{"id":5938,"date":"2021-10-24T10:43:46","date_gmt":"2021-10-24T14:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=5938"},"modified":"2021-10-24T10:44:40","modified_gmt":"2021-10-24T14:44:40","slug":"last-night-in-soho-downtown-downtempo-performed-by-anya-taylor-joy-artwork-featurette-trailer-synopsis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=5938","title":{"rendered":"Last Night in Soho : “Downtown (Downtempo)” Performed by Anya Taylor-Joy, Artwork, Featurette, Trailer, Synopsis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long Synopsis\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

If you could go back in time, would you? Should you?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The past is another country, they say. One whose borders are locked. But what if that wasn\u2019t entirely true? What if you could experience another time for yourself, in full sensory overload? That\u2019s the situation for Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) in Edgar Wright\u2019s new psychological thriller. A newly minted fashion student who has just arrived in the Big Smoke of London to start her future, but Eloise is obsessed with the past \u2013 longing for a bygone age, desperate to have experienced 60s London in all its glory. However, Eloise\u2019s uncanny psychic gift means that she may get the chance more literally than she realizes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Moving into her drab student halls, Eloise is immediately intimidated by her glittering roommate Jocasta (Synnove Karlsen) and Jocasta\u2019s fashion-forward friends. Despite the attempts of her friendlier classmate John (Michael Ajao) to encourage her, Eloise can\u2019t stand the all-night parties. Instead, she finds a room for rent at the top of an old house owned by landlady Ms Collins (Diana Rigg). It\u2019s there, still unsettled yet hopeful for a new start, that Eloise slips away into dreams of the 1960s.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But are her night-time visions only dreams? Eloise finds herself inhabiting the life of Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), a 1960s starlet in the making, as she sashays into the Caf\u00e9 De Paris. Sandie is a wannabe singer, dancer, actress, star <\/i>\u2013 and she\u2019s dead set on making an impression. All of Sandie\u2019s dreams seem to come true as she meets the charming Jack (Matt Smith), a manager who might be able to introduce her to the right people to help launch her career \u2013 and Eloise is pulled along with her on an intoxicating adventure of first love, bright lights and big dreams.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Eloise immediately adopts Sandie as her role model and guiding spirit, dyeing her hair to look more like her heroine and living for the nights when she can re-join the past in her dreams. But when Sandie\u2019s life takes a turn for the darker, Eloise threatens to spin off right alongside her. Those \u201860s dreams are now full of darkness; a darkness that seems to spill over into Eloise\u2019s everyday existence as Sandie\u2019s troubles become a weight around Eloise\u2019s neck. Is there a way to change the past and save Sandie? Can Eloise solve a decades old mystery before she too is put in danger?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Herein lies the suspenseful premise of LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, a dark-tinged, neon-drenched, new thriller starring Thomasin McKenzie (Leave No Trace, Jojo Rabbit<\/i>), Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma, The Queen\u2019s Gambit<\/i>), Matt Smith (Doctor Who, The Crown<\/i>), Rita Tushingham (A Taste Of Honey<\/i>, Doctor Zhivago<\/i>), Diana Rigg (The Avengers<\/i>, Game Of Thrones, On Her Majesty\u2019s Secret Service<\/i>) and Terence Stamp (The Collector, The Limey, Superman II<\/i>).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Edgar Wright (Baby Driver, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World<\/i>) directs LAST NIGHT IN SOHO from a story he conceived and a script he co-wrote with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917<\/i>). The film is produced by Nira Park, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Edgar Wright. Executive producers are James Biddle, Rachael Prior, Daniel Battsek and Ollie Madden along with associate producers Leo Thompson and Laura Richardson.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For his creative production team, Wright turned to regular collaborators including production designer Marcus Rowland (Baby Driver, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World<\/i>), BAFTA winning editor Paul Machliss, ACE (Baby Driver, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World<\/i>) and Academy Award winning composer Steven Price (Baby Driver, Gravity, The World\u2019s End<\/i>). But he also recruited exciting new team members including cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung (Oldboy, The Handmaiden, It<\/i>), and Emmy winning and BAFTA nominated costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux (An Education, Brooklyn, Chernobyl<\/i>).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO is a Working Title \/ Complete Fiction production, in association with Perfect World Pictures, of an Edgar Wright film for Focus Features and Film4 and was shot on location in Soho.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

