The Big Picture - The Edgar Wright Rankings and ‘Last Night in Soho’ With Edgar Wright!

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

The director’s latest, the psychological horror movie ‘Last Night in Soho,’ is out in theaters. Sean is joined by The Ringer's Rob Harvilla to talk about Wright's fascinating career and their favorite Edgar Wright films, including 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,' 'Shaun of the Dead,' and 'Baby Driver.' Then, Sean talks with Wright himself about how he crafted his new movie, his career, and the movies he loves. Hosts: Sean Fennessey Guests: Edgar Wright and Rob Harvilla Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

60 songs that explain the 90s are back and in their final stretch. The Ringer's music critic Rob Harvilla curates and explores 60 iconic songs from the 90s that define the decade. Rob is joined by a variety of guests to break it all down as they turn back the clock. Check out 60 songs that explain the 90s exclusively on Spotify. I'm Sean Phenasy and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Edgar Wright. Today we're talking with Wright himself about the director's latest, the psychological horror movie Last Night in Soho, which is out in theaters this weekend and his fascinating career of genre mashups, revisions, and wonderful reinventions. Before getting to our conversation with Edgar, though, first I'm joined by Ringer's senior staff writer and the host of one of my favorite podcasts, 60 Songs That Explain the 90s.

It's Rob Harvilla. Hi, Rob. Hello, your seniorist staff writer, I dare say. It's a pleasure to be here as always. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for being here. When you say seniorist, do you mean most wizened? Most elderly? Okay, maturest. mature most mature that's what i mean rob i've asked you here because i know that you're an admirer of edgar's work we're going to talk a little bit about his films um just tell me what's your what's your origin story with edgar wright movies what was the first one you saw and what do you like about them it was shauna the dead and i don't typically remember theater experiences like crowds theater experiences I wish I remembered more I cherish them when I do and I remember Shaun of the Dead I remember just a packed theater

and just a feeling like something was happening like someone was happening and what I remember very specifically is the record scene like there's two zombies coming at them and they got a crate full of records and they're going to throw vinyl records to decapitate the zombies and they start arguing over which records they can part with it's like purple rain no sign of the times no way batman soundtrack throw it he throws it right like he throws shoday because it's his ex-girlfriends and i sat there in the theater it was like this is my guy like this guy has just taken my brain and beamed it back to me like it's such a pure rock critic joke to have a stone roses joke in your zombie horror movie and i'm not a

horror movie guy but i was there and i was there for this guy from then on like i just sort of identified him immediately as like a kindred spirit yeah i think for a certain kind of pop culture adult young man also young woman but a lot of pop culture adult, young man, also young woman, but a lot of young men. Adult is the word. Yeah, sure. Wright seems to scratch an itch. He seems to touch on something. Shaun of the Dead, you mentioned, is the first of his so-called Cornetto trilogy. It's three movies that he made with his pals, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. They had previously worked together on a TV series called Spaced. Wright's an interesting figure. He's in his mid-40s now, but he took a little bit longer than some of his contemporaries to get to movies.

He started out in the 90s spending a lot of time in television. He was sort of ahead of the curve in that respect in terms of sharpening his tools and learning the wares of the world. Spaced is a very pop culture addled show. And it was a pretty experimental show at the time, a show that where he kind of paid homage to and updated and sort of satirized a lot of the action and horror

and science fiction stuff that he loves. So it's interesting to watch him as a filmmaker in the Cornetto trilogy. He seems to be like riffing on a lot of the things that he admires. And over time, he started to transition into just outright making things. It's been a little bit less reverential and a little bit more pure creativity, I guess. You can obviously cite the influences and the inspirations throughout all of his movies.

When you think of an Edgar Wright movie, what do you think of? What are the hallmarks? I think the pop cultured adult thing is an important one, but there's a lot of man children, right? There's a lot of reckoning with what it does to you when your entire life is pop culture and childish things, however you define that. The music, horror movies, comic books, whatever he's doing. The through line of the trilogy is simon pegg and nick frost and just them growing up or not growing up like shauna the dead has such a striking ending you know it ends with him in a shed playing video games with a zombie you know like that's that's

not subtext that's just text like that's just a very straightforward statement about like who these people are or who they're worried they're going to become i guess and the world's ends like i saw you on twitter say that movie is underrated and i agree like i remember that theater experience as well and being baffled by it in a good way it was just continually sort of shocking you know and that's in the fight like the bathroom fight and just how stylized the fighting is and the blue blood everywhere. Like it was just such a distinctive look, but also just like the very bold and direct way it reckoned with like Simon Pegg in that movie is just like an asshole. And like, everybody's tired of him and he's still acting like he was when they were all 20, 20 years old, you know, 20 years ago or whatever. And now everyone else has grown up at him. like he was when they were all 20 years old, you know, 20 years ago or whatever.

And now everyone else has grown up at him. It's just the through line for Edgar Wright movies to me is just this idea of cute boys who grow up to be like less cute non-men, I guess. Yeah, no, I think that's on point. I mean, part of the reason why I think this is a fun conversation for us is because you're at work on this 90s project. You know, you're reckoning with nostalgia. You're reckoning with things that are bygone.

Most of Edgar's movies seem to be trying to examine the glory days. The world's end, in a lot of ways, is very much about what's lost and what the future holds and the fear of the future. And Last Night in Soho is the same thing same thing i mean it's very much a movie about the the toxicity of nostalgia and how while nostalgia seems powerful and seems it seems like a pleasure center there's something unnerving about getting too obsessed with it i don't have you as you've done the 90s show have you learned anything about your relationship to nostalgia it's funny like i started the show from the teeth of COVID or COVID year one. And it was a pleasure to regress back to the 90s, to that music, to that mentality. And now we've come out of it a little bit. Having a baby, just being very much a present tense person, but still living in the

90s, it's a really weird discord for me and so i don't think that i look back now and and regret any of it and it's i i'm very pleased to find that the music that i'm listening to hasn't darkened or curdled in any way you know but i i it is a reckoning with growing up and like how much growing up i've done and how much I may have left to do. Yeah, I think that's obviously a big theme of The World's End. I mentioned to you before we started talking that even though Edgar's movies seem to be kind of consumed by this concept of nostalgia, it does feel like it tends to take three, four, five years, maybe even more than that before people say, actually, that one was my favorite or that one is the best. You know, just by posting that tweet, a lot of people were like, this is by far his best movie.

Everyone agreed with you. Which I was surprised to see, you know, and I think the fact that he, you know, obviously he's quite watchful in terms of determining the kind of arc of his career. He's very strategic. He knows exactly what he likes, but it does feel like even though most of his movies

are received warmly, it takes a few rewatches. It takes a few years added to your lifespan. I'm in a very similar place in my life to you. I spend a lot of time thinking about the cultural objects of my past that I enjoy, but I'm also a new father and I am also approaching 40. And I'm trying to figure out whether those things in the past matter as much

and if I should be spending as much time on them as I once did. And it's funny how his movies kind of brew that inside of you and they force you to confront that. You know, I didn't expect to even be going down this road in terms of talking about right stuff with you because when I think of him, I think of a lot of like formal stuff, a lot of filmmaking style. Of course. You know, he's this real, he was this real wunderkind, you know, the insert shots and this kind of antic visual styles and the transitions and the whip pans. He's really in rarefied air in terms of the mechanics of filmmaking.

Absolutely. His movies are super propulsive. They're fun to watch. Easter eggs abounding everywhere. But there is a weird emotional cord that maybe he doesn't get enough credit for. I don't know. How do you think he's understood in the in the marketplace of movies right now well scott

pilgrim was just a flop right it was received at the time as just not a disaster but just not a success just a plain a flat-out failure you know and it was very strange for me like last year to have it received is like everybody was like yes of course of course, Scott Pilgrim was like, did all of you go? Did you all of you see this in the theater with me in 2010? But I, it's true about the technical stuff. Like what I remember about hot fuzz principally is like all them getting all the guns, right? Like just the endless little shots of them, like getting ready, you know, and the referentiality of bad boys too and everything and just hot fuzz the ending of hot fuzz has a smoking the whole pack of cigarettes sort of elements of like the shootout goes on forever and like it gives you way more of what you thought you wanted

like and it's it's not really in an overt way but i i really like the way his movies end in the way they throw me off the way they end every time they never end exactly how i think I really like the way his movies end and the way they throw me off the way they end every time. They never end exactly how I think they are. The world's end, it's funny you say, we're trying to grow up and they grow up into an apocalypse, right? I don't remember the details, but the world's end is not a happy ending in the classic sense. Everybody's okay, but not really. It's true. I mean, almost all of his movies end that way.

