Science & Tech Quote by Sanaa Lathan

There is a quiet pushback in Sanaa Lathan's insistence that "most of it is that creature that is in the room with you". On the surface, she's clarifying process: CGI comes later, on computers, after principal photography. Underneath, it's a defense of performance in an era that keeps trying to file actors under "content" and their work under "effects". Lathan is drawing a line between spectacle as a post-production product and the older, messier magic of acting: the live exchange of breath, eye-lines, timing, and fear with something physically present.

The word "creature" does double duty. It's literal enough to evoke sci-fi and monster movies, but it also frames the acting partner (whether a performer in a suit, an animatronic, a puppet, or a practical build) as an entity with weight and unpredictability. That unpredictability matters. It forces real reactions. It keeps the scene from collapsing into green-screen pantomime where everyone pretends equally hard and hopes VFX will rescue the moment.

Contextually, this reads like an answer to a familiar misconception: audiences (and sometimes interviewers) credit the computer for everything they found impressive, flattening craft into software. Lathan's point is cultural as much as technical: when we treat movies as primarily digital manufacture, we erase the labor on set - the choreography, the physical design, the acting choices that make the later pixels feel alive. She's reclaiming authorship for the humans in the room, not the machines in post.