Jonathan Groff And Ben Aldridge On Playing Gay Dads In Knock At The Cabin

Actors Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge have discussed their experiences of playing gay dads in their latest film, Knock At The Cabin. 

Knock At The Cabin follows a gay couple Andrew (Jonathan Groff) and Eric (Ben Aldridge) who bring their seven-year-old daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) on a family vacation to a cabin in the woods. 

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the film is an American apocalyptic horror film that sees Groff and Aldridge’s characters taken hostage by strangers who demand their family make a difficult choice to avert the apocalypse. 

Gay Couple As Protagonists

The actors spoke to HuffPost, describing their optimism that viewers would appreciate the gay love story at the heart of the film.

Groff reflected on how gay marriage in the United States was not legal when he came out of the closet in 2009 and spoke about his gratitude for being involved in a project that featured a gay couple as the protagonists in the storyline. 

“This feels like the gift of a lifetime. It wasn’t lost on us while we were shooting [how] blessed we are to be on that wave of progress,” Groff said. 

The horror film has received mixed reviews when it comes to the “bury your gays” trope in films, which sees queer characters killed to further a storyline. However, Groff defended Shyamalan’s directorial vision, stating that the director had always wanted the pair to “feel the love”, even during times of “confusion” or “pain”. 

Horror Films And Homophobia

Aldridge spoke to Pink News on the importance of LGBTQI representation, especially in horror films like Knock At The Cabin. 

“We are quite fierce at policing the content that is made for us,” Aldridge asserted. In the film, the pair share experiences of homophobia which Aldridge explained was inescapable in the horror genre. 

“We can’t have a horror film without that kind of thing happening. I don’t think it plays into the tropes that people are afraid of. I think it expands that and it’s really brilliant progress for us as a community for representation,” he said. 

Aldridge came out as gay on Instagram in 2020.

The actor reflected on Knock At The Cabin’s role in furthering progress for LGBTQI people, looking to his on-screen character human rights lawyer Andrew as an example of this. 

“It gives us a chance to exist beyond the normal way that we are portrayed. To be front and centre in a studio-backed horror film that’s about two gay dads and their adopted daughter, I think is unusual,” Aldridge told Pink News. 

A Gay Love Story

Groff emphasised the universal theme of family as the glue that held Knock At The Cabin together and praised the intricate nature of the film, which was a “love story”. 

“From the first read of the script to actually playing it, I didn’t realize until we were doing it how much of a love story we were playing between us outside of the lines — including the lines, of course. But that was a real element that he kept reminding us of as we made it,” Groff said. 

Aldridge spoke to Collider, reflecting on how the film handled the pair’s relationship and queer narrative “very sensitively” and “very deftly” by Shyamalan. 

“It honours, I think, a narrative that a lot of queer people will be able to relate to, without it becoming the crux of the film,” Aldridge added.