ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Bird Box Barcelona stars Diego Calva and Georgina Campbell about wearing blindfolds and the film’s diverse cast. The film premieres on Netflix on July 14, 2023.
“From the producers of the global phenomenon, Bird Box, comes Bird Box Barcelona, an expansion of the film that riveted audiences in 2018,” reads the film’s official synopsis. “After a mysterious force decimates the world’s population, Sebastian must navigate his own survival journey through the desolate streets of Barcelona. As he forms uneasy alliances with other survivors and they try to escape the city, an unexpected and even more sinister threat grows.”
Tyler Treese: Diego, the directors were telling me sometimes the actors preferred to actually be blindfolded. What was your approach to the blindfold scenes?
Diego Calva: I don’t know, it changes all the way. So your way to act when you’re more aware of the sound, for example, and you’re not aware of the space … so you move differently. I don’t know, in some takes, it was pretty cool to actually not see and try to explore that.
Georgina, your character is dealing with a lot of heavy themes throughout this movie, such as depression, grief, and loss. What did you find most interesting about the arc for your character in this film? I
Georgina Campbell: I think it’s interesting that she blamed herself a lot for something that’s happened in the past with her brother, and she’s someone that listens to other people — she’s a therapist. She’s used to listening to other people’s problems and trying to help them, but she doesn’t necessarily do the same thing to herself. So I think through this film and through meeting Sebastian Mario Casas’ character, she kind of learns that she needs to look at herself and how she hasn’t dealt with grievance from her past
Diego, for any disaster movie, the human interactions are just as important as everything else going on. Can you speak to the human element in the movie and this interesting dynamic where they have to put trust in others to survive, but they also have to be very wary of everybody they interact with?
Diego Calva: I think in these movies, in Bird Box, Barcelona, the new enemy is also the humans, and in every apocalyptic movie, like with zombies, you have to be aware of the human consciousness. So like, Mario’s not a good character in this one. [Laugh].
Georgina, the original Bird Box was such a huge hit. What really was a pleasant surprise is that this is not a retread. How satisfying was it that this universe is being expanded upon? We’re seeing completely new layers to it, and you also have such a great, diverse cast. How great was it when you read the script and saw what it was doing to really expand the world?
Georgina Campbell: Yeah, I was really amazed. The idea [is often] that lots of movies that aren’t in the English language get picked up by America and they get remade in English. This was kind of a fun twist on that. That they took a big Hollywood movie and took it to a not English-speaking country and made an expansion on it. I thought that was so exciting and hopefully will bring people that maybe normally wouldn’t watch films that aren’t in their language to it. I just think the script is really smart. It’s different. It’s not a sequel. It’s telling its own story and it’s giving a very different perspective than we’ve already seen in the first Bird Box.
Diego, Babylon was one of my favorite movies last year. What lesson did you learn the most from that whole experience from filming to doing so much press for that film?
Diego Calva: I learned English for Babylon — I didn’t know any English at the time, but I realized that there’s another language that I actually speak, that is movie language. What I do, my craft … I can do it anywhere in the world the same. Like in China, in Barcelona, in Mexico, making movies is the same.