Recently I got a tweet from Don't Breathe director Fede Alvarez
and he says, "We learned lots from @BlindFilmCritic
while writing Don't Breathe." To me, that knocked me out.
I had to find out just what he met by that. [music plays]
Don't Breathe is about a group of friends of break into a wealthy blind guy's house
and think they're going to get away with the perfect heist... but they're wrong.
[music continues]
I was lucky enough to go the press junket... WOMAN: Just slate your name for us, Tommy,
and then you can meet. TOMMY: Hi, my name is Tommy Edison.
And I was able to talk to the director and a bunch of people in the cast.
It is so good to meet you. Look at you all! You look even better in person than you
do on the big screen. It's awesome. [group laughs] How does that happen?
[music resolves]
Alright, so I have to ask you first off then. This week I get a tweet
from you and you tell me in this tweet that
my YouTube channel is so helpful to the making of the movie Don't Breathe.
So, how was it helpful? FEDE: It was helpful because
it's really hard, I guess, for me
and for anybody that has sight to kind of understand
what's that abstraction of what it is to
live with out sight, right? So...
in order to write a real character like the character of "The Blind Man" in this film,
I needed to know more about it and understand
it so I was about to say like
well I'm just going to find someone who is visually
impaired and just sit with them and just ask them a bunch of questions,
but suddenly I found your website where everybody asked every question
possible so it was like all these people have done the work for me.
I just have to listen to all the answers. So it was crucial.
It was really, really --- so, I mean, 31 00:01:30,700 --> 00:01:30,690 I couldn't have done it without it.
I couldn't have done it without it. TOMMY: Do you think there's one video that
really helped you? Like, for example, is there anything from one of the videos
that we might have seen in the movie?
FEDE: Um, I don't think one you might have seen. There was an intention to do drawings.
Because I love the one when they ask you to draw and you draw a cat.
TOMMY: Uh huh. FEDE: I thought that was amazing.
Because it really kind of showed what's in your
mind when you think about a shape or image
and what's the abstraction of that. So I thought it was very interesting
to see that. And we tried... I think with art we actually
create some of those but then they didn't find their way into --
images I think you get to see those maybe in his room
when we're walking into his room we get to see something. Can't remember all the videos
and which one we used, but I tell you we used a lot.
[music plays]
Stephen Lang plays "The Blind Man"... STEPHEN: Alright,
well this the --- this is unique, right Tommy?
TOMMY: Is it unique, right? STEPHEN: This is what we call the pot calling the kettle black.
TOMMY: Hello there, kettle. STEPHEN: How are you, pot?
[Tommy laughs] TOMMY: I was curious to know what he did to prepare.
[music resolves] STEPHEN: I watched quite a lot of the YouTube stuff but that's a very
conventional answer. I think I've watched you on YouTube a number of times.
TOMMY: Wow, that's very cool. Thank you very much for that.
STEPHEN: I thought the most important thing to do is to create a relationship
with my environment in which I could move
with ease, facility,
efficiency because not only is he blind
he's powerful and that was very, very important to me.
In terms of the blindness, you know I did
things as mundane as learning to make a cup of coffee
from start to finish
blind. Maybe even from you that
I learned about opening the eyes. That there's really no point
in opening your eyes. Is that possible?
TOMMY: That's absolutely from me, yeah. So, I'm blind since birth so
for me to open my eyes it's just, you know, it's work. It's muscles
that I don't normally use. STEPHEN: And that was enlightening to me as well.
TOMMY: What were some of the surprises for you about playing a blind character?
STEPHEN: I think it's kind of this myth that
when you lose the use of a sense the other one
somehow become more heightened as if we're all Daredevil
or something like that --- when in fact, what I really
discovered that it is, is that you just become more
attune to having to use them.
You just become more aware of the fact that you need to listen
a little more carefully. Just because you're blind doesn't mean
that you're ultra-sensitive in terms of taste, smell, hearing.
[music plays] TOMMY: I also got to spend a little time with
Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette, Daniel Zovatto.
These three play the people that break into the rich blind man's house.
What we're some of the things about doing this movie that were
a surprise to you? JANE: Dylan and I, there's a sequence where The Blind Man
turns off the lights and then we are in
quote-unquote his world. And we rehearsed it
by blackening out the set completely.
And Fede filmed us with night vision goggles
so we could see what we looked like when we couldn't see.
And something that happened to both Dylan and I that I found interesting is that our
mouths opened. When we were trying to find our way
our jaws dropped so low I was like, "is that my body
trying to like to take in as much as I can because
I'm compensating for not being able to see?"
[music plays]
TOMMY: Wow. You know, it was so cool and it was something
so different for us to be able to go to this press junket.
TOMMY: I'll tell you, you know the one thing that's great about this movie? I think people are going
to think twice now before they rob blind people so good for you.
FEDE: Totally. Totally. We're making your life better.
TOMMY: I'll be honest. I thought I did just as well as Mario Lopez or Billy Bush
or hell, even Ryan Seacrest.
STEPHEN: Thank you, brother. I'm here. TOMMY: Great to have met you. You should
have done it with your eyes closed. We could have had the awkward blind handshake.
STEPHEN: We can do that now if you'd like. TOMMY: Here. You ready? Close your eyes. Come on, let's see if you can do it.
Here you go. Right here. There you are.
Not, bad right? [Stephen laughs]
[music plays]
TOMMY: I also reviewed this movie so if you'd like to see that, there's a link for it
on the screen or in the description. So remember, you can subscribe to the channel
for more video. Also, you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter,
and even Instagram. And this ends my audition tape
for Entertainment Tonight.