Capone chats with DON'T BREATHE's young male leads Dylan Minnette and Daniel Zovatto!!!

Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

I love that the scrappy little suspense film DON’T BREATHE has somehow clicked with the mainstream. When I first saw it at its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in March, I knew I loved it, but I wasn’t sure how (or if) it would connect with audiences, but its perfect pacing and even its ickier moments seem to work for everyone, and that’s great for writer-director Fede Alvarez.

At SXSW, I had a chance to sit down with the two young stars of the film Dylan Minnette and Daniel Zovatto, who play two of the three burglars of an older blind man in a nasty Detroit neighborhood. Minnette is probably best known for his recent work in GOOSEBUMPS, LABOR DAY, and PRISONERS. I first remember the former child actor playing young Michael on “Prison Break,” as well as roles in “Lost,” LET ME IN, and ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY.

While Costa Rican-born newcomer Zovatto has had high-profile roles in LAGGIES, IT FOLLOWS, “Fear the Walking Dead,” and “Revenge.” It was also just announced that he’s been cast opposite John Cusack in MISFORTUNE, the new film from director Lucky McKee. Fresh from the debut of the film, the two seemed almost relieved that it was received so well, and we had a few minutes to chat about their preparation and experience working with the intense Stephen Lang, who plays the Blind Man. Please enjoy my talk with Dylan Minnette and Daniel Zovatto, and be warned of some MAJOR SPOILERS if you haven't seen the film yet.





Capone: Start from the beginning. Tell me about how you two were approached to be in this, or did you have to audition?

Dylan Minnette: It was an audition. I got the script in an email, saying “Do you want to read for this?” Yes. It was the typical audition process, until different variations of people were reading for my part, for Daniel’s part, for the girl—we read together with other people.

Daniel Zovatto: They mixed and matched. They bring in a lot of actors, and we were there also.

Capone: Like chemistry tests to see how you worked together?

DM: Chemistry test. Yeah, yeah. So then he read for Alex, I read for Money, they had Rockys. They just switched us around. We had worked previously in a little TV spot that we did, so we knew each other, and then when we got there we were like, “Oh man, how cool would it be if we actually got to work again?” Then he got cast, and I got cast.

Capone: They auditioned you guys together at one point? Because I thought in a weird way, it would almost be better if your chemistry was not good, because that’s clearly the point of that relationship

DZ: That’s the acting part, right? [laughs] I’m really good at being a dick to him.

Capone: You can pretend to hate each other a little bit.



DM: That’s the thing, right before that, we were saying “I’m so happy to see you. This is amazing.” Then we go in and do that. Also the way the script was at the time, and even in scenes that we filmed that weren't in [the final cut], Money was even more of a dick to Alex. He was a straight-up dick to Alex. So it was pretty mean.

DZ: I was pushing him around; it was great.

Capone: There are huge passages in this film where the whole point is to be as quiet as possible. Talk about being pushed to act with your face and body and not with your words and voice. That’s the thing that you always fall back on as an actor, but now you don't have it.

DM: Exactly. Yeah, like you know… how do I say it? I said it a second ago, though. Sorry… what am I trying to say?

DZ: It’s good you didn’t have lines.

[Everybody laughs]

DM: Yeah, exactly. That’s why. It was just challenging because you have to just sell simply a look on your face and sell real fear, which to me was a challenge. “How am I going to make this look real? Are people going to believe that I’m scared right now? I can’t say anything, I can’t scream.” So you have to rely on your eyes or whatever; it was kind of a challenge.



DZ: He was saying he was doing a lot of mirror work.

DM: A lot of mirror work.

Capone: What about you?

DZ: I’m a loud mouth, man. I’m not that quiet.

Capone: That’s true. Your character doesn’t really have to deal with that as much.

DZ: Even when I wait until he falls asleep, I come back downstairs like, “It’s done!” I don’t care.

DM: Also, you don’t know if he’s really asleep. “You need to shut up.”

DZ: No, I don’t. Yeah, he’s a dumbass. No, I didn’t really have to do the mirror work, but I did have to be the opposite of these guys. If anybody has a brain, it’s not Money. He’s an impulsive guy. He sees the money, he wants the money, so he doesn’t really think things through. And I think that was my job. It was a weird thing that I wanted to play with.

