It’s official: A Quiet Place has won big at the 2019 Critics’ Choice Awards.

The cast and crew stepped up to the stage to collect the gong for Best Sci-Fi/Horror Movie, before stepping back to allow director John Krasinski to say a few words.

Clearly overwhelmed, Krasinski - who has been named a “visionary” for his work on the film - admitted: “I don’t know what’s going on right now. I blacked out about six seconds ago.”

He continued: “I want to say thank you to all the incredible kindness that has been shown to this film. The critics, but most of all, everyone out there that’s seen or loved this movie. It means the absolute world to our crew and to our cast.”

Growing emotional as he turned to his wife and co-star Emily Blunt, who was stood on the stage beside him, Krasinski added: “I got to make a movie about a love story and a love letter to my kids. I got to do it with the love of my life by my side, so I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get much better than that. 

“Thank you so much.”

Of course, workplace romances are notoriously tricky. Not only do you have to spend a lot of time with your partner, you also have to leave all of your personal issues at the door when you enter the office – and find a way to deal with the fact that all of your colleagues have an opinion (whether they air it or not) about your relationship.

So it’s understandable that Krasinski was unsure how things would go down when he and Blunt first decided to work together on the film.

The couple have been married for almost a decade now, but The Quiet Place – which hit UK cinemas on the 6 April 2018 – is the first feature film they’ve ever worked on together. Thankfully, though, Krasinski has said that the experience only brought them closer together – and added that the pair now love one another on a far deeper level than they did before.

Speaking to People magazine, he said: “I never have loved my wife more than after we did this movie, and we were really nervous about it. It really could’ve gone the other way, we could be announcing our divorce right now if it did go the wrong way. 

“But I think for me, it was a trust thing. We trust each other in day-to-day life for sure, but when you trust each other in this way it’s really different. But the way we went about it was sort of the way we go about our marriage, which is ‘Let’s be really honest. Let’s be honest from the beginning so that nothing surprises us, but we get to say all the things we feel.’

“So I let her go through the script and let me know any changes she wanted to make, I pitched the entire movie to her and said how we were gonna shoot it and said ‘Is there anything you’d change?’

“We were really honest with each other from the beginning. By the time we were shooting, it was just the best.”

Speaking to Vanity Fair about The Quiet Place, Blunt explained that Krasinski was obviously excited when he got hold of the script for the project – and that she encouraged him to not only rewrite the first draft into a “metaphor for parenthood”, but to sign up to direct it, too.

At no point did she consider it being a marital collaboration – until she read his version of the story, that is.

“I had this overwhelming feeling of ‘I don’t want anybody else to play this part,’ ” recalled Blunt. “I said, ‘Would you feel weird if I did the movie with you?’ And he broke out into this sort of ecstatic smile. I felt completely sure about it in a way I hadn’t before.”

She added: “I had concerns that we might kill each other, just gently throttle the life out of each other during the process.”

Of course, Blunt and Krasinski aren’t the first to make the best out of a workplace romance: according to a recent survey by CareerBuilder.com, which polled over 7,000 workers, 38% of workers said they have dated a co-worker at least once over the course of their career. Meanwhile, 37% said their office romance led them to the altar.

And, while workplace relationships can “often [prove] disastrous”, Dr Tina Tessina tells The Grindstone that there are a plethora of emotional benefits to dating a colleague.

“The office gives you a chance to actually get to know and even bond with a person before declaring your interest. Working side by side with someone daily, seeing him or her under pressure, commiserating over problems and congratulating over wins gives you a portrait of the person on the inside as well as the outside,” she says.

“The couple develops a relationship ‘infrastructure’ in an organic, natural fashion, as opposed to forcing it. These relationships often last a long time, because they’re reality-based.”

Image: Getty