ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with The Silent Hour star Joel Kinnaman about his latest action film. Anderson discussed working with co-star Sandra Mae Frank and director Brad Anderson, and learning American Sign Language for the role. The film is now in theaters and digitally.

"Boston Detective Frank Shaw (Joel Kinnaman) returns to work after a career-changing injury leaves him permanently hearing-impaired. Tasked with interpreting for Ava Fremont (Sandra Mae Frank), a deaf witness to a brutal gangland murder, they find themselves cornered in a soon-to-be condemned apartment building when the killers return to eliminate her. Cut off from the outside world, these two strangers must lean on each other to outsmart killers they can't hear approaching, for their only hope of escaping with their lives," the synopsis reads.

Tyler Treese: I was talking to Sandra and she had a lot of praise for the work you did before filming to learn American Sign Language. She spoke so passionately about practicing with you during filming. What was it like picking up that aspect of the film?

Joel Kinnaman: For me, that was the essence of the challenge that I took on with this. I like to be a little bit off-book. I know my lines before I start filming, and here I wanted to know my sign language lines as well. But then I quickly realized that I really wanted to go as deep as I could with this. It’s really the way to get to know that community and understand the way that they communicate. And then I realized that the more I picked up, the more me and Sandra had a kind of shorthand.