WELCOME TO SOHO\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThe lights are much brighter there
\nYou can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares So go downtown
\nThings will be great when you’re downtown
\nNo finer place for sure downtown
\nEverything’s waiting for you…\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDowntown\u201d Petula Clark\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a neon-fuelled nightmare,\u201d is how star Anya Taylor-Joy describes LAST NIGHT IN SOHO. \u201cDark, but the darkness is juxtaposed with these incredibly bright flashes of colour. A realistic world, but one firmly set in a dream.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI loved the unexpectedness, and how you\u2019re really engaged the whole time,\u201d says her fellow leading lady Thomasin McKenzie. \u201cYou\u2019re never sure what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a thriller that\u2019s shadowy and dark and dance-y and strange and really colourful,\u201d is how Matt Smith describes it. \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s amazing about this film. There are so many elements that can only really come from someone like Edgar Wright. You read the script and go, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s going to shoot that bit really interestingly\u2019. What he does with the camera is just brilliant.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLast Night in Soho <\/i>is a love letter to that specific part of London, and to a bygone age when the Rolling Stones and Princess Margaret were hanging around,\u201d says screenwriter Krysty Wilson- Cairns. \u201cIt\u2019s a love letter to the past, but a warning as well not to look back with too much nostalgia, or gloss over the seedy underbelly.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is, in other words, a story full of contradictions \u2013 and that\u2019s just the way Wright wanted it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI love London and I love the Sixties,\u201d he says. \u201cBut with the city it\u2019s a love-hate relationship. It can be brutal and beautiful in equal measure. It\u2019s ever shifting too, with gentrification and new architecture slowly changing the landscape. With all this in mind, it\u2019s easy to romanticize previous decades; even ones you were not alive for. Maybe you would be forgiven for thinking that time travelling back to the Swingin\u2019 Sixties would be amazing. But then there\u2019s a nagging doubt. Would it<\/i>, though? Particularly from a female perspective. Sometimes you’re talking to somebody who was there in the 60s, where they would talk very effusively about it, stories of the wild times. But you always feel that there’s that little hint of what they won’t say. Sometimes, if you ask, they\u2019ll say that it was a tough time as well. So the point of the movie is to ask what\u2019s behind the rose-tinted spectacles, and how quickly that part reveals itself.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wright adds that between work and socializing, he\u2019s probably spent more time in Soho over the last couple of decades than he has at home. This area of central London, barely half a mile squared, has always been home to bars, nightclubs, theatres and cinemas, and in the last few decades it has been the hub of the UK\u2019s film industry. Socially active Londoners will often find themselves on nights out\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

there, especially those in creative fields. But as you\u2019re making your way home from one of these nights out, or even a late-night editing session, it\u2019s impossible to ignore that Soho is also host to seedier activities. For two centuries now, Soho has been the center of sin: strip clubs and brothels and strange characters lurking on dark back streets. That\u2019s the thrill of Soho. The heart of the glittering showbiz industry and the famous den of iniquity home to prostitutes, hustlers and all manner of vice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That dual identity inspired LAST NIGHT IN SOHO. Some combination of Soho\u2019s dark streets, the echoes of the \u201cSwinging London\u201d of the 1960s, a long-time affection for the music of the period and an obsession with the darker-tinged films of that same decade came together to give Wright an idea; a story about an idealist who follows their dreams to Soho and finds something much darker waiting there.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wright quickly realised that his protagonist would be a young woman, a girl coming up to London for the first time. \u201cI didn\u2019t have any other version of it,\u201d he explains.