Channing Tatum Gave Zoë Kravitz a Pep Talk on Her First Day as Director of ‘Blink Twice’

It took Zoë Kravitz more than seven years to Blink twice to life, but the first day of filming for her directorial debut was not a dream come true.

In fact, the actor-director tells Entertainment weekly that the first day of filming was “frankly terrifying” and that her fiancé Channing Tatum ultimately had to give her a much-needed pep talk to get through it.

Blink twiceWritten by Kravitz and E.T. Feigenbaum, and starring Naomi Ackie as Frida, a cocktail waitress tired of being overlooked who’s invited to the private island of billionaire tech mogul Slater King (Tatum) for what appears to be a nonstop lavish party. But she quickly discovers that paradise isn’t what it seems when her best friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) disappears and none of the other partygoers seem to care — or even remember Jess was ever there, despite having met her days earlier. The dark psychological thriller quickly devolves into a literal fight for survival.

Kravitz says the first day of shooting was one of the most difficult because it was a scene with a large group.

“It was really overwhelming, because any scene with more than two people in it is chaos,” she tells EW. “It was the whole cast at the pool, which in hindsight I didn’t plan on doing, because I was absolutely overwhelmed. We had a really long water shoot, and that was a great way to start.”

The tough conditions on set didn’t make things any easier for the first-time director. “We’re[shooting]in Mexico in the summer, it’s so hot, the actors are so hot, the sun is crazy,” Kravitz says. “I remember going back to the room at the end of the day and really wondering what I had gotten myself into. And Chan had to give me a nice pep talk, which was incredibly helpful.”

Looking back on that stressful day, Kravitz knows she could have made it easier on herself by tackling a different, smaller scene. But she also thinks that the first day was probably going to be “the hardest and the scariest,” no matter what. “And then you just dive in, and then you don’t even look back,” she says. “You’re so into it and so focused. But the first day was scary.”

Kravitz and Tatum met while making Blink twice and are now engaged in real life. She reveals that she “didn’t always know” she wanted Tatum for the role of Slater, “but once it was clear, it was pretty obvious and exciting.” Kravitz says his casting came “pretty early” in the process because she wanted someone who could draw the lead characters quickly.

“It felt important to the story, but specifically for Frida and Jess to go on this journey, they have to feel comfortable, they have to feel safe,” she says. “And I think he’s an actor that we all associate with those things. And then I also felt like this was something we hadn’t seen him do before, which is so exciting for the audience and so exciting for him as a performer to be able to explore a different part of himself and show what he’s capable of as an actor, which is incredible.”

Tatum was also a producer on the film, and Kravitz loved working with him on the script through its many rewrites. “He was deeply involved in Slater’s journey, so I really understood his approach to the character and worked that into the script as much as I could before we started filming,” she says. “That was great because there’s so much going on on set, it was nice that we were very much on the same page about what our goal was for Slater. By the time we got on set, it was just about supporting him, him supporting me, and making sure that I just let him focus on the job, and my job was to make sure that what we had talked about stayed alive and make sure that we were honoring our intentions for the character and making sure that came across on screen.”

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The challenges didn’t stop after that “overwhelming” first day, but Kravitz enjoyed every second of her directorial debut, no matter how tough the days got.

“I think I’ve really found what I’m best at when it comes to filmmaking,” she says. “I love problem-solving, I love multitasking, I love long hours, I love working hard, so that part of it is hard, but I enjoy it. I think the race against time is always the problem when it comes to filmmaking, and it’s about how do you creatively solve those problems when something goes wrong — and it’s going to go wrong every day, all day — and just trying to stay as creative as possible and not shut down when those moments arise.”

Blink twice, starring Christian Slater, Haley Joel Osment, Simon Rex, Kyle MacLachlan, Geena Davis and Trew Mullen. The film will be in theaters on August 23.