Earlier drafts of this scene had HR a lot talkier. He would have discussed his plans for Ferris’ body, making it clear he has intentions here beyond just killing a witness. And he would have spoken briefly about what he now regards himself to be.

Even now, I hesitate to go into any more detail than that, because this scene takes its strength from the terrifying void at the center of HR, and it would ruin things to fill that void with too much talk. The superficial “normal guy” is apparently still in there, but he’s clearly not driving the bus.

Spoiler for a classic film: in the script, I invoked the ending of the Donald Sutherland Invasion of the Body Snatchers, another wordless moment where a face we thought we knew is revealed to have a void behind it. (Man, you just don’t get endings like that in movies any more. Which is kind of strange, since we aren’t less anxious as a culture than we were in the 1970s, and we do want entertainment to speak to our anxieties at least sometimes. Too few studios, too much risk-aversion, too much focus testing… even Netflix doesn’t want to go there.)