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the inspiration was that I wanted to make a film with a female lead. But also, I was conscious that many of these \u201860s films, mostly written by men, were cautionary tales about girls coming to London. At the time, they probably felt quite ground-breaking. But now some seem sensationalist and moralistic, like they\u2019re slapping down the idea of liberation and girls being able to make it on their own.\u201d Wright wanted to offer some kind of corrective to that, and to challenge that clich\u00e9. So to accentuate this, the exploitation and vice of the era became the backdrop for his story. The film was always going to be set in Soho, home to a unique mix of respectable business and vice with a beguiling and sometimes fearsome atmosphere.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sixties casts a long shadow over London, but particularly over Soho,\u201d says Wright. \u201cSoho has always had the higher echelons of glamour and showbiz, but it\u2019s also this den of iniquity. It\u2019s steeped in music and film history, but also criminal history. I\u2019ve had more night-time walks through Soho than I can possibly count, and you get thinking about what this or that building used to be. You feel the echoes of the past, and not that far away.\u201d Past and present mix and meld together until the crimes of the past began to haunt our present-day heroine. But first, Wright had to decide how to navigate those intertwined worlds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Anya Taylor-Joy stars as Sandie and Matt Smith as Jack in Edgar Wright\u2019s LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, a Focus Features release.\u00a0Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh \/ \u00a9 2021 Focus Features, LLC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

DEVELOPING THE STORY\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Wright had his original idea more than a decade ago and quickly put the broad outlines of the story in order. But he didn\u2019t rush this one to the screen. \u201cEdgar first told me he was keen to develop the idea in February 2012,\u201d says Nira Park, Wright\u2019s long-time producer and confidant. \u201cWe were trying to get The World\u2019s End off the ground at the time and were really busy. I didn\u2019t think he would have time to think about another project but he couldn\u2019t stop thinking about the idea and really wanted to get the ball rolling. He was in LA and I was in London. He came over for a week of meetings on The World\u2019s End and we managed to squeeze in a pitch with Film4, who felt like they were a good fit for the project. At that stage, the pitch was for a lower budget version of what it eventually became. Film4 were immediately interested and they agreed to fund the research with Lucy Pardee, which Edgar worked on alongside prep for The Worlds End.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wright recruited Lucy Pardee, more recently a BAFTA winner for her work on Rocks<\/i>, to help him dive deep into researching various elements of the story. Pardee interviewed people from all walks of life who lived and worked in Soho in the \u201860s. The vast bible she assembled included research into the sex industry – past and present \u2013 in Central London, as well as police who patrolled the area and \u2013 in the present day \u2013 fashion students like our heroine, Eloise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pardee also researched nightmares and sleep paralysis, paranormal and ghost encounters, lucid dreaming and other elements that would eventually inform the plot. As Wright digested this wealth of first-hand accounts, along with his own keen interest in \u201860s movies and music, the story details took shape. But The World\u2019s End <\/i>and Baby Driver <\/i>dropped into place first, and it was only after the latter that Wright became sure that LAST NIGHT IN SOHO would be next.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter finishing the Baby Driver <\/i>awards press circuit in March 2018, I made the decision,\u201d says Wright. \u201cThere was pressure to do a sequel to it immediately, but I knew in my head that I had to do something else first. For my own sanity, I couldn\u2019t quite face doing a second huge car chase movie straightaway. And when you have the opportunity to make an original movie with new challenges, you take it.\u201d Nira Park was again his first port of call.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first pitched it, it was very low budget,\u201d says Park, \u201cbut once we started talking about it again the idea had developed quite a bit and it was definitely a bigger proposition, bigger budget. Edgar and I started talking to our long term collaborators Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan at Working Title about how to make the film a reality. And then together we took it to Focus.