The crew had put a ladder over the studio wall.
I would climb up it in between setups
and Antoine Fuqua, our director,
would come out of his van down the block
and we would sort of yell at each other from afar,
like Romeo and Juliet.
Hello, I'm Jake Gyllenhaal
and I am about to take you
through a scene in The Guilty,
shot by shot.
Have you been abducted?
- Yes.
911, emergency operator 625.
What is the address of your emergency?
So this scene is probably the most pivotal scene
in the movie because it's really in a lot of ways
where the train starts to move.
Hello?
Is this Emily?
- Hi sweetie.
Sorry, you called 911.
Joe Baylor, the character that I play,
meets Emily Lighton who is the woman that
throughout the rest of the movie,
he's going to try and save.
- Don't be afraid.
Have you been drinking?
- No, I haven't.
Why did you call us?
This was one of the first moments I exchanged
any acting or, or had any exchange with Riley Keough
who plays Emily, in this context.
I mean, I'd spoken to Riley on the phone
before we started shooting a tiny bit,
but the way we set it up was that all the actors
on the other end of the line were on a Zoom call
and they were all over the world.
Okay, I'm hanging up.
- I'm just out for a drive sweetie, okay?
- Come on now.
Who is that?
Because of Zoom and because of all the sound
that was used in the movie,
I was hearing my own voice repeat back to me
in this whole sequence that you're watching.
So I'm actually trying desperately to act
like it's not happening.
Is the person you're with know you called us?
- No.
Who do they think you called?
- Yes, sweetie.
Your child?
Yes.
The interesting part of the structure of the scene
is that Antoine Fuqua was trying
as hard as he could through the beginning of the movie
not to move his camera.
If you look at the shots,
you can see there's cutting from angle to angle,
but the camera itself doesn't move at all.
Okay Emily,
just try and keep calm.
We need to figure out where you are.
Alright, I show that you're outside city limits.
Just keep pretending like you're talking to your child, okay?
Talk to me like I'm your child.
His desire from the beginning was to try
and play in long shots.
So the five minutes of this sequence,
we shot for 20 minutes each time.
But I had all the people around me moving around
and cueing extras
so it all felt really natural
and all in one real moment, as opposed to cutting.
Do you see fire?
- Yes.
Okay, when you look out your window,
is it on your left or on your right?
- Yes.
Your left?
- Yes.
Okay, you're going east.
We shot the movie in October of 2020,
and we were all so grateful to be making the movie,
but the Friday before we were supposed to start shooting,
we got word that Antoine Fuqua, our director,
had been near someone who had tested positive for COVID,
which meant he couldn't be on set for 12 days.
And we had an 11 day shoot.
So we devised this plan, that we got this van
with monitors in it.
Is it a car?
- No.
Truck?
- Van.
- What?
- What, no, just yes or no answers Emily.
So Antoine ended up directing the entire movie
from the confines of a van a block away from the stage.
It was quite an experience.
Antoine wanted to make sure that I could stay healthy.
So he shot all my stuff as quickly as he could
to make sure he had the movie
before anything happened.
Okay, I have to put you on hold.
- No, no.
I have to.
Just hold the line Emily.
Act like you're comforting your child, okay?
And then we came back and shot shots
at the back of my head,
the insert of the call light coming in.
All of those shots were shot
the last two days of filming.
- California Highway Patrol--
This is Officer Joe Baylor, LAPD Communications.
I have a woman who's been abducted.
So I think one of the things
that's really interesting
about Joe Baylor, the character I play,
is that he thinks he's doing well.
- Okay, sweetie.
Emily?
I'm back.
He has so many things going on
outside of this phone call.
His daughter he's trying to connect with
who he can't connect with
and his wife he's trying to call.
He's been trying to call her right before this
and she didn't pick up.
And then she finally calls right when he's on the phone
where he can't hang up.
Shit.
That adds extra pressure for him 'cause he knows
it was a call he was waiting for forever
and then he just missed it.
And he might not be able to talk to his wife
or his daughter again.
She only wants to talk to you Emily.
Tell him that.
She only wants to talk to you.
- She doesn't want to talk to you.
I'm sorry.
At the time, in October of 2020,
to make a movie, to go back to work
was supremely unrealistic.
And one of the reasons
I think a lot of people allowed us to do this was
because there was one character
and it could be kept as safe
as you could probably possibly keep a set at the time.
Emily, I need the color of the car, okay.
When I say the right one, say “It's fine.”
Red, blue, white.
- It's fine.
I think we all were so proud by the end.
We all got out of there safely.
It was a real testament to the incredible crew
that we got through it like we did.
My name is Joe, I'll be waiting.
- I'm going to hang up.
- I'm sorry. - Emily, do you hear me?
I will be waiting.
My name is--
The Guilty is now streaming on Netflix.