Though well-known for his time on Broadway and providing the vocal talent for Kristoff in Disney’s Frozen films, Jonathan Groff has more than proved his mettle in a much darker role with Netflix’s phenomenal series, Mindhunter, and now again, alongside Ben Aldridge (Fleabag, Spoiler Alert). In addition to Dave Bautista and Rupert Grint, the two star in Academy Award-nominee M. Night Shyamalan’s latest psychological horror, Knock at the Cabin.

The book-to-screen adaptation sees Groff and Aldridge as Eric and Andrew, a couple taking their daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui), on a family vacation. They’re a tight-knit unit, singing songs together, acting silly, and spending time in their secluded cabin on a lake, but in an instant, everything they hold dear hangs in the balance. When a stranger by the name of Leonard (Bautista) approaches Wen, their happy getaway becomes a nightmare. Leonard is accompanied by three others armed with weapons, with a message for Eric and Andrew: choose someone to sacrifice or bring about the apocalypse.

While promoting Knock at the Cabin, Groff and Aldridge sat down with Collider’s Steve Weintraub to talk about the movie. During their interview, Groff and Aldridge discuss portraying a gay couple onscreen as openly gay actors and talk about the way the queer narrative is “deftly” handled by Shyamalan, with “family is universal” being a central theme. They both share why they think the end of the world plot device has such a chokehold on society, and Aldridge gets existential about Nostradamus and Revelations. They speak on working with Shyamalan as a director, his meticulous storyboarding and particular vision, and the challenges of “humanizing and connecting.” For more on the film, you can watch the interview in the video above, or read the full transcript below.

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Image via Universal 

COLLIDER: First of all, let me start by saying this movie is fantastic. I just told [M. Night Shyamalan] this is one of his best films. You both are so good in it. I'm sure you're hearing this from everyone. But I have an individual question for Jonathan. Do more people want to talk to you about Mindhunter, Frozen, Hamilton, or your one episode of And Just Like That?

BEN ALDRIDGE: Iconic acting.

JONATHAN GROFF: It's funny, And Just Like That gets a lot of play with people, but I would say Mindhunter is the most asked-about thing for sure.

That is the right answer.

GROFF: Okay. I didn't know there was a right or wrong.

Yeah, there is. Have you seen Mindhunter?

ALDRIDGE: I haven't.

Okay. Listen, sir…

GROFF: Wait, what?

ALDRIDGE: You know that. I'm going to at some point. I haven't yet.

GROFF: Yeah, right.

I'm going to say this: it is probably the best thing Netflix has ever made. It's really incredible. I can't emphasize enough how much it's worth your time.

GROFF: Oh wow.

ALDRIDGE: I have been told that many, many times.

GROFF: He’ll still refuse to watch it.

ALDRIDGE: I will... I'll watch it if you watch BBC's Lark Rise to Candleford.

GROFF: I'm sorry, what? [Laughs]

ALDRIDGE: Which you've never heard of. Exactly.

GROFF: I keep saying I want to watch things you're in, and you tell me not to.

ALDRIDGE: No, you don't need to. But yeah, I will watch it.

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Image via Netflix

We'll see. In a year, please text him, and be like, "Have you watched?" Or in six months.

GROFF: In a year. I'll wait a year.

I do want to talk about something serious. You guys are obviously openly gay. You're playing a gay couple in a big Hollywood movie. I don't think could have happened 10, 15 years ago. I think that it's amazing. And it's not the focus of the story; it just happens to be. So can you talk a little bit about that?

GROFF: I came out 15 years ago. And I remember when I came out it was 2009, so whatever that math is… 14 years ago? I remember thinking, “Okay, I'm sort of putting aside any dreams of being in a big Hollywood movie,” because it didn't seem like that would be possible.

Gay marriage wasn't even legal yet. And so the fact that we're in a – And I grew up watching Night's movies, of course. So now we're in a Night movie where a married gay couple is the central family of the story and sort of the love story of the movie, and in some ways, with Kristen, our daughter, the heart of the movie. And we're two out actors. It's like whiplash of how fast that happened. I just feel – I know we both feel – insanely, insanely lucky to be the age we are now, in the time we are now, riding this wave of progress. It's extraordinary.

Is there anything you wanted to add?

ALDRIDGE: I think that's a very good answer, and I wholeheartedly agree with all of it. But yeah, I feel very grateful, very proud to be in this film. And I think the way it does handle their relationship and the queer narrative that they have lived, it's done very sensitively, and it's done very deftly by Night. It honors, I think, a narrative that a lot of queer people will be able to relate to, without it becoming the crux of the film.

At the same time, I think that them being a loving family is universal, and I think that the film really exemplifies that. It really demonstrates that. The thing that our community speaks of a lot, is “love is love,” and this film totally shows that.

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Image via Universal

What do you think it is about end-of-the-world movies and television shows that we just love that genre and keep coming back to it?

ALDRIDGE: Well, right now, I guess we've survived a pandemic. We've got the climate crisis being a very present fear factor in our lives. And I think Night is purposefully playing on those fears, the fears that we have as our collective fears as a society. I remember I was obsessed with Apocalypse. And Deep Impact and Armageddon did that for me.

GROFF: Oh yeah.

ALDRIDGE: I was so obsessed that I looked into the Nostradamus prophecies. I read the Book of Revelation, twice in the bath, and I thought I was going to crack the code of what 666 was–

GROFF: [Laughs] Why in the bath?

ALDRIDGE: I don't know. I just read it in the bath. And who the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were. I feel like for as long as our time here has been documented, we've always felt like it's around the corner. The ending of this, of our own lives, is our only certainty, so why wouldn't we think about it all ending? I think that really does hook you into the film.

GROFF: Couldn't say it better.

There are some moments where there are 10 pages of dialogue that you guys are filming, where the camera is going around. I love the way he shoots this and some of the use of close-ups. What was it like working with Night, and what surprised you about working with him on set and the way he directs, and the way he moves the camera?

GROFF: First of all, I didn't know that it was going to be shot mostly in chronological order, which was really amazing. Acting-wise, to start, rarely you get that opportunity to start at the beginning basically and go to the end.

We had two weeks of rehearsal, which is also very rare in a movie, and great, and we learned a lot about our characters and each other during that time. And he told us, "I have the entire movie boarded. Turn around, and you will see." And there were the cartoons of-

ALDRIDGE: Every moment.

GROFF: Not only the ideas of the shots, but the closeups that you're talking about, and the camera movements that you're talking about, all pre-planned. So when we would show up on set, we wouldn't do a rehearsal. That's what those first two weeks were for, reading and talking and discussing lines. When you finally show up on set and you start shooting, the cameras are in their position; he tells you where to stand, tells you where to sit, and he tells you exactly what he wants.

So the challenge is humanizing and connecting, given the very specific blocking and movements and words. This collective group of seven actors, including Kristen, the extraordinary eight-year-old, who it was her first movie, and she's been given this precision acting exercise, we all really believed in the movie, and we all really believed in each other and we just went full-out every time, no matter if the camera was on you or not. It created this real support and ensemble vibe to the movie. We all had each other's backs. And Night, he would get really excited and really enthusiastic, and there was a real team energy on the set, which was exciting.

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Image via Universal

I would imagine with another director, who doesn't have Night's track record, it's hard to do something like that, to really believe in this window that he's trying to shoot in. But when it's someone like Night, is it easier to give yourself over to a process that doesn't allow for a lot of improvisation?

ALDRIDGE: Yeah. Personally, that took me a while to get used to. I've been on film before where it was really improvisational, and it was really work-shoppy, it was super collaborative. Just very different directors. And I so enjoyed both processes, but it took a while to... What you are there to do as an actor, with Night, is you are there to aid him [to] realize his vision. If the set, if the dialogue, if all of the prop details are all these different palettes that he's painting with, you are also, as an actor, another layer of that, that he's molding and shaping. And he's this ultimate puppet master, in a way, of what's going on.

The best thing to do is to yield to what he wants, in a way. And it's this interesting thing of still thinking but slightly switching off and just trusting him and going, "Okay, he's made these incredible movies. He knows what he's doing." There is an element of leap-of-faith about it because you actually have the... It's the least control I've ever had over anything I've performed. But at the same time, the script was just overtaking me as well. So it was really such an interesting process to be part of.

I know a lot of actors, and they can't watch themselves on screen. I don't know how the two of you are, but I am curious what it was like watching this for the first time.

GROFF: It was cool. I was reminded of how intense we got. I was like, "Wow, all seven of us were really going for it." And it took me back to that feeling of being in the cabin, which is a very specific experience, as a group of actors, to go to such a dark, intense place collectively as a group. And we did that every time between action and cut.

And so watching it, sense memory sent me back there. There were moments when I started to feel like I was going to cry because I remembered so viscerally the feeling of being there and the overwhelming emotion that would happen. And I thought, “Wow, Night really made something…” I thought it was beautiful. I thought he did a really beautiful job.

ALDRIDGE: Yeah, same, I realized that my body was twitching whilst I'm watching it, which is actually what Night's body does. If you watch it on the monitor, he's experiencing what the actors are experiencing. But I was sat in the theater being like, "Ooh, okay. Yep, I'm doing all the things that I was doing when I was sat there, strapped to the chair." I found it really thrilling.

I think it's a dream-come-true moment. He makes movies. And I guess to quote Harry Styles, “He makes movie movies.” And I've never seen my eyes in a tight closeup like that on a huge screen or anything. He just fits this thing together in a way that I've never seen myself in such a big production. So I was like, "Wow, this is super cool."

Knock at the Cabin is in theaters on February 3. You can check out our interview with M. Night Shyamalan below.