Taylor John Smith had to share the water with an alligator while filming a key scene.
Filming on location made the events of the story come to vivid detail for the cast.
“The wild was definitely on Kya’s doorstep,” Edgar-Jones tells EW.
Michele K. Short/Columbia Pictures
“Actuallyher doorstep, because the set flooded and the lagoon got to her doorstep.”
“Hearing the cicadas, the Spanish Moss everywhere, these beautiful birds and dragonflies it was just gorgeous.
But I’ve never heard thunder and lightning like it.
We would have to sit in our cars while lightning passed.”
Smith says the reality of the environment made everything click.
“It gave [us] a soundtrack,” he says.
“It felt like you were really in it.
Then you get to film in New Orleans and it’s perfect.
It’s exactly what people are going to expect.”
Occasionally, things got too real.
Like the time Smith realized he was sharing the water with an alligator while filming.
“Taylor was being so polite being like, ‘Excuse me sorry.
Is this okay?'”
I’m like, ‘That’s funny.’
They said, ‘If it looks bigger than five or six feet probably hop out.’
I’m like, ‘I can’t tell from here.
I just see his eyes looking at me.
They’re like, ‘Uh, rolling.'"
Alligators weren’t the only creatures they had to contend with.
Edgar-Jones once tumble-dried a cockroach.
“He was out in the woods with one of the snake capture teams.
They have these long poles with clips on the end to pick up snakes.
He was out there looking for snakes.
He just wanted to be useful.”
But the elements proved taxing in that regard too.
“It was a bit challenging dealing with the rising and lowering tides,” explains director Newman.
The marshes are so flat.
There’s no shade.
Executive ProducerReese Witherspoonwas impressed by the cast and crew’s ability to weather the natural obstacles.
“But it’s all on film and you’re able to see it out there.
you might’t fake stuff like that.
It’s this dreamy experience of going to the movies and seeing this world you’ve never seen.”
Where the Crawdads Singhits theaters July 15.
