LAST NIGHT IN SOHO Stars Say Edgar Wright Directed the Film Like a Musical
Fans are getting excited about Edgar Wright’s upcoming film Last Night in Soho, arguably his deepest foray into the horror genre. The film stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Thomasin McKenzie, and Matt Smith, and it takes a look at an aspiring fashion designer who “is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she encounters a dazzling wannabe singer. But the glamour is not all it appears to be and the dreams of the past start to crack and splinter into something darker.”
The film is a truly original idea written by Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) and Krysty Wilson-Cairns (Penny Dreadful, 1917), and it sounds like Wright went about directing the pic in a new way as well. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin McKenzie explained that Wright directed the movie as if it were a musical. This sounds cool, but also had its challenges. McKenzie explained:
"One of the biggest challenges of it was the timing. The movie really moves to the rhythm of the songs that are playing in the background and those songs tell your own story and become your own character. There was music playing in the background and sometimes if it wasn't music, it would be metronome beats. You'd hear the "tick" and you'd have to be exactly on that beat. The continuity on this film was unlike anything I'd ever done before."
The beats she mentions refer to the body-switching premise of the film, which demanded intricate dance choreography between Taylor-Joy, McKenzie, and Smith. Both of the actresses had to dance in and out of scenes in order to accommodate one sharing the spotlight with Smith, before being whisked away again to switch places with the other. Taylor-Joy goes on to share how her dancing background made her a natural fit for the shooting of the film, saying:
"I love that Edgar directs in beats because I have a background as a ballet dancer. I naturally see scenes in beats. When I'm going through it in my head, I'm almost dancing a bit. And Edgar does the same thing with directing. Every one of my projects has presented me with a different kind of challenge or a different way of getting into character, and being able to be directed lyrically was a real pleasure for me. It melded both of my loves of dance and acting. I'm so proud of how much of our film is practical effects. We tried every different angle of how we could do it practically, and that, for the two of us as actors, was just so much fun."
This is so fascinating, and I now hope that we will eventually be able to see a cut of the film, or at least a scene or two, set to the music and metronome beats that were used in the background. That would be really cool to see. But first, the full film, which is headed our way this Friday, October 29th.
via: /Film