Do Emily Blunt & Josh O'Connor Believe In Aliens?

Do you know, Willie thought that these were tats? I did. Full neck tattoos. When I saw Emily backstage, I thought, oh, she got some tat sleeves. But it's just a lovely ensemble that you put together. This movie is just, I mean, the buzz around this movie, what the critics are saying about this movie. Can you tell me, Emily, about that first phone call from Stephen that you were finally, one of your dreams, I think, to work with him? I mean, it's like a rave sort of goes off in your body, which is just so thrilling. I think I did scream when my agent called me. And I also loved that my agent didn't know anything about it. It was just cloaked in so much secrecy. And that made it even more special that we were on the in. Yeah, they knew nothing. Yeah, nothing. And I was thrilled. What was that phone call like for you, Josh? Josh also screamed. I screamed. Yeah, I did. No, I went and met him in New York, actually. And I cried as I left. Did you? Yeah. I actually haven't told anyone that. Oh, Josh. I've heard all your talking points on this press tour, and I've not heard that. Save that for the show. What was it about the meeting that made you feel that way, the opportunity? The opportunity, like meeting the guy, like the guy. And, yeah, it's just sort of my childhood. It's like every reason I wanted to become an actor. And then he's there, and he's kind and generous and listens. And then he says, see if you like it. And you were like, see if I like it? He was like, I'm going to send you the script, and obviously if you have a relationship to the material, I'm like, yeah, right. You're like, I will be married. I don't really have a relationship to this material. It's hard to keep a poker face. Let me think about it. I'm in. So, Emily, you play a meteorologist in this movie, and I know you did some research to play that kind of part, studying people who are on TV, the way they project themselves and carry themselves. Obviously, things take a bit of a turn for this meteorologist, but what was your preparation like for this? I mean, I just watched a lot of weather. I know an awful lot about cold fronts and how they move in. I mean, you've got the look. You're good in front of the weather map. She's got a nice neon dress on. I was amazed by the agility of people who work in news, just the fact that they have to kind of think on their feet and shift on their feet. And sometimes meteorologists have 90 seconds, and other times they're like, no, you've got 42 seconds, and we've got to cut to this story. It was just really cool learning about that life and the consumption of it. It was wild. With someone talking in your ear the whole time as well. Totally different skill. So I know we don't want to give up too much because it's such a beautiful movie for people to just experience, Josh, but what can you say about your character and what he discovers? Daniel Kellner. Well, Daniel is essentially a whistleblower. He's kind of got this propulsion to expose the truth. There's an inequity of information, and he feels very strongly that that should be out there in the public domain. But also he has this missing gap in his memory from his childhood, which is explained later, and I won't tell you about because then you won't see the movie. And Emily, your character, she's a meteorologist at first, but then her life becomes something much, much more. Yes. I think she's someone who has always been trying to figure out why she can't. There's a restlessness in her, sort of wondering what she was really made for. And she finds out on this one day, and she gets imbued with these gifts from non-human sources that I think become, then it leads her on this kind of life-or-death race towards converging with his character as to whether they're going to expose this truth or be shut down by these evil powers trying to stop it. And people who've seen the movie or heard about her are fascinated by some of the language that comes out of your mouth. Languages, I should say, including kind of a clicking sound. Yes. I speak alien, guys. You speak alien. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I developed it with Steven. We were considering whether we used AI or not, and I said I thought we could do it ourselves. And so I have endless, incredibly creepy voice memos that I've sent to Steven Spielberg, clicking and humming and other bizarre sounds that I thought he might like. Those voice memos will be in the director's cut. You watching for those? There's about a hundred of them. Stay in the theater, because at the end, we'll do the outtakes. We've got Emily Blunt, Joshua Conner here. That was a look at their new film, Disclosure Day, which is in theaters now. It looks incredible. Josh, I've got to ask you, because I heard the story, and it killed me, about kind of an accidental text you got from Steven Spielberg, which you really took to heart and interpreted in a way that you wanted to bring to your character. Tell that story. By the way, it is a great note. It's just it wasn't for me. Steven's so brilliant, and we sort of spend, you know, we talk ahead of time about scenes coming up, and we had this scene two weeks in advance, and we were texting about it one night, and it was around Daniel Kellner, my character, and he's feeling these emotions, and I was trying to figure out if we see him