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The innate affability of Morris Chestnut often makes him an easy and expendable mark in horror/thrillers. In last year’s The Perfect Guy, poor Chestnut (as the epitome of the ‘nice guy’) suffers the most horrific fate. Sure – the boyfriend in these type of films rarely last to the end credits; but typically they do something morally wrong to deserve their untimely demise, a la Single White Female. But poor Chestnut – he’s just in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong crazy person.
In When the Bough Breaks, Chestnut, once again plays the most affable person imaginable – John: a charming, happily married, successful businessman. He and his wife Laura (Regina Hall) live contently in a lavish home, incredibly furnished, in a beautiful rustic neighborhood. The only thing missing: a child of their own. The couple’s unable to conceive and as such, they desperately seek out a surrogate (Jaz Sinclair) to give birth to their one last viable embryo. Of course – they choose the worst possible surrogate imaginable – Anna: a mentally disturbed con artist desperate for the life John and Laura already have.
Chestnut and Hall are both so innately likeable that you can’t help but wonder how anything truly terrible could ever happen to them. No matter what they’ll both end up fine in the end. Right? They’re just so nice… but then you remember poor nice-guy Chestnut’s fate in his last horror/thriller and suddenly the film’s outcome doesn’t seem as straightforward as convention would dictate.
In the interview with Chestnut and Hall, they discuss how they would react differently than their characters in When the Bough Breaks, the choices they had trouble justifying and how the film changed from script to production.
Morris Chestnut & Regina Hall:
- Regina Hall and Morris Chestnut on if there’s a correct way to deal with a crazy surrogate
- Hall & Chestnut on how they would handle the situation differently
- On the choices in the script they had trouble justifying in the moment
- On how much the scene/script changed in production & rehearsal
- On the backstory they created for their characters
- On how important the subtext of a film is in choosing which projects to star in
- Chestnut on the development of When the Bough Breaks as Executive Producer
- Hall on how her character changed from script to screen
