According to Beck and Woods, they had Greenblatt first learn her lines in English in order for her to properly understand what she was saying on a basic level. The challenge then was translating those emotions over to a conlang:
“For Ariana with the script, we would write all the lines in English so she could identify with them and process them. Then our language expert, Felipe Machado, came in and designed a whole alien language that she would then have to learn. So she’d have to learn it twice: She’d learn it in English, and then she’d learn the alien version. I think that helped her performance as well, to know the meaning behind the lines.”
It wasn’t just her alien speech that Greenblatt had to rely on when communicating with her co-star. Body language and hand signals also played an important role in expression for both actors, in a dynamic that is similar to that in “A Quiet Place.” It’s a style that allows the directors to fully immerse their characters into the world of an ancient past, letting their audience experience the quiet awesomeness and helping make dinosaurs scary again.