Much has been written about the creative and financial failures of Kraven the Hunter. The latest and likely last installment in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe has been met with universally negative reviews and has underperformed at the box office. Of all of the film’s many missteps and head-scratching moments, though, few have confused (and delighted) viewers as much as a scene in which Aleksei Sytsevich (Alessandro Nivola) reacts to some bad news by letting out a high-pitched, almost bird-like screech.
The moment has already been meme’d to oblivion online, and while speaking recently with The Hollywood Reporter, Nivola offered some insight into his character’s odd reaction. The actor, notably, says that he performed the would-be dramatic beat very differently on the set of the superhero film. “The way I performed it was totally silent. It was a silent scream,” Nivola revealed. “When I did it, everybody laughed on set. It was so weird, but they all loved it. We kept referring to it as the ‘silent scream moment.'”
After he finished shooting the movie, Nivola says he followed up with Kraven the Hunter director J.C. Chandor to find out whether or not his subversive choice was going to be left intact. Ultimately, he was just as surprised as viewers when he heard his character’s off-putting, unintentionally funny screech in the final version of the film. “I kept asking J.C. during the edit if the silent scream was still in the cut, and he said, ‘Yeah, of course. We would never lose the silent scream,'” Nivola recalled. “When I saw the movie, it had that guttural voice catch, which I don’t think was as effective as it would’ve been otherwise.”
Nivola is probably right that his original performance would have, at the very least, made more sense to viewers than what they ended up seeing. The chances of it going as viral as his character’s now-unforgettable screech has, however, seem a lot slimmer.
Kraven the Hunter is now playing in theaters.