They're all a little bit tinged with, with a bit of tragedy or a bit of loss, which is a fascinating thing for such a, you know, kind of like a goofball genius like that. I think that his reputation is a little bit more like these movies are a lot of fun, but are they really that important because they're so referentially, referentially bound.

But, you know, I, I would say he's got a little bit more on his mind. But are they really that important? Because they're so referentially bound. But I would say he's got a little bit more on his mind. It's been interesting watching him in the last few years. I would say make a transition. I feel like Baby Driver, which is one of his biggest hits and a very mainstream kind of a movie, very jukebox ballet, I would describe it as, and features not the typical Simon Pegg, Nick Frost cast. It's an American set film.

It's kind of him. It feels like him reckoning in real time with the stuff in Scott Pilgrim that people didn't like and trying to retrofit something a little bit more classical for audiences. And in a way it worked. I was a big fan of the movie,

even though it doesn't always feel like an Edgar Wright movie to me. Last Night in Soho feels like him doubling down even more where he's saying, I'm going to take the things that i love but i'm going to play it really straight i'm not making a comedy all of his movies to this point even baby driver to some extent were pretty funny and last night in soho doesn't fall back on the humor what was your take on baby driver you're obviously such a music expert and it's laced with music throughout i think for that

reason i overhyped it in my own head i remember that being a really exciting rollout and didn't they move up the release date or something like it was just a very exciting time i was like yes this movie and i i didn't hate it and i don't hate it by any means but it left me colder than a movie that starts with like a john spencer blues explosion song that is handsome boy modeling school rem like just thousands of deep cuts like again like that's it would be very hard to make a movie that was more theoretically my movie than baby driver and like i don't mean this ugly but i i do think i don't know if ansel elgort am i saying that correctly is is the most compelling you know performer I've ever dealt with.

I was thinking about him and Michael Cera, right? It's an interesting thing about Scott Pilgrim to me, the way it's aged. I loved it at first, and I want everybody to know that. I was the first. You and me were the first people. I believe you, Rob. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that.

Rob, did we discuss it? We were seeing each other at that time, right? We were. I was in the twilight of my New York years, but it had to have come up at some cheesy dinner party somewhere, between all the rap music talk, of course. Scott Pilgrim is one of these movies for me that, it's sort of like Ferris Bueller,

where the farther you get away from it, the less you think of the main character. The way people on Twitter love to talk about how Ferris Bueller is problematic as a person. And Scott Pilgrim is sort of gross. He's a shithead. He's a shithead. He's dating a high schooler. The movie isn't trying to hide that.

But the farther I get away from that movie movie the more i realized that it's the ensemble that really got me through that movie that made me love that movie like i did not expect to watch the entire script read that they did last year i think it was an entertainment weekly thing and it was back when everyone wanted to consume zoom type content but they got like pretty much every major person to read that script and i i just turned it on just to see what it was like and then i watched the entire thing i watched the and i loved it and then i had a thing for like a month where every day i watched the blooper reel to scott pilgrim i watched it every day i'm a blooper reel guy this probably isn't a shock to

you but i just i enjoy blooper reels and you reels. Jason Schwartzman splits his pants, etc. But I realized one of the things I loved about it is how often you can hear Edgar Wright laughing. How many botched takes end with him laughing? The vegan police show up to arrest the vegan bassist and one of the vegan policemen can't get his sunglasses on. he pokes himself in the face and Edgar just busts out laughing. And I was thinking like, I don't know if there are any other directors where I know their laugh. I know exactly how Edgar Wright laughs. And I, I, that really sort of that, that's how I knew that I was really into this guy. And I, and so Ansel Elgort for me and Baby Driver is a little bit of a vacuum to me. Like there's just so much style around that movie.

And I love both Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm, but like all the dialogue is so stylized and like over hard boiled. And like the movie is way too into the fact that he's named Baby, you know? And it's like,

it's time to face the music, like et cetera, et cetera. It's like Kevin spacey talking about the post office it's like i i really have to filter out a lot of that movie and just focus on the john spencer blues explosion but at its center is like another man child you know and like a man child with a traumatic past who has you know like like a manic pixie dream girl like waitress girlfriend who doesn't really get to do anything else but say like i'm here for you whenever you want me like i it's it's one of these weird things where it has all the style that i love about edgar wright and that should be enough for me and i guess it is enough for me but i there isn't there wasn't the substance

there wasn't like the kick at the end like there was with The World's End or Scott Pilgrim over the long term where I sort of rethink aspects of it. And there's a deepening of it for me. That's not happening with me and Baby Driver yet. But as you say, it takes years. It's true. I wonder if we'll come around more towards it. I liked it quite a bit, but it felt like the first time he made a movie without a wink. And I think sometimes a movie without a wink should be a good thing, playing it straight. But in Edgar's case, and that laugh that you're citing, his sense of humor is such a powerful tool. It's interesting to watch him kind of transition away from some of those winks, maybe towards efforting towards a kind of maturity. But I hope he doesn't totally abandon those things.

I'm with you on the Ansel Elgort thing. I just never really got it. He's about to be the star of West Side Story, which is just wild. I mean, he is... That's not good news. It's pretty crazy.

Nevertheless, we participated in the Scott Pilgrim Nostalgia Economy last year, too. We did a whole episode, me and Jason Concepcion and Van Lathan.

Oh, I listened. We could have had probably 14 to 18 more Ringer staffers on.'s a it's a widely offended that you didn't invite me well you're here now rob that's here now um what else do you want to say about edgar i'm gonna i'm gonna force you to rank your edgar wright movies but before we do that what are any other deep feelings you have about his films you know something i did yesterday and i'm still grappling with it so ant-man right like i went to see ant-man and i remember sitting in the theater like doing the thing where you try and see like where is the

edgar wright in this like how much of it is still his and my favorite scene in ant-man by far i would have sworn to you was straight edgar wright and it's when they're shrunk down and they're in the suitcase they're fighting in the suitcase and says, I'm going to disintegrate you. And the iPod says, okay, and starts playing The Cure's Disintegration. Starts playing Plane Song by The Cure, an incredible volume. And this is another thing that's just my head transferred on screen. And I loved that. When you and I talked about needle drops, I don't think that came up, and I'm still mad at myself for forgetting it, but I would have sworn

up and down that was Edgar Wright. That's such a pure Edgar Wright thing, but apparently it's not. Like Peyton Reed, who actually came in to finish it, like I saw an interview, like he loves The Cure, you know, and they went through all kinds of things that the phone could do, give directions. Like, I can't believe that's not Edgar Wright, and I'm trying

to decide if that makes me sad or if that means that his larger sensibility still informed the movie and was just filtered through other people that I can still watch Ant-Man primarily as an Edgar Wright film that's obviously not his it's obviously a huge source of heartbreak and some kind of failure for him but it still feels to me like him and I don't know if that's sad that he lost control of it or it's a good thing that he still has for me anyway some control over it even though he he wasn't controlling you know i'm glad you brought that up it's a really

interesting turning point in his career i i had a similar experience i think when i first watched the film i was like oh this is very ed-y. And then now having seen the second one and realizing, you know, Adam McKay and Paul Rudd came in to kind of rewrite that movie. And there is a lot of Adam McKay in that script as well. And also, one, I've talked to Peyton Reed

a couple of times on this show. He's also brilliant in his own right. Has a great visual sense, great storyteller. Watched the most recent season of The Mandalorian. He's responsible for some of the best episodes of that show. But it feels like you know edgar famously said i really wanted to make a marvel movie but i don't think marvel wanted to make an edgar wright movie and you can feel him in the aftermath of that purposefully pivoting and clinging very tightly

to the concept of original storytelling in movies he's talking quite eloquently about this in the past yes exactly he's protecting something now not just the sort of original storytelling in movies. He's talked quite eloquently about this in the past. Things that can't be taken from him. Yes, exactly. He's protecting something now, not just the sort of future of movies, but something that is very personal to him, which I really admire. You know, I don't know if it's a fool's errand or not. He proved everybody wrong with Baby Driver.