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While Wright was drawn to the idea of making a \u201860s thriller, a mystery full of the horror elements and show-stopping style of that time, he also wanted to tell that story through a contemporary lens. He didn\u2019t want to simply glamourise the past, or draw a veil over the grotesque reality of the seamy, sexist \u201860s. By putting a modern protagonist into the \u201860s story, he could bring a wariness to the milieu and perhaps avoid the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a duality in that sense,\u201d Wright explains. \u201cLike Eloise\u2019s character, there\u2019s a love for the best of the decade. It\u2019s a fascinating period: the way culture changes from 1960 to 1969 is extraordinary, probably the biggest leap in any decade. But there\u2019s also a fear of what\u2019s going on under the surface. If you spend too much time romanticising the past, you can miss the danger that\u2019s in front of you.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was during this time, with a fully-developed story but as-yet unwritten script, and a title inspired by the Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich song, that Wright met up with his friend, screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns, and asked if he could talk her through the idea. The pair spent an evening walking around Soho haunts as he narrated his concept for the film and visited some of the area\u2019s most famous and more obscure watering holes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe went to the Toucan [pub] where Krysty was a barmaid for several years as she was writing her breakthrough screenplay Aether<\/i>,\u201d says Wright. \u201cShe lived on Dean Street, so in that way when you\u2019re someone who works and lives in Soho, you become friends with the bouncers and strippers. You know them as real people. She was steeped in all these amazing stories.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wilson-Cairns remembers it well. \u201cI moved to London when I was 22, a young girl with a dream of the big city,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI came from a small place, quite sheltered, so I very much understood that journey. When I first met Edgar \u2013 Sam Mendes introduced us and said we would get on \u2013 I think I had just given up my bar work and we talked about the bits of Soho you don\u2019t see, all these dingy after-hours places. So we went on a little research night out. I wasn\u2019t involved in the project at this point, I was just a friend showing him my old stomping ground. But I thought the story was fantastic.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was over a year later when Wilson-Cairns got Wright\u2019s call asking her to co-write the script with him. She was about to head into pre-production on 1917 <\/i>with Mendes, the film that would soon land her an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. But in the six-weeks before she left, she and Wright rented an office, put the story on index cards around the wall, and crafted the first draft of the script, refining and perfecting it over the following months.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe story had been fermenting in my head for so long,\u201d says Wright. \u201cIt just needed this missing element. There are things that Krysty adds to it that make the movie, things that I would have never thought of writing on my own.\u201d By his account, she was particularly keen on fleshing out the 1960s scenes, ensuring that the audience would fall in love with Sandie. \u201cWe spent a lot of time, the two of us, just working out who is Sandie and who is Eloise,\u201d says Wilson-Cairns. \u201cYou want Sandie to be compelling, so it was building that character and building her world. The audience go in with Eloise, a young woman, and I thought, \u2018Who was I obsessed with when I was younger?\u2019 Usually it was characters on TV; powerful women. It\u2019s not like male obsession, not just about how they look; it\u2019s definitely about intelligence and how they see the world. So, Sandie\u2019s dialogue was crucial to that.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As with Wright himself, Wilson-Cairns was also keen to avoid the \u201cfallen woman\u201d tropes of \u201860s cinema. \u201cI think there’s almost a puritanical message in those films, and we’re not at all trapped in that, thank God. We were never interested in chastising \u2018fallen\u2019 women; the idea that women even \u2018fall\u2019 is ridiculous to me. We were trying to make something that feels real, that felt like it could have happened, that had resonance in our lifetime. Just to make something thrilling and thought- provoking was our intention.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With a script in place, the challenge became bringing these roles to life. The film would require two very different leading ladies who would, nevertheless, share a strange bond \u2013 and to play them Wright recruited two of the most exciting rising stars of the moment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Thomasin McKenzie stars as Eloise in Edgar Wright\u2019s LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh \/ \u00a9 2021 Focus Features, LLC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WHO IS ELOISE\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

