Yahoo Movies Julia Roberts opens up about reunion for Netflix's Leave the World Behind
Homecoming's Julia Roberts has opened up on being reunited with director Sam Esmail on new Netflix movie Leave the World Behind.
In the new psychological thriller, which has been compared to Knock at the Cabin and starts streaming on Netflix this weekend, Roberts plays Amanda Sandford, whose family holiday is cut short by a pair of strangers baring apocalyptic news.
Esmail wrote and directed this adaptation of Rumaan Alam's 2020 novel, having previously directed Roberts across the whole first season of Homecoming.
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In a Digital Spy exclusive, the iconic actress explained: "I think I knew going into it that I understand Sam's approach, which is so great and he's so smart.
"His idea of setting tone and where he comes from musically. He would play music on the set for us and he creates an entire universe, so it really is a fun place to get to go to work because he supplies everything.
"It's like ... all the tools in the toolbox are just open and available to you every day."
As for working alongside Mahershala Ali and Ethan Hawke on Leave the World Behind, Roberts shared: "I think once we were all in the room together, [Esmail] would let us explore things.
"When you bring people into a room that you respect, you do want to take how you feel about them and think, 'How can I manifest this into my performance?' I think the four of us together, we were a really good combination."
Related: Julia Roberts' Netflix movie lands excellent Rotten Tomatoes rating following first reviews
The filmmaker himself returned the sentiments while speaking to DS, too.
"I'm very much about a family of filmmakers," Esmail revealed. "Julia, who's a producer on the movie, I consider a fellow filmmaker on this.
"My AD Peter Kohn, my cinematographer Tod Campbell, my production designer Anastasia [White], my costume designer Cat, my composer Mac [Quayle], these are all people I've worked with throughout my entire career.
"So, for me, it just makes life a lot easier when you have that secondhand nature with them. When you're doing something as difficult as making a film and pulling all these pieces together, it helps when everyone already knows the tone and the vision. You can just start diving into the deeper conversations of how we're going to pull it off."
Leave the World Behind is in select cinemas now and is released on Netflix on December 8.
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