I mean, that was basically like an independently financed movie that was distributed by a studio that made over $100 million that stars Ansel Elgort, who isn't that great. So like pretty impressive stuff from him. Last Night in Soho is an even bigger gamble, I would say, because while Anya Taylor-Joy is one of the stars of it

and she is extremely well-known now thanks to The Queen's Gambit, you know, it's a period piece in a lot of ways. It's a psychological horror movie. You know, you wanted to ask me if this movie is scary. That is exactly what I want to know. Is it scary, Sean? Can I handle this movie, Sean? Oh, shit.

Well, it's scary, isn't it? The first hour, you'll be fine. Okay. The final 40, 45, 50 minutes, I think you may want to consult the wiki page as you have in the past. Just get to the bottom of it. To me, it's not primarily

a horror movie. To me, it's primarily a movie about the past. It's also his first movie told from the perspective of a woman. Obviously, in Spaced, we get two film, we get sort of two perspectives with Simon Pegg and Jessica Hines, but

this movie's co-written with uh christy wilson cairns and it's it's a it's a step in a new direction thomas and mckenzie plays the sort of lead character and anya taylor joy is this like mirror character that she's encountering in the 1960s yeah and it doesn't get into total freak out polanski repulsion horror mode until the second half but um i think it will be a struggle for your your your weak loins yeah i think so hey uh yeah it's like it's anything is it on like the hereditary midsummer level because that's that's where i can't go that's the straight wikipedia for me like everything like squid game right like i'm i'm white knuckling it through squid game how are

we in comparison? Like, is it like, is it jump scares or is it like. There are some jump scares. I mean, the thing is that Edgar Wright's films are too pop to be too scary. You know what I mean? Like there's a kind of like vivacity to them that they could never be as kind of like darkened and, and crunchy as hereditary where you're like, every little sound is going to make you have an emotional meltdown. This isn't,

this isn't that this is much more sort of extravagant. It's set in swinging sixties, London is loud. It's, it's big. There's a lot of set pieces. There's just, I think it's probably his like most technically accomplished movie.

And it's for that reason. And I've seen some of the reviews are a little bit mixed. And I think it's another one of his movies that five years from now, people are going to be like, whoa, he's really ahead of the curve here. He really knows how to do something that others don't know how to do. Okay.

So we've, we've cleared our throats on Edgar. Edgar has made, how many movies has he made? Seven films. Well, he's technically made more than seven films, right?

Because he made a really undistributed first feature called a fistful of fingers in 95 you can find that on youtube he made a short film in college called dead right which is like a dirty harry parody which is pretty cool for clearly made for like 300 bucks and it looks great that was from 1993 that's also on youtube i love don't the mini trailer in the middle of grindhouse do you remember i've seen i saw that on YouTube. I don't. That was him. I thought that was the hostile guy.

That was him. No, and that's not Eli Roth. That is Edgar. Paying homage to the kind of hammer horror films of the 60s and 70s. Yeah. No, that was okay. I got through that, but it was a minute long. So of course I did.

Have you seen The Adventures adventures of tin tin recently the film he wrote i have not no i i don't get a good vibe from that not for horror reasons just for quality reasons i don't think there's any john spencer blues explosions no no no jump scares either in there so okay well different sort of film call it a draw yeah i maybe maybe i'll expose the kids that okay here here are edgar's uh seven features at the moment is it seven six seven shawn of the dead 2004 hot fuzz 2007 scott pilgrim versus the world 2010 the world's end 2013 baby driver 2017 a film we have not yet mentioned but we did discuss on this pod a couple of months back which is the sparks brothers his first documentary about the band sparks and of course last night in soho i think last night in soho will have to

leave off the ledger for now because you haven't had a chance to see it yet so the six films give me rob harvilla's views uh this might be chalk but i gotta start with scott pilgrim i think scott pilgrim is definitely the blooper reel is just delightful, I have to say. That's not the film, Rob. Okay, number one, Scott Pilgrim. Number two, the Scott Pilgrim blooper reel. Now two is tough.

Two is really tough. Two is tough because I am inclined to overrate the world's end because I'm really enjoying knocking it around my head i'm gonna do sean of the dead but i the trilogy really is consistent for me but but in the interests of of making a definitive call here sean to world's end three hot fuzz four you know the hot fuzz people are gonna murder you they're really gonna murder me they're going to get their guns out in a bad boys two style fashion shoot shoot

up you take the pennsylvania turnpike to the end if you want to find me okay um uh and again as i said i would go sparks after that i i remember we talked and i what i was curious about is whether that would feel like an edgar wright uh movie the way i was hoping it would and it did like you and i have survived 35 iterations of the wes anderson wars yes at this point like the backlash of the backlash of the backlash and i feel like where we've landed or where i've landed is it's great to have a guy where you know it's him or you know the filmmaker made this film. It's a very specific point of view. It's a very specific style. And it's not a movie that could be made by anybody else. And I think Wes Anderson is obviously there. But I think Edgar Wright is there too. And I was really happy with the Sparse Brothers that came through, even in a form as strict as the documentary, the music documentary, right? Like that's a movie that ordinarily, I've watched millions of them, and they're not like style markers ordinarily, you know?

They're pretty utilitarian, and they work that way. They're fine that way. But that he managed to bring his style and his laugh, like he's in it and he's laughing in it that was very important to me so i was very happy with the sparse brothers baby driver is a great movie like it's you can't the the the style of it the music of it there's a ton to like about it you know and it's never quite lived up to the movie that i had screening in my head for however months before i got to see it but i i'm not mad at it either you know and i i will i will read the wikipedia page for last night in soho uh when somebody writes it up and i will get

back to you i feel on that almost entirely the same on the rankings except for the fact that two through four shaun of the dead the world's end and hot fuzz basically based on how recently i've watched one is the one that goes to number two and so that's there's something tricky about the cornetto trilogy they probably should just be considered one big movie in a way because they're kind of vibing on similar themes and styles yeah um i agree with you about the sparks brothers the thing i really admire about it and i may have said it to you when we first talked about it, is I just really like people that are not ashamed of saying, here's what I love and here's why I love it. And that's just

a movie where he's like, I have so much overwhelming appreciation for these guys, these weird nerdy brothers who are so committed unflinchingly to their mission that I just got to find as many people as I can to tell me how much they like it too. And, you know, is that so far afield from what we're doing every day at the ringer? It's, it's really not. Exactly. No, it's, it's, it's, it's a cautionary tale, but also a heartening tale as well. I got to say it's, I was watching my wife and I were watching what we do in the shadows, the TV show, and we and we love it. And I was thinking about Taika Waititi, and there's a lot of parallels. What We Do in the Shadows, that's such a fantastic collection of actors and actresses that are not matinee idols the very narrow way they're perceived.

But it's a wonderful genre-mashing ensemble that hits a lot of the same notes for me that the trilogy does. And it's interesting to me that Taika got to make his Marvel movie. And Thor Ragnarok is my favorite Marvel movie. And he gets to make another one and he gets to make these sort of Oscar bait type things that I like a little less.

But I don't know if Taika would say that he's an admirer of or particularly a disciple of Edgar Wright. But this is another way. It feels some ways like he's an admirer of or particularly a disciple of edgar wright but this is another way it feels some ways like he's having more success some of the success that i wanted that i still want edgar wright to have but there is something heartening about feeling like edgar wright's larger sensibility is out in the world and sort of reflected through other people whether they'd admit it or not i think that you right. And I think he's also carrying on a tradition from Tarantino and Robert

Rodriguez and all the, you know, kind of movie bradish 90s figures that he really looked up to and has since befriended. So there's a tradition in place that he is following. Rob, thanks so much for talking with me about Edgar Wright. Anytime. If you're out there listening, please listen to 60 Songs That Explain the 90s. And let's go now to my conversation with the great Edgar Wright. Anytime. If you're out there listening, please listen to 60 Songs That Explain the 90s. And let's go now to my conversation with the great Edgar Wright. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Delighted to have Edgar Wright back on the show. Edgar, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me again.

So Edgar, I want to know about your headspace after Baby Driver. I feel like that was a risk and maybe a movie that some people doubted and then it was a huge success. And I feel like, I hope you were emboldened, but I'm curious about what your headspace was about where your career was and what kind of filmmaking you wanted to do after that. Well, I guess the thing with any movie, like, I mean, with Baby Driver, I guess it was a risk in the sense of uh it wasn't any guarantee that it would actually be made and so I think when I was getting that movie together like uh especially having just walked off a franchise installment I'd really put all of my chips on Baby Driver happening and was terrified of being like roundly embarrassed if it didn't happen so or if I made it

and then it didn't connect at all but like I was I was so kind of grateful to get to do that movie and then obviously it was a big hit my biggest hit in fact worldwide so that was that was great it was a really amazing like but then also at the at the end of it was also I promoted that film for it for a year and I guess where my headspace was is that I did not want to jump into another one there was a bit of pressure at the time for me to go straight into doing a sequel and I just I guess in that sense of trying to kind of um challenge yourself and like further yourself with each movie if indeed you get the opportunity to do that you should take it so I guess the thing was I had this idea waiting in the wings for a long time and it was just really clear to me probably after a year of talking solidly about

car chases that the idea of going straight into another car chase film did not appeal. And so I wanted to do this movie. And I also, I think it's that thing is that like, and this is before the pandemic and lots of kind of question marks about the industry generally, but anytime you get an opportunity to,

to make an original movie is one that should not be sniffed at. So I was, I had this opportunity to get this made after baby driver and I thought I should take it. And, and also I felt that I having just done my, you know, my first film in America, I guess

Scott Pilgrim counts as North America, but Baby Driver is my first film I made in the US. And the idea of doing another film in the UK appealed to me and also doing something different in the UK because my previous three films have been with Simon and Nick and I wanted to do something radically different. And I also wanted to do something that was set in a London that I knew now. So all of those things just kind of like sort of came together in that sort of light bulb moment of like, this is the next movie. And once you've sort of made that decision,

it's very difficult to kind of veer off that course unless something, you know, beyond your control stops it. When you say that you had been wanting to make this movie for a long time, was it just a movie that was kind of an ode to some of these kinds of films? Or did you have a very clear sense of the story that you wanted to tell? It's a bit of both really i think when it's kind of like in in a sense of like other films that maybe inspired it it's less like on a story basis and more on a like a feeling that a film gives you

and maybe a feeling that you have when you watch those films when you were younger or even the feeling that those films give you when you watch them again when you were younger, or even the feeling that those films give you when you watch them again now, that scratch and itch that contemporary cinema isn't doing. So it's like, I miss these kinds of movies, like sort of, you know, people aren't making them so much anymore. There's that element to it. And I think that's more of a sense of an overall mood and like a feeling that you get watching something other than that it was also just the the story itself is something that I've been thinking about for a long time and and that was something where I feel it's just like having lived in London on and off for 27

years and and within that regardless of what neighborhood I lived in Soho would always be for me the center of London because it's like the center of the film and tv industry and it's also a place where people socialize you know comedy theater music cinema everything that you know and and also a point of obsession in terms of it's also an area that has a duality about it to this day and also it's kind of loomed so large in the past because you know the 60s is a sort of decade that's easy to get obsessed about and it certainly seems like you know that soho was the epicenter of everything cool at that time so i guess a kind of number of these factors start to amalgamate together. And also with the idea that romanticizing the past itself is dangerous.

And to obsess about the past is dangerous. And I'd find myself having a recurring time travel fantasy, where I would think about, number one, how cool it would be to go back in time and wouldn't it be amazing to be at that gig or to see that film in opening weekend like and then and then I'd start to kind of worry about the problems inherent in that and and maybe on a more kind of very sort of pathetic level more like oh what if I went back in time but I didn't have the right money or what about if I went back in time, but I didn't have the right money? Or what about if I went back in time and I had to stop an assassination,

but I couldn't remember when the assassination was all of those things that you start. And when you start worrying about it, when you maybe have a dream and then you lie awake in bed worrying about it and you're thinking, what am I doing? Like, why am I sort of spending like, so too much time kind of like obsessing about a time that a, I didn't live in B,

I cannot go back to. And even if I did, I couldn't change the outcome of the future. Like, um, uh, so it, these things,

I sort of prayed on my mind a lot and, and, and that coupled with the kind of the sense of Soho and it's kind of like history, both glamorous and dark. Well, these things start to kind of haunt you. And there's a sort of point where I think with some movies, they start to haunt you to the point where you have to exercise it by making the movie. Did you did you feel like you had to demystify swinging 60s London for yourself in a way? Or did you feel like you already knew that there's a real darkness underneath some of the glamour and some of the stories that we tell ourselves about that time? I think it's a bit of

both because I think it's not like that information isn't all out there. If you want to read about it in literature and in history books and in kind of old newspapers and and things that have come to light since it's not like the sort of the the the terrible side of the decade or any decade is not out there but i think it's more about what people choose to remember and the idea that when like a decade is i saw people once that some people, not everybody, some people want to remember only the kind of like the surface thrills, you know,

in terms of like, and in a way, like what you read about at the time in terms of the stuff that's kind of like glamorized and romanticized, it's usually sort of happening to sort of a very top 1% of people, like just because the Rolling Stones and and um the beatles and prince princess margaret were hanging out in a club in london in 1966 doesn't mean the rest of the country were doing that like um so i think it's i think it's a bit of both i mean because it is

a sort of a point of obsession where it's it's weird to sort of have an obsession for a decade they didn't live in but it's also that thing when I think like the main character in the film, Eloise, there's some moments in the film where she talks with puppy dogish enthusiasm about this decade, which is like 60 years before her. And when she's talking about that to somebody who was there, they have a much more like unromantic view of it and i feel like even before i started making this movie and certainly even before you know i worked with diana rigg and rita tushing and terence damp who could confirm and deny some of my you know like some of this even just in talking to my parents about the 60s my my attempt to get my parents to talk about the 60s is always

frustratingly vague where I always felt like they there was things that they didn't want to talk about or even when they did talk about stuff that would seemingly be like a cool story it would immediately turn into a cul-de-sac as example, one of the main stories that my parents would talk about in the 60s is my dad would falsely claim, he goes, we saw Jimi Hendrix live. And my mom said, we didn't see Jimi Hendrix live. We saw Pink Floyd. And I was like, oh, wow. And they saw Sid Barrett era Pink Floyd live.

So I say, oh, my God, what were Pink Floyd like? And she goes, oh, they were terrible. So end of story. And you think, I'm sure there's more to it than that. But as far as my parents concerned, there wasn't. You know, so it was that thing. And what's funny is that I guess in a way that the start of the obsession, the kind of like the ground zero for me was they had a box of records from the 60s not dissimilar to in the

movie um eloise has inherited her grandmother's records and even takes them with her to london i'd eventually done a similar thing where my parents had a one box of one record box and uh the album started at like 1964 and went up to 1970 and then when my brother was born in 1972 it seemed like they stopped buying records completely there were no albums after that and as a child I never remember my parents putting those albums on um so for me and then like my parents like both worked a lot because they were sort of teachers and artists. So they were sort of pulling like two jobs. So I would be left in the house a lot to either watch the one TV we had or, or just listen to these records.

And so it'd be interesting for me to listen to the sixties records without the context of listening to them with my parents, listening to them separately from my parents and then sort of being left to kind of fantasize about it. And, you know, like a lot of kids, like listening to, you know, I think I worked out how to use the record player when I was maybe like five or something. And listening to like Revolution No. 9 on the White Album as a five-year-old is a genuinely terrifying prospect and remains so as a 47-year-old.