For Eloise, Wright needed to find someone with the same idealism and uncynical energy of his heroine; an actress who would bring the audience first into the glitz of \u201860s London and then through a darker, scarier world. It was Nira Park who first suggested New Zealander Thomasin McKenzie, who had just stunned audiences with her breakthrough performance in Debra Granik\u2019s Leave No Trace <\/i>as the isolated daughter of an army veteran who has raised her to live in the woods. She followed that with a string of similarly acclaimed work, including a crucial role in Taika Waititi\u2019s Jojo Rabbit <\/i>in 2019. Wright set up a meeting with the actor and immediately saw her potential to bring Eloise to life. \u201cI\u2019d seen Leave No Trace <\/i>and thought it was so fantastic,\u201d says Wright, \u201cThomasin is so real in that movie that you almost don\u2019t think it\u2019s an actress playing the part; she disappears into the role. She\u2019s amazing. But also, because she\u2019s young, she is curious about the world. By casting Thomasin, she\u2019d be going on an adventure with the character.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For Eloise, London isn\u2019t just a place. It\u2019s a time. She\u2019s a young girl who leaves Redruth in Cornwall for London to pursue her \u201cpassion for fashion\u201d as the actress describes it. But the London she dreams of is less the reality and more the version she\u2019s seen in old movies and heard about in the records she borrows from her grandmother and guardian, Peggy (A Taste Of Honey <\/i>star Rita Tushingham). The pair are extremely close \u2013 something that McKenzie could relate to, because her own grandmother played a significant role in her upbringing \u2013 but Eloise still can\u2019t wait to fly the nest. Coincidentally, McKenzie was 18 at the time of filming which is the same age as Tushingham was when she worked on A Taste of Honey.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The story of the country kid with big dreams who moves to the big city is one close to Wright\u2019s heart \u2013 since he too came from the west of England to London as a young man. \u201cAnybody who’s come to London from the outside finds it’s initially a very foreboding thing,\u201d he says. \u201cYou feel out of place, like you can’t possibly match up to people who, even if they’re the same age, feel much further on and much cooler. People who grew up in London had such a head start because they’re already in the thick of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

McKenzie had a similar experience of London, which she barely knew before taking the role, as her character. \u201cIt makes an incredible setting for this film because, like Eloise, I think the whole world looks at London as being very shiny; a big city full of opportunities. Like Eloise, when I first got off the plane and started driving around, I was kind of star struck trying to take everything in. It\u2019s been amazing working in London because although there is a bad side, it is a magical city and there are really incredible people. This film crew is one of the nicest film crews I\u2019ve ever worked with in my life.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Eloise, in contrast, real-life London and the student halls full of noisy, more confident peers is a tougher experience. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t last long in halls,\u201d acknowledges McKenzie. \u201cHer frustration is that she is super passionate and has worked really hard to get where she is, and she feels \u2013 and maybe it\u2019s not true \u2013 that some of the other students are taking that opportunity for granted. She has a very insecure side and is a bit nervous. I think her mum struggled with mental illness, which has been passed down to Eloise, and we gradually see that start to come out and affect her day-to-day-life.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s not that Eloise\u2019s roommate, Jocasta (Synn\u00f8ve Karlsen), is outright cruel. She\u2019s just intimidating and thoughtless towards the more reserved Eloise and too busy taken up with her existing friends Lara (Jessie Mei Li), Ashley (Rebecca Harrod) and Cami (Kassius Nelson). So Eloise moves out and finds her own room high atop a shabby old house rented out by the elderly landlady Ms Collins (Diana Rigg). In those quieter surroundings, Eloise starts to dream of another London, the one she envisioned before she arrived at college. Because Eloise, we learn, shares a gift with her deceased mother: she can speak to those who are long dead and gone. Or perhaps more accurately, she can inhabit echoes of the past.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By vicariously traveling back in time through her dreams, she soon looks forward to every night she spends living a less inhibited, less ordinary life as the glamorous Sandie, a soon-to-be-star of 1960s London. \u201cThe dreams start to become reality,\u201d says McKenzie, and the gap between past and present collapses.