Frodo the cat was a scene stealer in A Quiet Place: Day One. Bringing the cat to life on the big screen required the use of two trained cats, but a faux third was used for the more dangerous scenes.

In an interview with CinemaBlend, director Michael Sarnoski explained how he didn't want to rely on a CGI cat, opting to go practical as much as possible. Two trained cats, named Nico and Schnitzel, were utilized for most of Frodo's scenes. Sarnoski commented on the training process for the cats and observed how Schnitzel in particular seemed particularly wise.

"He seemed older than his years. He seemed very astute and sharp, but also kind of aloof in his own way. He seemed like he had an inner world going on," the director explained. "They trained those cats for months beforehand, putting them in pools, getting them used to water, getting them used to being carried in a bag, walking on a leash, all of that stuff."

"He seemed older than his years. He seemed very astute and sharp, but also kind of aloof in his own way."

He added, "And then also making the cats comfortable with Lupita and Joe. Joe and Lupita spent a lot of time with the cats outside of shooting, just to make it so they were at ease and could look comfortable and not like they were all, ‘Why am I sitting here? What's going on?’ Also, when you're doing something that a cat doesn't really want to do, which is like floating in a violin case in a flooded subway, they need to be surrounded by people that they sort of trust and feel safe around."

The Prop Frodo Head Is Revealed

Real cats were used for the bulk of Frodo's scenes, but there were some moments that were too dangerous to film with a real animal. That includes any scenes of Frodo underwater, as the production crew wouldn't actually submerge any cats. For moments like this, a prop cat was made, meant to resemble Schnitzel as much as possible. An Instagram page made for Schnitzel shared an image that reveals the feline standing next to the realistic head of the prop Frodo, which they named "Frida."

The movie stars Lupita Nyong'o, who had a lifelong fear of cats, but got over it by doing "cat therapy" before filming. By the end of the production, she had grown so bonded with her feline co-stars that she adopted a cat of her own. The film also stars Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, and Djimon Hounsou.

A Quiet Place: Day One is now playing in theaters.

Source: CinemaBlend, Instagram