John Krasinski explains how new film is inspired by his children
John Krasinski has been opening up about creating and directing his new movie IF.
The family-comedy film, which follows the story of a girl who can see everyone’s imaginary friends, was released in cinemas earlier this month.
While sharing where he got inspiration for the movie, John admitted it was his daughters and their imaginary friends that helped him create the concept.
Krasinski shares 10-year-old Hazel and seven-year-old Violet with his wife and fellow movie star Emily Blunt.
In an interview with People, John explained that his daughters would “disappear into a magical world that we, as parents, aren’t allowed into. I said to Emily, ‘That would make an amazing movie’”.
Moving on to reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic, John revealed, “They started doing fewer imaginary games, and they started to let the real world in. They started asking bigger questions and then finally said, ‘Are we going to be okay?’’”.
“I said to Emily, ‘That’s kind of the definition of growing up, isn’t it? When you let fear in?’. I thought, ‘I have to do this movie right now to show them that magical world they created, they can go back.’”.
Sharing more details of the characters in the film, John confessed, “The pink alligator Ally, that is Violet’s imaginary friend".
"The pink alligator lives under Violet’s bed. I said, ‘Is that scary to you?’. And she said, ‘No, that’s why she’s there, to eat all the bad guys when they come in’. And I said, ‘Oh, that makes sense’”.
“Hazel’s a very empathetic soul, and we were making s’mores one night, and her marshmallow burst into flames as they tend to do, and she was so destroyed that she had hurt some sort of creature”.
“And I said, ‘Oh, no, no, that’s just his thing. He lights on fire and then he goes out and then he lights on fire and then he goes out’. And she loved that idea, and so that became her imaginary friend”.
Krasinski also revealed that Hazel and Violet were involved in the development of the characters by saying, “I was just sketching all the IFs as I was writing and I would show them".
"I’m a terrible artist, so then once I started interfacing with real artists and talking about how it would really look, they got really excited”.