upset, visibly upset or not, and whether we should allow him to feel that vulnerability, and we're going back and forth, and then I was just going to bed, and I get a text from Steven saying, the door is on the latch. Just push, which is brilliant. And I was kind of thinking it's like the emotions are on the latch, and just let them, just push them. Allow them to be free. And I was like, Steven, this is incredible. You started weeping again. Yeah, I was like, this is perfect. This is how I'm going to do it. And then he looked so confused, and he was like, that was for my wife. It was an instructional text. Just, door is on the latch, just push. I'm going to bed. But it's still a great note. The fact that his wife Kate had forgotten her keys, and that's really what the text was about. And what did she get? Like, don't cry. But as you say, it worked, and you took it and brought it to your character. Brilliant. Emily, it's not the first time you've done action in your movies, but there's some pretty intense stuff in here. Is that something you enjoy doing? You're such a good, quiet actress when you have to be, but do you like this kind of stuff also? I love a bit of action. I love a fight scene, especially when you're seeing partners like Tom Cruise in Known. Oh, come on. Come on. There's a train scene. The train sequence was fantastic. I mean, it's sort of a dream to be in a Steven Spielberg action sequence. The way he films an action sequence is cuckoo. It's so exciting. So we loved it. We felt so Cruise, didn't we? We felt incredibly Cruise. We had a bag, a rucksack, that I carried around everywhere in the movie, that was called Bag Pit. Yeah. Oh. And that was, like, the real lead of the movie. Yeah, such an upstager. I'm such an upstager. Always a close-up on Bag Pit. It's crazy. Well, you have to give Bag Pit. That's who he is. The money. So a lot of this movie was shot in New Jersey, actually here at 30 Rock. Oh, New Jersey. That's in New Jersey. Great. And by the way, guys, many of the scenes in the movie feature one of Kelly's cameramen, Jim, who is here on camera one. Hello, Jim. I'll try to hold the shot while I'm talking. And very impressive. He's doing two things at once. Jim, when you shot this, did you realize how much you actually would end up in the movie? I still don't know. I'm going to be seeing it Sunday, you know, so two days after it opens. I can't wait to see it. Jim, you are front and center in this. Am I? I'll take it from you to be the truth. Well, thank you, Jim. Thank you, Jim. This was intimidating the heck out of me, but I heard that former president of the United States just dropped in on the set one day. Barack Obama is very close with Steven Spielberg, so he just kind of sauntered in one day. Well, we heard that he was... We had a day off, by the way, and we pretended we needed to come in. Yeah. Because we heard someone might be coming by, and so Josh and I swiftly cleared our schedules and, like, ran to Steiner Studios to see him. It was so cool. It was. I mean, imagine as an actor, even if you guys weren't acting that day, people in the scene go, -"Is that Barack Obama?" Yeah. Completely. Maybe, like, puts a little pressure in them. I, like, curtsied. Did you? Yeah. I was like... Bizarre. Steven thought we were being lame because we were all so quiet because we were intimidated. Yeah. And then tell them what he said to you to break the ice. He said we have the same ears. I mean... Kind of. He was actually such a nice icebreaker. Oh! His ears are great. No, your ears are great. Okay, Emily, we were talking backstage about Steven, and he's been out talking about, is there life out there? Yes. Some of these ideas. And it seems to me like he's come around to, yes, it would be almost... I think he's always felt that way. Oh, he's all the way in. I think he's always felt that way, and we certainly all went down the rabbit hole of exploring every single interview, congressional hearing, documentary you can watch. And it just became overwhelming how credible it all seemed. I think when the stories first started coming out, they were on the cover of the National Enquirer, and now they're on the cover of the New York Times. And it's like it's gone from being a woo-woo conspiracy theory to this really is a credible thing that is happening. And I think this movie is representing Steven's summation of it all, you know? Have you come around, Josh, having done this film, about something else being out there? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think, to be honest, before it doesn't take much to kind of look up at the night sky and think, probably we're not the most intelligent life. You know? There's probably more intelligent life than some. We hope so anyway. We hope so, yeah. But then I think, as Emily said, Steven is so brilliant, and he's just so smart about these things. And the way he presents information to us is completely non-biased. And it just seems to be, you know, I'm curious about it. I don't know if I'm completely convinced, but I think I'm more curious than I was. He makes a good case. He's also desperate for a visit. He's like, come on. I've made three movies that are now not hostile alien movies. Come on now. He said today, he goes, my agent gets 10% more than I've ever had from these aliens. He is setting up the flares. Come on down. Yeah, right. Please, come see