It took a lot of people who had a lot of faith to make A Quiet Place a movie that has become one of the biggest hits of the year. It turns out that one of the most important voices may have actually been George Clooney. While Clooney wasn't directly involved in making A Quiet Place, writer, director, and star John Krasinski actually contacted Clooney because he had recently directed child actor Noah Jupe in the movie Suburbicon. Clooney apparently gave Jupe a ringing endorsement. According to Krasinski...
I remember the quote from George was, 'however many hours you've planned on your day, shave an hour off because he's actually going to save you time. The problem will be you. You'll need more takes than he does.' And he's absolutely right.
In one of the behind-the-scenes features included in the Blu-ray release of A Quiet Place, John Krasinski discusses how he became interested in casting Noah Jupe as his on-screen son after seeing the boy's performance in The Night Manager. However, prior to making the decision, he called the actor's previous director, one George Clooney. A director is going to want to be sure that any actor is going to be the right person that they'll want to work with, but if anything that's all the more important with child actors. Labor laws limit the amount of time that kids can be in front of a camera. This probably made Clooney's comments, that Noah Jupe was able to work fast, and also good, all the more important.
In addition to needing fewer takes, the behind-the-scenes featurette also mentions that Noah Jupe was very quick when it came to picking up sign language on the set of A Quiet Place, something that was quite important as any changes to a scene made during filming often required the actors to learn entirely new signs in order to get the new "lines" right.
Most of the attention when A Quiet Place was in theaters, at least among the younger actors, was probably focused on Millicent Simmonds, the deaf actress who plays the sister of Noah Jupe's character. However, the fact is that every performance in the film is top notch, which is the majority of the reason the movie is so damn good. There are only a handful of characters in the entire movie. If anybody had been a weak link, the entire movie would have suffered.
Whether or not Noah Jupe would have been cast without George Clooney's endorsement is far from clear, but certainly receiving it went a long way to helping him get the job. From there, it will almost certainly lead to a second job as a sequel to A Quiet Place is currently in development. A Quiet Place is now available on Digital and Blu-ray.
