On March 10, the writers of A Quiet Place are taking audiences back to Earth in 65, a new spin on the alien planet thriller. In the movie directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and Adam Driver is Mills, the pilot and one of the few survivors of a crash-landed spacecraft now marooned on dangerous terrain. During an interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Driver shares which element of this “big-scale” sci-fi drew him to this script, on top of battling dinosaurs, the father-daughter relationship, and teases a bit about his character’s background. Driver also discusses the likelihood of him hosting Saturday Night Live again and shares his experience working with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola on his upcoming epic, Megalopolis.

In 65, Mills discovers that he isn’t the sole survivor of the crash. A young girl named Koa, played by Ariana Greenblatt (In the Heights), is also stranded on what they believe to be an uncharted planet. As the two venture from the ship, they quickly learn their new surroundings are unforgiving, and the planet is inhabited by enormous, dangerous creatures – dinosaurs. With only one chance to escape a world where survival belongs to the fittest, a treacherous journey lies ahead of Mills and Koa. You can watch the interview in the video above, or read the full conversation below.

COLLIDER: Sir, you know, I'm a big fan of your work, it's great to talk to you today.

ADAM DRIVER: Thank you very much. Thanks a lot.

Before I get into 65, you are one of my favorite hosts in recent memory of Saturday Night Live.

DRIVER: Oh, wow, thank you.

Everyone at Collider loves your episodes, so what I want to know is, what do I need to do to get you to join the cast for a season?

DRIVER: [Laughs] I don’t know, a lot of coffee and donuts. I'll do mostly anything for that.

Can you host again soon? Have you spoken to Lorne [Michaels]?

DRIVER: Yeah, there was maybe one, but then… You know, if it came up I would totally do it again. It was a lot of things going on at the time, but I love doing it and the cast and the writers and I think Lorne is great. It's always… Yeah, yeah, it wouldn't take much. I like doing them.

Okay, I'll leave it there and just say I really needed to happen. Your episodes are great.

DRIVER: Thank you very much.

I know that you get offered a lot of scripts, so what was it about 65 that said, “I need to do this.”?

DRIVER: Well that it was so unique and that it was a big blend of a lot of different things. It was dinosaurs and laser guns and spaceships crashing, and it didn’t seem somewhat rare to get asked to do that, but that also is kind of ancillary to it being a movie that is really kind of a father-daughter movie. Anytime there's a big-scale movie, big-scale family movie that everyone can go to that doesn't let the spectacle get in the way of two characters that hopefully are three-dimensional, and it was about grief. I got it in the first thrust of COVID, and as I'm sure many people did, were obviously making the connections of what was going on in the world.

But, the idea that it was about two people from a completely different background facing this obvious threat that no one had a precedent for, and through that become found family based on this common thing of grief. And him denying it because everything that he sees in her reminds him of his own daughter, and he's denying that feeling as much as possible until they can't anymore. It seems like a unique thing to do in a big-scale movie like this.

Let's be honest, it also allows you to fight, you know, dinosaurs.

DRIVER: [Laughs] Yeah, yeah. After the T. rex, I really didn't care. I was like, “Who do you want me to play? Sure, that's interesting, so long as I get to battle a T. rex and shoot a laser gun.”

But I mean, isn't that a little bit like you’re connecting to your inner five-year-old or seven-year-old when you're standing on set with that gun, and you're getting ready to fight?

DRIVER: Yeah, or your inner 39-year-old. Yeah, I mean, Jurassic Park, for me – the first one – watching it in theaters was a big seminal moment, and, you know, it's dinosaurs and T. rexes, it's fucking great.

100%. As you know, I'm a huge fan of [Francis Ford Coppola] and you get to work with him, and I just have to ask you, what has it been like getting to work with a master filmmaker?

DRIVER: I just wrapped it last night, my part of it. I'm operating on two hours of sleep. I finished it, they’re still going. But it has been one of the best – without hyperbole – best shooting experiences of my life. Watching him work that crew, that design team, he has such a command over cinematic language and an archive in his mind of shots that are so beautiful. And doing something so ambitious, and on his own terms, that you would think that it would be dictatorial or really controlled, but he is the most warm, open, thoughtful, director who is just… He really – and this all sounds like being very general, but he really embodies this thing of like, “We're making this experiment and we're not interested in how it comes out. We're interested in the process of making it.” And inevitably because of that, the thing that you make, there's no film reference for. I think what he's made is so unique and interesting. I couldn't be more proud to be a part of it.

I am so looking forward to this movie. I cannot put into words how excited I am because he's spoken about it for so long.

DRIVER: Yeah, yeah. And you would think that it would be – and I had this experience before with another filmmaker that they wanted to make for a long time – you would think it would be, “I know what it is. Do this and go…” And that would have been fine, but that he gives you so much control and license to work with… not only disregarding the 35-year history to making the movie but being really open to what's happening now is really rare.I'm not finding all the right words because I'm over-tired, but it was incredible, and I think that what he's made is so visually stunning, but for such a big audience that it's hard to describe, which is what's exciting about his films.

65 crash lands in theaters on March 10.