I did want to kind of ask you about that. And it's a little off the beaten path from this conversation. But, you know, as we get into our 40s, it becomes a little bit harder to engage with the new and we continue to sort of like return to the things that were meaningful to us when we were younger. Do you find yourself as engaged a music consumer, a movie consumer in terms of what's new as, you know, as you sort of cycle through the past and think about your relationship to the past? Yeah, I do in terms of like, I really try and listen to a lot of new music. And also, you know, I'm like always looking for something new in cinema. And obviously,

there are still a lot of great movies being made, whether they're by being seen by as many eyeballs as they should is a different question. Whether they're getting distributed in the way they should is another question. Whether international cinema and the most interesting stuff from around the world actually reaches the mainstream is also a question. I would say this is that it's interesting that I'm more kind of obsessed by a decade before me or even the kind of decade that the music of around when I was born I mean I literally made a documentary about Sparks whose big hit in the UK came out the month after I was born but what I'm less interested in and maybe you feel the same way

I'm less interested in 80s nostalgia and 90s nostalgia because I was there so no disrespect to a show like Stranger Things because they oh have you seen Stranger Things it's like yeah I mean I lived it so it's like it's not it's not as interesting to me as it is to you but obviously for people it's it's it's an interesting thing so I was born 1974 so I wasn't around for the 60s but obviously people who weren't around for the 80s find Stranger Things fascinating in a way that I find it less fascinating because I was there and like so I don't find as much kind of like interest in reliving decades that I've already been in I'm more interested in the things that happened just before me to that point you mentioned

you know a story kind of infects you and you feel like you really have to just make the movie to get it out. Do you think at all, do people want to see a film that is, you know, speaks to this period in history and speaks to some of these kind of film styles, a Polanski movie or Giallo movie? Like, are you worried at all about who's going to go see this movie? Or is it just very much a personal exorcism of creativity? I think sort of, I mean, I feel like sometimes I'm always conscious and maybe sometimes even regret

even mentioning other movies in, in, in connection to it because you don't want people to feel like there's required reading before they see it. And to be honest, actually the people who have watched it, who don't know what any of those films are like, just experience the film and it's in its own, right. So you certainly don't

need to have seen any like a jello films to enjoy last night in Soho. Um, I guess I don't really think about that in terms of, you know, when we made Shaun of the dead, a lot of people who watched it said that Shaun of the dead was their first zombie movie or that they'd seen Shaun of the Dead, but not seen the original Romero trilogy. And there's no like there's no right or wrong answer to that. Like the thing with film and music or any culture is your your entry point is where you came in. Doesn't matter who your first Bond was. You know, Roger Moore was my first James Bond. So I always have an affinity to him,

but then, you know, I can go back and appreciate Sean Connery as well. And I can appreciate the newest. It's just sort of something I think that's that thing where it's an interesting thing to me where, and I always find it a bit weird when people are snobby about having, when you've seen something or not,

like it always drives me crazy when you say oh I just saw a film saying oh I can't believe you've never seen this before and I always find that a strange kind of like thing to throw at somebody because you think well neither of us were born when the Marx brothers came out and we both think it's funny so what does it matter it doesn't matter where you came in I always think there's a there's an odd snobbish matter it doesn't matter where you came in i always think there's a there's an odd snobbishness to the idea of like you have to have seen this thing by this time so with all that in mind like nobody needs to have seen last night in soho could be the first movie you've ever seen and i think you would have quite a wild ride but um i i don't i mean

for me it doesn't really matter. It's like, if you've seen some of the films that like inspired the tone of it, great. And if you haven't, great. Tell me about working with Christy Cairns-Wilson. Why did she come on as a co-writer? Did you say, I've been thinking about this idea? What are your thoughts on it?

How does that come together? I guess there was a number of aspects to it. I think maybe I had, I've maybe been had, um, I've maybe been thinking about writing it solo initially, but then it like sort of been, I've been percolating it for a long time to the point where I'm pretty sure the first meeting I had about it was a decade ago. I'd certainly been thinking about it for longer than that because I'd sort of started to kind of amass the story ideas and even what some of the songs would be um but um I when I it was before the world's end I I had told Naira Park my producer about the idea and and she was really excited about the idea of

doing the story and and also the kind of film that it was and then I had said it allowed to Tessa Ross who was the head of film four at the. And then I had said it aloud to Tessa Ross, who was the head of film four at the time. But the first thing I did, rather than actually get to writing, because I was going off to make The World's End, and then after that, that turned into, you know, like nearly two more films, but one more film for sure. And then what I did around that time was start researching it.

I thought, well, this is not something I really want to enter into lightly. And in the same way that the film is about the difference of perception versus reality in the way that Eloise kind of what she thinks of the past and what it actually is are two different things. I thought, well, let's hire a researcher and research kind of everything about this and sort of do a really deep dive beyond what i already know or what i suspect so lucy pardy who's this brilliant researcher who is you know was also a bafta award-winning casting director like started doing a process that maybe she was doing it on and off for a year of like interviewing people from soho past and present and doing like a lot of a big deep dive on the area and you know

the kind of the darker underworld side of soho of which there's a whole other you know kind of separate history i mean i essentially ended up with this phone book sized research power which could maybe become the basis of a hundred other movies but when i whilst i was editing baby driver i still hadn't started writing the screenplay and sam mendez introduced me to christy wilson cairns and said um have you met christy wilson cairns you guys get on like a house on fire and so i had like dinner with her and we did get on like a house on fire and talking about all sorts of things. And then she happened to mention that while she was an aspiring screenwriter in London, she had worked in Soho at the pub called the Toucan, which is in the movie and is a real pub. She's where there was a bar made for five years. And she had lived in Soho around the corner from it above a strip club called

sunset strip which is a strip club that's been there since the 60s and in fact i'm pleased to say has survived the pandemic and is still there so she brought a lot to it so i was like oh wow and the first thing i said is that hey i have this idea for a movie i want to tell you about it so maybe like a couple of weeks later, we went out for the night where I would basically tell her the movie, like it was like a campfire tale. And this is something that she reminded me, I'd forgotten this part to it, but maybe it speaks to the theme of the movie. Given that 48% of the country wanted to stay in Europe and the other 52 wanted to retreat to some

idea of the good old days that doesn't exist. It was the night of Brexit. And so we were sort of out drowning our sorrows because we both voted to remain in Europe and like the majority of London, in fact. And we went out and I told her the story of the movie in different Soho bars. I like using the word haunts because haunts is a good word, especially for this movie to call bars. And one of them was the Toucan where she used to work.

And another one was a place called Trisha's, which is one of those like after hours bars with no sign on the door. That's for like bar staff and theater staff to come to after work and after the other pubs have shut. So we ended up in Trisha's in this kind of subterranean bar and i told her the story and she was really into it and she kind of you know had questions and thoughts and stuff but um and then like i went off and finished baby driver and did literally like a year of press and um was promoting that movie and going around the world and and then i came back to LA and I was going to, I thought, right. And I'd made a decision in my head, as we were talking about before,

of like, I'm going to make, I'm going to start Last Night in Soho. And I think I looked at my blank final draft document for about 15 minutes before picking up the phone to Christy and saying, hey, yeah, remember that Soho script I was telling you about? Do you want to write the screenplay with me? And she goes, Oh my God, I'd love to. Can we do it in the next six weeks? Because I'm starting something else. And I was like, yes. And I flew back to London and we rented an office in Soho and started writing in earnest. And so that's how it came together. I'm always fascinated by two people working on a script, especially when they know each other and are working together. So are you

back to back with typewriters? Are you riffing ideas and she's typing? How do you actually collaborate on a script? I think most of the time that I've written with other people, whether it's Simon or Michael Bacall or Joe Cornish or this, I think being in the room is important. Even if it's something where you've discussed everything. Sometimes when me and Simon used to write before, we'd have one laptop and it would be you type and I'll pace and then I'll pace and you type and just take it in turns. And then he gets into the thing where, Oh,

we both have laptops. And then you're sitting opposite each other. Like I remember with Simon, I always used to kind of like, we'd sit opposite each other. Like you're playing battleships. And I could always see when Simon's eyes would flick over to tweet deck when he used to be on Twitter.

And I said, stop looking at Twitter. He goes, I'm not looking Twitter. And I said, stop looking at Twitter. He goes, I'm not looking at Twitter. I said, I can see what corner of the screen you're looking at. Don't look at your live tweets when we're writing. But, you know, but with Christy, I think we actually didn't know each other that well in the sense of like we had become friends, but, you know, it was still kind of that thing where you're like new friends.

And in a way, that's sometimes quite a good way to write because you're like, you're, you're very kind of deferential to each other all the time. And like, sort of, and as it should be, it's just like, sort of, it's just like, we're working on this equally. So I think with that case is that we, we just like talked everything through and you just keep talking it through until the treatment has more and more dialogue. we we just like talked everything through and you just keep talking it through until the treatment has more and more dialogue and like the thing is mapped out not just in terms of the story but key dialogue that's gonna trigger something and then it might be a thing of like oh

do you want to have a go at this and then i'll take a pass or i'll have a go this and you take a pass and some of that is done in the same room and some of it is done like sort of after, after, after office hours and stuff. So, but it was pretty organic. And, and it was, um, I remember that she likes or drinks a Scottish, uh, and this won't mean anything to like, maybe it will mean something to some of your listeners, but iron brew is a Scottish kind of soda. I guess you call it, we call it a fizzy drink that likezy drink that is very beloved by Scots.

But I would describe it as like sweet tasting battery acid. And Christy drinks a lot of Iron Brew to the point where I think you should be, you know, they really, you know, should sponsor you. The tagline for Iron Brew in the old adverts used to say, Iron Brew made in Scotland from girders. And so I always used to say, Christy Wilson cats made in Scotland from girders. So it would just be, so we would be listening to music the entire time. So I had had this playlist,

which I had a playlist of like 60s british songs it was like 300 songs long and then i i'd whittled it down into like what i call like soho five stars where it's like these are these are the songs that should be on the soundtrack so i i've worked even some of them out where they would appear and how they would inform the narrative but we've been listening to that a lot to the point where somebody in the office next door to us came in one day and said, can you turn the music down for me, guys? I know that that was something that you did with Baby Driver, obviously, because of the sort of playlist orchestration that you were doing. But are you literally putting

Land of a Thousand Dances, Got My Mind you that was it right into the script yeah i mean you don't enter into making a film without clearing them like you know you need to kind of clear all those things before i think sort of and a lot of the songs especially the ones by the female singer songwriters are so kind of evocative of the not just time, but they have this melancholy to them, even though they're really melodic and these massive emotive ballads. Even if they're upbeat, like Petula Clark's Downtown,

there's a hint of tears in there. There's salt water in the song to me. Those ones by like cilla black which is about dusty springfield sandy shore i took gravitate towards those because it seemed to sort of really speak to the theme in the movie um and it was obviously such a golden period for british singers so that was a really key part of it as well but but yeah like be in a weird way when i was like in the in the years leading up to actually writing it like in a similar way to baby driver some of the songs would sort of not just be

like synesthesia for the scene like i'd hear the song and i say i know i know what the scene is and they also become like post-it notes to remind me to make the movie so if one of the songs would like come up on the shuffle i'd be like ah i ah, I gotta make Last Night in Soho. And that was a process that went on for years where it would only take Ardeen Taylor's There's a Ghost in My House to fire up on the stereo for me to go, oh my God, I have to make Last Night in Soho. That's a deeply thematic one for sure. I was curious, you know, in the Cornetto films, in Baby Driver, certainly in Scott Pilgrim, it felt like no matter how tense the situation in the film, no matter how action packed, you could always kind of fall back on your sense of humor and comic timing. This is not that.

Last Night in Soho is not that kind of movie. Was that a very conscious decision to say, I want to try to do something that doesn't necessarily have that in its back pocket? Yeah, I guess it's just the nature of the story as well. I mean, it's, it's something that's not like it's,

it's only a conscious decision in the sense that like the story gets so dark and intense in places that you like bits, which alleviate the tension in places. And, and sometimes they come from a point of just exhaustion there's sort of a point in the movie where thomas and mckenzie is like so strung out that like so little funny lines come out because because she's almost entered into this gallows humor like mode where things are so bad that the only way to deal with it is to make a bleak joke

you know well there is actually i'm very happy that like one of the lines that people i don't want to ruin it but one of the lines that people seem to really like that's one of the few laughs in the movie comes quite towards the end of the film and i've always been really happy when it gets a laugh because it's something that it just the idea that makes me laugh it's it's a joke about south london and for it to get a laugh in venice was it was a real point of pride for me for it to make a joke about south london it to get a laugh in Venice was a real point of pride for me. For it to make a joke about South London and to get a laugh in Italy was like, oh, good. There are a few mind-blowing kind of visual moves, tricks, strategies in the movie, especially with the doubling stuff. I'm wondering if you could just talk me through

how you conceived of some of those things and if there were any inspirations or if you were inventing some of that execution because there's some things that i'd never really seen before in a film well i mean in the first cafe de paris scene which is the first time i go back to the 60s there are a lot of mirror effects and and and the truth of it is is that even just within that sequence we end up using sort of every trick in the book. But I guess in a weird way, you know, there's one or two shots in that sequence that employ motion control and one or two shots that like, it's never like a full green screen shot, but there's sometimes where parts of things are green screen because, well, let me explain. So, so like, say for example, the key element to it is that most of it is done in camera. And the real reason for doing that is that, you know, you're getting a performance that have two actresses. So if you separated them, like, it's not going to be as it's going to be detrimental to the performance, especially for Thomas and Mackenzie, who is essentially the observer, even the voyeur in the scene.

She's sort of basically in these scenes, like she's, Anya Taylor-Joy has essentially become kind of her avatar in which she's seeing this world. And she's sort of like trapped there to sort of, to watch, but not really able to interact. And then there are moments where the emotion becomes so heightened that she is briefly in the body.

And this also came from the idea, aside from any cinematic inspirations, really just came from like dreams. I frequently have those dreams where, oh know i'm me but i look like somebody else and oh and now i look like somebody else again and just a way of trying to sort of that that kind of strange dream logic that you have the kind of thing where you you know you wake up and you can't really write it down but it's just like a feeling and then so then the thing really is is that i guess the most impressive effects in that bit are not necessarily anything new. It's more like we're trying very ambitious versions of a very old school technique. and stuff in a way that has been seen in cinema since like the 20s or even like stage tricks like magic circle kind of stuff for example like one of the things i'm really proud of in some of those

sequences is there is scenes where you're seeing like a real set and a mirror and thompson mckenzie and a maitre d played by oliver phelps and then like sort of at a certain point in the shot all unbroken um one of the maitre d's played by oliver phelps walks in front of the camera and as he does a mirror slides back revealing annie taylor joy and james phelps his identical twin brother playing the reflection in a in a double Now, I almost want to say too much more because in reality, what you actually see on the day when you're shooting that shot, it's just like a magic trick because it's like, this is really happening. The key thing to take away is Anya and Thomason are acting against each other. And whatever digital trickery there is there is to augment what's really happening in the shot

and and really the only way to do those shots is just to rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and that's like and and i love doing those kind of shots and there's later in the scene then there's a big dance number which goes even further kind of in terms of like the kind of the quick in, like in camera transitions, not even cuts, not stitches. Like there's not any like breaks in the shot. You're watching an unbroken take. The great thing about doing those things is like you enter into doing something like that, not really knowing whether you can pull it off,

but not really knowing whether it's going to work, but with the hope that it might. And when you're're shooting those shots they tend to involve the entire crew so like everybody's working together and also everybody can watch it on the monitor afterwards and that's like a great feeling when the crew because if you're doing something that's entirely on a green screen and like you're on an alien planet and there's actors in costume and some tennis balls on sticks and X's on the back cloth, then there's a certain portion of the crew who are slightly checked out because it's like, ah, they'll fix all this later. But when you're doing shots like that, so really in camera, it's amazing that for me

that the real pleasure of it is to see all of the crew crowded around every monitor to see whether it works. And then when it does work, it's like you pulled off a magic trick. It's like, well, that's amazing. And I'm not blowing my own trumpet here. This is a testament to an incredible crew and also to the actors. Because it's not just Thomas and Mackenzie and Ananya Taylor-Joy who do perfect mirror choreography, but in the scene that happens afterwards,

the big dance number where it's like lots of switches, you know, you're focusing on the girls, but also who's the person that the film staff, who's the person that the shot stands and falls on is like Matt Smith. And also and that's me. Believe me, he really felt the pressure of that. He was like, I had better not fuck the shot. But also even like our camera operator, he's the, he's the fourth performer in the scene. And Chris Baines, who is an amazing steady cam operator.