me. Well, congratulations. It's a spectacular, spectacular film. Emily, I was talking about how busy you are. A little bit of a break, and then right back to A Quiet Place 3. We're shooting another one, guys. So John's shooting right now. Killian Murphy and Jason Clarke and Jack O'Connell and Millicent Simmons, our daughter from the first two. It's very exciting. Those movies were a revelation. Were they to you as well? I mean, they felt like you were taking a chance in some ways, and then they just exploded. I mean, I think the idea is so simple. If you make noise, you die. I didn't quite realize the mileage that John's very dark imagination would run with with that. But we were over the moon. I mean, you make these movies, and they're precious to you, and you don't know if they'll catch fire or not. So that they did has been amazing. Boy, have they. And not to be outdone, you're acting with Mick Jagger. Yeah. Well, weirdly not. We don't actually have anything together, but he's playing my dad, which is pretty cool. That is so cool. Like an estranged dad? Like an estranged dad, yeah. I won't give too much away, but we hung out, which is great. Like, what do you do when you hang out with him? I didn't do anything. I curtsied. Ask the right questions. All the normal stuff. You and those curtsies. All right, we're going to stop for a quick break. Disclosure Day is in theaters now. We do have a game for the film coming up next. Can you stick around for a couple more minutes? We'll be right back. For now, I've got Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor with me. In their new movie, Disclosure Day, Emily and Josh are in the middle of a worldwide cover-up. So, it's time for a cover-up of our own with a round of the game, Undercover Covers. Okay, voice of God, would you mind playing? Hosting, so that I can play along. Don't you worry, I got you covered, Big Willie Styles. How you doing down there, my man? Good to see you. Doing great. Looking good. What's up, Emily? What's up, Josh? Hey. That's right, yeah. Pay reverence, that's right. Spoiler alert, aliens are real, Bigfoot is too. Okay, here's how the game works. On the monitor before you, we will slowly reveal a famous album cover or movie poster. If you know the movie, album, or musician who made the album, hit your button and take a guess. But be careful, if you're wrong, you will be slowly roasted alive for all eternity. I'm just playing. Great, great. I'm just kidding. We're gonna keep revealing the cover for the other two people and you can't guess twice, okay? Okay. So, say it's me. Here we go. Here's the first one. Let's make this music, okay? Let's just say the band or the album. Please start revealing that cover now. Take a look. Let's see what we got here. What? Oh, Josh? Oh. It's the Beatles. What? You know it. You got it. That's right. Abbey Road. I didn't know the name. Bonus points for Abbey Road. There you go. That was adorable. I'll give you another point for that, Josh, because you're so cute. You're just so... That was kind of a little... That was a timid win. Okay. Here's the next one. Let's do a movie for this one. Please slowly reveal that movie. Okay, now. Pay close attention now. Come on. Come on, Willie and Emily. Here you go, Emily. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It is. Wow. That's amazing. You are absolutely correct. Wow. Are you furious? I got to get an A. Because you knew it. I know. I can't believe it. Emily, you got one point. Josh, you got two points. Willie, a big fat zero. Here is our next... It's my time. Here I come. Undercover cover. We're going to stick with movies. Please reveal that movie cover. Take a look at this. Oh. Emily. Emily hit it. I only did it because I saw him hit it. Is it like Dumb and Dumber? I know it. You get to go. Do I? Well, you were in before me. Superbad. It is Superbad. Did you know that? Yeah. I'm just going to watch at this point. You guys are amazing. Okay. Yeah, Willie, just hang back and enjoy the game. All right. Let's head back to some music with our next cover. Please slowly reveal that image. This is a good one. Willie. No. That is not true. Emily Blunt. Like I was saying, Michael Jackson died. Thank you very much. That is correct. I'm sorry. You know what, Willie? I'm going to give you two points because you're a ventriloquist. That was amazing how you did that twice. Very generous. That's really incredible. That was bad. The music video directed by Martin Scorsese. So, technically a film as well. Okay. Here is your next one. This is a movie. Please start the slow reveal. Take a look now. Pay close attention. Oh, my gosh. Come on. She's got it. It's Jaws. You better know that one. That is impressive. That's my boy. She's just buzzing. But then when I realized, yeah. What's my favorite movie? Your favorite movie, Spielberg. You rang after one tile. That's got to be some kind of a record. That was very, very impressive. So, it is time for one more cover. And how about this? Whoever gets this wins it all. This one will be a movie. Here we go. Please start the reveal. Oh, my gosh. Josh, go ahead. Ratatouille. It is Ratatouille. And it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Josh is the big winner. That's your Jaws. Well done. Wow. All right. Voice of God, thank you very much. Everybody give it up one more time for Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor.