"I feel like Lee's approach in this scene is: We just gotta get through this and get out alive," Dunst says. "So I wasn't scared of him as an actor. It's a weird question because Jesse and I, we fell in love creatively first as actors and how we work together. And we just love that process."

Continues Dunst, "I'm going to be very honest — watching him play that role, I was like, 'Dang, my baby is crushing this role.' So that's how I felt. I was like, 'F—, he's a good actor.' The scenario was very scary, but I wasn't scared of him. But just looking at the mass grave, all of it around me, was terrifying."

Shooting the scene was nevertheless unique for Dunst, as opposed to the rest of her cast mates. "The other actors and how they were responding to Jesse was more terrifying for me in terms of what was actually happening in the scene," adds Dunst. "But I also didn't really interact with him in that scene. Basically, he asked me where I'm from, and I'm like, 'Colorado.' So it wasn't like he was doing things to me like he was to Cailee and the other characters in that scene, which was terrifying because the scenario's terrifying."

Spaeny's experience of the scene was very different. Shooting for two days in the hot Atlanta sun began to take its toll on her. The film was shot chronologically, so the events of the film did start to have an cumulative weight on the actors.

"Once we got to that scene, it was very scary for me," says Spaeny, explaining that the first part of the scene focused on Dunst, Moura and Henderson planning a rescue from afar while she and Plemons were away from everyone else. "So I was down there with Jesse for about a half a day with him, completely in character, drilling me, improvising that whole scene.

"And so by the time we got to the end of that scene, I think we were all really out of it. You do it that many times and it just sort of gets under your skin."

Spaeny went on to explain that Garland and cinematographer Rob Hardy had designed the scene so that no cameras were visible, with Hardy hiding in the pit that was meant to be a mass grave.

"And so you weren't seeing some crew guy wandering in the background eating a bag of chips — you didn't have a traditional close-up," says Spaeny. "It felt very immersive. That stunt sequence was incredible. And by the time we all got into that car, when Stephen comes and picks us up, God, it felt really real. That whole sequence. The scene, the way it's written is just completely chilling. And then the performances that I was surrounded by, it was just that combination, doing it over and over again for two days straight. It just gets to you."

Plemons was not Garland's first choice for the role. About a week before principal photography began, another actor cast in the role whom Garland declines to name had to drop out. Garland recalls learning he had lost the other actor while on the phone outside the rehearsal space where the cast was preparing.

"I was standing out on the street when I got the call and I thought, 'Oh s—. Now, now we're in trouble,'" says the director. "And so I went to the rehearsal and said 'Bad news, guys, so and so can't do it.' And Kirsten said, 'What? You should ask Jesse.' And I thought, Oh, that would be amazing."

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