He's the guy who has to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. So I'm really proud of those shots. I mean, one thing that you said, did we take any inspiration? One thing we did do, which was just like pure fun as a bit of pre-production, is myself and Chung Chung Hoon, the cinematographer, and Marcus Rowland, my production designer, and Tom Proctor, the visual effects supervisor, we would watch mirror shots in movies

and see how they were done. And usually mirror shots in movies that are done without the aid of like green screen. The ones that are done like with some kind of like more theatrical effect. And like, I'll give one example of a really good one that like real geeks will know because it's not actually in the finished film.

It's only on the deleted scene. But there's a really good one in the real geeks will know because it's not actually in the finished film it's only on the deleted scene but there's a really good one in the deleted scenes of terminator two um i don't know if you know this shot but there's a great shot that they never put in the finished movie and weirdly i got to interview james cameron earlier this year for empire and i mentioned that to him i said i was talking about this film i said hey you know we were watching that shot like um and it's a shot where arnold is in the mirror with Linda Hamilton's twin sister and an Edward Furlong double. And in the foreground is Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong and an animatronic puppet. And it's like an amazing light shot all done in camera. And once, and if you first watch it, it's so slickly done, you don't even know that you're watching an effect. So I would like show it to people and say, look at this shot.

Tell me what's going on. And they're trying to look at it. It's like, okay, let's wind back. And they say this, this, this, this. So we do that with a lot of shots and that was super fun. And we even did actually, I don't know if you know the film Poltergeist 3. Oh, I certainly do. So that movie has some amazing mirror shots in it. And a lot of ones that are like, again, Poltergeist three oh i certainly do so that movie has some amazing mirror shots in it

and a lot of ones that are like again poltergeist three was made in 1988 which is just before the dawn of cgi so you're watching that i think a lot of this is done for real and it's really clever use of like doubles and double sets and lots of other trickery going on and i happen to know gary sherman um who directed that movie and I met him a couple of times. And then I mentioned to him, I said, Hey, we were talking about you today, because we were watching shots from Power Guys 3 and sort of breaking down how they were done. And I said, I said, Hey, you wouldn't mind doing like a little show and tell. So one afternoon, so that kind of geekiest thing ever, but we sat down and had a zoom with Gary, who like we'd show, show show he'd show a shot from

part guy's screen then he'd break down how it was done so like that stuff is all you know but again this is i think of like you're you're taking something that like obviously exists in in previous cinema like great mirror shots in cinema right back to like um uh uh the frederick march um dr jekyll and mr hyde i think uh reuben mulliman directed that one if i'm wrong please splice in the right director maybe i'll quickly give it when i do it but um or through to like uh jean cocteau's orpheus like and and many many other sense but but then you're you're trying to like um find like something that makes it extra complicated as well so let me ask you about that though so when you're writing do you write the challenge into the script and see if you can pull off what you're visualizing or does it does it work differently from the

writing process to figuring out what the shot lists are going to be and you know visualizing the movie i mean it's never written into the script no i mean i would start conceiving that with the storyboards and maybe more in that weird way of like you know vfx in this day and age can become like a crutch where people are actually like relying on visual effects so much that they're not actually sort of even attempting to do things they could do in camera so in a strange way you're actually harking back to like classic hollywood techniques it's like yeah you you can do this you just need to like rehearse it a lot. And so I think in a way that it's like, if it seems like something, I mean, it is something that I think

the end result I'm incredibly proud of because they're really tricky shots to pull off. And like I said, you're entering into something where you're not quite sure whether it's going to work. And that's, you know, a nice tightrope walk to go on. What do Anya and Thomason, for example, know that they are getting themselves into a project where

they're going to have to rehearse and there are going to be these complicated moves. Obviously, they know your films, they know your work, they know that you have a flair for this kind of thing. But is there like a boot camp

for your actors when you're going to do something like this? There is in a way, I think they were aware of it because I would tell them about that aspect of it. And I think probably one of the first things I did with Anya Ann Thomason is work with them and a choreographer. You know, we had this amazing choreographer, Jen White. And so, you know, we did, I think one of the first things we did with Anja and Thomasin was do some of that mirror choreography and just get, and in a way for them as actresses, then it almost became a thing where they immediately bonded in the sense that they like as well as the script there's like I can give them as much supplemental material as they want to help them is like here's a book about the period like if you want to watch any films here's a great list of kind of like things of the time um not necessarily

um thrillers or horror films but more like dramas of the time in terms of especially for like anya in terms of like what screen acting consisted of in 1965 sort of very different to like now you know um i would give them as much or as little as they wanted music everything so i think there is a sort of boot camp element to it in terms of it's it's more i wouldn't say call it boot camp more as like the kind of the lab it's like before we we shoot we're gonna like try some stuff and see what works and even in terms of when you're doing like camera tests and you're you know trying different sort of lighting effects or or you know you do camera tests where you're you know do costume and makeup effects but you also try out lighting techniques and you also try out the basic bones of like a special effects shot

just to see if it works. I'm not the kind of person who likes leaving anything to chance on the day. I like to have done a dry run of it in some form. Like some of the most complicated choreography shots in the movie, we would try and do like a saturday afternoon rehearsal and because we just didn't really have the time to like be experimenting on the day so even like with things like the scene when thomason is first goes into the 60s and she walks across um the hay market which is one of the busiest streets in London. We could shoot on the Haymarket and the city of Westminster were going to let us do that.

But, you know, something that has to be like scheduled three months in advance. And it's like you can shoot on the Haymarket on this Sunday in August between the times of 10.30 p.m. and 2.30am and you can close the four lanes of traffic but the fifth one has to be open for buses and ambulances and fire engines and and but also with something like that there is no way to rehearse that shot because you don't have the location until 10.30 so we had to rehearse on an airstrip where we like chalked out the road and we knew exactly the distance and it's like this is the door this is where you're coming from these are the four lanes of traffic here's some cars on an airstrip so there's lots of things like that where you're just kind of doing a lot of dress rehearsals because in a way i guess it would be no different to putting a musical or a play on

there's an element of it where you're doing it live as in we're going to try and do this thing in this uninterrupted take so the only way to do that is just to rehearse and so we did a lot of like dance rehearsals and movement rehearsals and beyond what I'd done in Baby Driver is obviously there's dance sequences in the movie but I actually kept Jennifer White the choreographer throughout the entire shoot because she actually kind of brought what she was doing into just the general movement because like you've seen the film but like there's a sort of point in the movie where everything starts to feel like you're in a lucid dream and so there's sort of elements of like dreamlike choreography that kind of spill out beyond the dance sequences.

And so in terms of interacting with like lighting cues or just the, you know, like the way of kind of like sort of moving in a scene. So it was amazing to sort of be able to kind of experiment with that stuff before you start shooting and, and, and, and,

and everybody come to the set with the knowledge of how this is going to be pulled off. It's interesting. I feel like your films are becoming a little bit more like ballet in a way. I mean, Baby Driver obviously has a lot of that kind of synchronicity is so key to telling that story. And this is very similar. How much of it is about realizing the vision and how much of it is about challenging yourself for the new movie? Because like, I hear you get excited explaining the mirror effects and I can see how much that still gets you jazzed to try to like conquer the problem of this vision

that you have in your head. I think, I think it's both. I think it's challenging yourself and trying to further yourself. Like, you know, there's, I've been lucky,

very fortunate enough to sort of most of the things that I've done are some have some new element to them and I think because you know films take a long time to make and it's sort of like as fun as it is and as much of a privilege it is to make movies it is so like sort of um mentally and physically taxing on so many levels that like the idea of doing something like that for three years of your life and just doing things that you've done before is just not as interesting as throwing in a new element. And working with people that you've never worked before or trying something on screen that you've never done before. And I guess like if, you know, I think in this day and age and the way the business is at the moment, like everything seems like kind of, I feel so grateful for everything. Even down to like a screening with people. Like when you come on stage and say, thanks so much for being here.