Capone: Stephen Lang is like a gift in this movie.

DZ: Genius.

Capone: What do you learn from working with a guy like him and watching him do his thing?

DM: I learned that I wanna get ripped.



DZ: I learned a lot from him. He was a gem, man. He really came in. He’s been in it for a long time; he’s method. He’s old school. He’s a theater guy. He gave me a lot of advice. I’m sure he gave you a lot of advice. He’s just the type of guy who, I don’t know man, he’s older than us, and he’s with us kids, so he wants to be like, “Hey, look. Do that. Do this.” Even in the scene with me where he kills me, he was like, “Are you ready for this?” “Yeah, I’m ready for this.” “I’m going to give it all to you” “Yeah, give it all to me.” It’s no pretending. It’s all real. That’s something I learned from him: Do it for real, don’t fucking pretend.

Capone: There had to be a certain amount of choreography here, but it still looks really dangerous and brutal. Talk about that. Did you get punched?

DZ: You got whacked.

DM: I got punched. It wasn’t a full-on punch; I wasn’t injured. It was just that his fist connected with my head. That definitely happened. Overall, I feel like I didn’t get prepared enough, because I just wasn’t prepared. I just really wasn’t prepared [laughs].

DZ: The thing is, he doesn’t smoke, so it was good. You have karma there.

DM: Right, right. I learned how to fake getting strangled. But what about you, though?



DZ: I think for me, I live for those things. I really love doing stunts. I love getting beat up. I’ve been in a lot of fights, so if you’re going to throw me there, throw me. For me and Stephen, it was just fun, dude. He beat the shit out of me. It was fun. The day after, I was like, “Why did I do that?” Because it was a three-day thing. He beat me up for three days, and I didn’t wear any pads or anything, and by the end, I was like “I probably should put some pads on, because my back is purple.”

DM: Yeah, exactly.

DZ: But to talk about the choreography of that scene, because I’m sure you really love that shot where we first go in. That was all very choreographed.

Capone: That was a great shot.

DZ: And how it goes up to his room. I mean, it’s great. So that was all choreographed, but it wasn’t like three weeks anticipation. It was Fede being like “Alright, this is what we’re going to do.”

DM: Right before we did it.

DZ: Right before we did it, yeah. But I think that’s cool, because it’s just organic. And also, he didn’t let us walk into the house before we walked into the house. Do you remember that?

DM: We saw it when it was just white walls.

DZ: White walls, no furniture, no nothing. So we walked in and saw it for the first time and we were like “What the fuck is this place?” So it was real.

Capone: We get a nice look of the geography of the upstairs and ground level, but when you go downstairs and the lights go out, we are lost. It’s a whole other world down there for many, many reasons. When you were shooting it, were you told to treat the upstairs and the downstairs differently?

DM: Well, even when the lights are off upstairs, you can see because there’s like moonlight or things from outside. But in the basement in the scene you’ve seen where it’s that form of night vision down there, which is amazing.

Capone: Yeah, it’s like a black-and-white movie.

DM: Yeah, it’s so cool, so unique. So the camera requires a ring. It was a Stedicam, and there was a ring around the lens that was a light, so that’s how they had light in there. But if that light is off, it’s pretty much pitch black down there. So in between takes when the camera is off, I’d be like “I’m going to take this moment to practice actually trying to get through here.” So I would memorize what I’m doing like “I touched here, and I touched a wall,” so I would try to play it back when we were filming with the light, so I could remember “Oh yeah, I did this.” That’s a choreography in itself, because you’re basically dancing. “How can I sell that I can’t see? I have to put my hands here and pretend,” because you can. There’s a camera right in front of you. It was a whole different thing down there.

Capone: Did you say it was like dancing?

DM: I guess.

DZ: I wasn’t going to comment on that, but yeah.

DM: Because everywhere you put your hands counts; you’re selling things by what you touch, where you’re moving your hands. It’s very physical.

DZ: That was great, man. It really was.

Capone: Thank you so much. It was great to meet you. Best of luck with this.

DM: Thank you so much.

Capone: I can’t wait for people to see this. Nobody knows it exists right now. It’s this big mystery.

DM: It was so cool. I had never been a part of something that had that huge veil of mystery over it.

DZ: Take is easy, brother.



-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
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