Lupita Nyong'o is fascinated by the "heightened nature" of the horror genre.

The 41-year-old actress plays the lead role in the new film 'A Quiet Place: Day One' – which takes place as killer aliens target anybody making noise – and thinks that horror provides a rare opportunity for audiences to be "openly scared".

Speaking to Variety at the movie's New York City premiere on Wednesday (26.06.24), Lupita said: "This genre helps us exercise emotions that we are otherwise running away from a lot of the time, we don't get permission to be openly scared in our real life.

"I found myself coming (back) again and again to horror because of the roles that have been offered to me there. There is a heightened nature to horror that makes for a really interesting character to explore."

The new film is a spin-off prequel to the two previous 'A Quiet Place' pictures and Lupita explained how she was persuaded to join the cast by John Krasinski – who has handed control behind the camera to Michael Sarnoski on this installment.

The 'Us' actress told RadioTimes.com: "He was the first point of contact about this movie. We had a Zoom and he walked me through why he wanted to make another film in this franchise.

"And what he said to me was that he wasn't really interested in carrying on with the franchise unless he was able to find a new way in. He's interested in expanding what the franchise can do, but also what the genre of horror can do in and of itself."

Nyong'o added: "So that's why he teamed up with someone like Michael, who is a young director, you know, having done just one feature film before this.

"And I like that he was taking risks with the franchise. The first one was a risk, you know, pitching that story could not have been easy. And he did such a wonderful job with it and with the second one, and so I liked his outlook, his mission."