the rise again seems more timely than ever.

It wasnt an attempt at being political or socially relevant.

It was a personal film about his father dying of cancer.

And yet, somehow, his feelers were out enough to tap into the zeitgeist.

Ive had that experience, when I think about it, three times.

Certainly, which you just mentionedSelmaand also this.

I dont think Trey had any intention when he wrote this to tap into whats happening right now.

But if youre following the newsreal newsyou saw this coming.

Its not that it happened yesterday and suddenly a movie happened to coincide [with it].

It feels like its in-tune or attuned.

This has been cyclical for as long as I can remember.

It feels like art will be reacting quite a bit now.

Yeah, for sure.

Thank you for doing this.

Thank you, it was great to see you.

It Comes at Nightis in theaters now.