You say it with utter sincerity. It's like, I really mean it. Like, I'm so happy to see you here. So with that in mind, it's like the idea of just having the opportunity to make an original movie is like something absolutely not to be sniffed at. And I hope going forward that whatever I do next is that there's something within it that's like challenging myself or stretching myself you know so let me just ask you about that quickly obviously you you were asked often during the pandemic about the future of exhibition and you've always been a vocal advocate for that but you are releasing your new film which has been delayed effectively for a year into a still kind

of unsure environment. You know, how are you feeling about that in general? And do you feel like you're going to continue to have the opportunity to keep making theatrical releases? I don't know the answer to that second question, although I believe that an audience will return once, you know, like this pandemic sort of ties itself out. It might get us first. I say that coming from a country that's 88% vaccinated.

So there's a sort of point where it's like, what can we do? Let's try and convince that last 12%. We're lucky in the UK that both political parties are pro-vaccine. So that's a big win must be nice um but the thing i'd say is that like to me the important thing is like i know that sometimes it gets controversial when people say you have to see this film in the cinema and if you're not seeing in the cinema you're not seeing it at all and i understand why those people are saying it and And also I think like, listen, if Chris Nolan and Denis Villeneuve can't speak up for the big screen experience, who will?

Like, so I get it. I also, you know, that said is that I know sometimes when people kind of say, Hey, we're in a pandemic at the moment, my, my Finney is always like, if you feel comfortable going, we want to give you the opportunity to see it. I've been to the cinema many many times in lockdown and felt completely safe whether it's in a room with like quite a few people or whether i'm just going to see something on my own the main thing is is that i you know like and i don't i don't want this to be a controversial statement i don't want the cinema experience to go away you know and listen i say that as somebody who last year watched hundreds of movies at home.

Of course, we all did. But it's that thing where I don't believe, even though like the lot of oxygen is taken up talking about streamers, I don't believe that the future of cinema is all couch based. To me, it's just like, I just like, there's a point where it's like, I can't sit on my couch any longer. And I have a really nice home theater set up, but I like to leave the house and like going to the cinema to me, like I said, it doesn't matter if it's a full house or I'm the only person there I'm transported because when you go to the cinema, the film is in charge. The film is a train and you have to get on the train. And if you're late, the film has already

started, but you have to kind of be there to get on the train, to go on the journey with it. And that's a different thing to being at home when you can pause it when somebody rings, or you can pause it when your postmates turns up, or you can pause it because you need to go to the bathroom. Or I said, I didn't hear that bit. Let me rewind it. It's almost like there's a beauty in actually going to the cinema and sometimes missing things. But generally, you're along for the ride. So I think that's the thing. It's not that you can't enjoy moving at home. Of course you can. And I know that they're obviously like the thing i how i would like to pitch it is i would love people to have the opportunity to see it on the big screen and if people say well what about the people who can't go it's like well it'll be on vod in like

three weeks so yeah just be a little patient when i was when i was a kid we had to wait a year for like a new star wars to come we had to wait three years for like a new star wars to come we had to wait three years for like a star wars film to come out or like even in the uk like films would be come out six months later so you know that thing where it's like i i don't have as much patience for the idea of not everything being day and day it's like hey you're you're talking to the wrong person i used to be very patient when i was a kid let me ask you one related question to that. Because as I was thinking about having this chat with you, I was like, let me just fire up Hot Fuzz

just to kind of get the feeling back and think about if there's anything I want to ask Edgar. And I couldn't find it on any of the streaming services that I subscribe to, which is not to say it's not on one of them, but I just couldn't find it. And then I was like, well, let me look for Baby Driver. Couldn't find it.

Let me look for Shaun of the Dead. I own all these movies. I love those films. But I was like, I'd have to go down to the other room to go get them to pop them in i don't want to do that i'm so used to just firing it up do you ever think about and i realize this is a small thing but it is weirdly meaningful for younger audiences the accessibility of your movies what that means to their ability to have life after release like is that any part of um I don't want to say, do you have anxiety about it, but do you think about that?

The way that people can see your films 10 years, 15 years after they've come out? I think if it's a question between seeing it and not seeing it, I understand that. I have limited sympathy for you not walking into another room to go get it. And one of my least favorite articles on the internet is when you get those articles saying, these films are leaving Netflix on the 1st of April. And I remember I replied to one, it said, Hot Fuzz is leaving Netflix on the 1st of April. And I'm saying, oh, this is a tragedy. It's only available on VOD and Apple TV and Blu-ray and DVD and on ITV2 like every week.

So I mean, listen, do you want to be able to like be able to see all films? Great. But I'm always, I think the thing where I get kind of annoyed is where lines are drawn in the sand, where films become about brand loyalty to like different studios that's the point where you've lost me because there are different streamers where they mean something disney plus means something because it's obviously inherently a family channel

netflix's means something but some of the other like streamers that like the average consumer doesn't really know what's in the warner catalog or not it doesn't really know what's in the warner catalog or not it doesn't really know what's in the paramount catalog we might like or we know we we do but like the average consumer just says tell me where i can watch the movie i'm always like that it's like i don't care which one it's on just let me rent it i will happily pay you like sort of the $349 to watch the movie. Just tell me where I can find it. So I, you know, like, and as such, with that in mind, I've bought, I still buy a lot of Blu-rays because sometimes there are films that are only on Blu-ray and they're just not on any streamer. I mean, I think the other thing is like, as people quickly discover is the fallacy that all

older films are on streamers. They're not. Like sort of like most of the streamers are interested in the more recent ones and like classic movies are either on Blu-ray or they've sort of just disappeared into the vault somewhere. And that's a dangerous thing.

So I believe in things being accessible, but you know, you could get some extra steps in if you went into another room to get hot fuzz. I set you up to mock my laziness, which is perfectly okay. Listen, I've done the same thing before. I've done the same thing before. Okay, well, one, I want to let you know you were right about Ruben Mammalian and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. So good on you for that.

Thank you. You nailed that. I didn't want to embarrass myself. Two, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen you are of course one of the great watchers of movies as you have shown us on instagram over the last year have you seen anything cool lately um new or old anything anything you dug um what was the last thing that i saw that really knocked my socks off um uh i i guess i mean in in the spirit of not being kind of like sort of um i never like it when people are snobby about oh i can't believe you've never seen this but last year i spent a

long time putting the dent into my list of shame of things i haven't seen and um and obviously there were so many films in there that like sort of film scholars would be like ah you've never seen this before but one of them that like really knocked my my socks off was I decided to kind of um finally dive into uh Max Ophuls which I'd only previously seen his noir films like Court and um The Reckless Moment but I watched all the other ones and then so films like Letter from an Unknown Woman and The Earrings of Madame D'Ere, dot, dot, dot. I was just like totally sort of knocked my socks off in a way that not only was I enjoying the film, but just like all the connections to kind of current contemporary directors or directors that came afterwards that obviously inspired by him. I always love I always love that feeling because it's like seeing something like totally with fresh eyes,

but then actually being able to put it in the context of film history. You could really do the earrings of Madame De and Last Night in Soho double feature. I feel like there's some connectivity there in terms of the camera work and the story being told. I take that as a high compliment. I didn't see the film until after I made Last Night in Soho, so I can't claim that it inspired it, but that's a very lovely compliment to say that. Edgar, thank you so much for your time. Congrats on Last Night in Soho. Always good to talk to you. Thanks, man.

Thank you to Edgar Wright, Rob Harvvilla and our producer bobby wagner for his work on this episode next week we have a special episode of the big picture it is a mega movie draft with special guests we are talking about 1994 we'll see you then