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEloise has a gift for seeing things very vividly that others cannot; for reliving the events of the past in a sort of psychic link,\u201d says Wright. \u201cIn dreams, I frequently feel, as do many people, that I am someone else. You\u2019re having this strange wish fulfilment dream or nightmare. In a weird way, it is extreme empathy. Empathy almost as a superpower. And Thomasin is a very empathetic actor, very naturalistic. She wants to be there and feel it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At first, Eloise\u2019s nightly trips into the past inspire her work and fuel her confidence as she relives the experiences of the more outgoing, more glamorous Sandie. Eloise dyes her hair like Sandie and even musters up the courage to get a job as a barmaid at the Toucan, like screenwriter Wilson-Cairns before her. But Sandie\u2019s life is no bed of roses, as Eloise soon learns, and the dreams turn darker. \u201cI\u2019d never done a horror film or any thriller type thing,\u201d says McKenzie. \u201cSo that aspect of it was really exciting for me; a new genre to explore. The only question I remember Edgar asking [before she was cast] was, \u2018Is there anything you think you\u2019d be scared or nervous about doing?\u2019 I was like, \u2018Oh no, nothing. It\u2019s all good.\u2019 Which is the wrong answer, because there was so much intense stuff in the script! Little did I know what an amazing but challenging role it would be.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That said, Wright was concerned to protect his stars, and especially the younger cast members, from the material as much as possible. Choreographer Jennifer White was on hand not only in the dance scenes, but also in suggesting the movement in intimate scenes so that everyone was comfortable. \u201cStill, it\u2019s an exhausting part to play, getting in that zone,\u201d says Wright of his star. \u201cYou need to keep a balance when shooting a movie like this; keeping things light but not ruining the mood. And the scenes were strenuous, especially for her.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEdgar\u2019s films always have such choreography and timing, so it was really fun to focus on that,\u201d says McKenzie. \u201cIt\u2019s been cool seeing how he prepares, an amazing learning experience. I feel like I\u2019m coming out of this project with a lot more knowledge of what it means to be an actor.\u201d But Eloise is only one half of the puzzle. Wright also needed to find her \u201860s counterpart. Luckily, he had the perfect actress in mind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Anya Taylor-Joy stars as Sandie and Thomasin McKenzie as Eloise in Edgar Wright\u2019s LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh \/ \u00a9 2021 Focus Features, LLC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MEETING SANDIE\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

One of the first cast members that Wright told about the film, before the script even existed, was Anya Taylor-Joy. He had been on the Sundance jury in 2015 when The Witch <\/i>debuted and was immediately impressed with her performance as Puritan girl Thomasin (no relation to McKenzie). The admiration was mutual, so the pair had a meeting in LA and talked generally about working together before Wright told Taylor-Joy the idea for his Soho film.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Taylor-Joy was initially \u201ca tiny bit anxious\u201d because she didn\u2019t want to be pigeonholed as a horror actress, but she quickly realised that this was no stereotypical effort. \u201cAs he kept telling me more and more about the story, I realised that I was going to have a lot of fun with it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At first, both star and director thought that she might play Eloise. But by the time the script was written, Wright had another idea and he sent the script with a note asking the star to consider the Sandie role. \u201cSeeing her in other roles over the years, and watching her grow up in public, I thought, maybe she\u2019s the other part,\u201d says Wright. \u201cI sent her an email and said, \u2018I have two surprises. One, the Soho script exists. Two, I want you to look at Sandie\u2019. She was 100% onboard.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s no exaggeration, to hear Taylor-Joy describe her immediate reaction to Sandie. \u201cI enjoyed the fact that she scared me. I\u2019ve played a lot of outsider-y type roles, and Sandie is so confident and so sure of herself as this kind of sexy kitten. When I first read it I was like, \u2018How on earth am I going to pull this off?\u2019\u201d Sandie is outgoing, vivacious and confident: she comes to London determined to become a star. \u201cI think she wants to do it all!\u201d says Taylor-Joy. \u201cShe\u2019s an aspiring singer and actress and dancer. She just wants to see her name up in lights. I call her \u2018Brass Balls Sandie\u2019 because she really just throws herself into every situation. I wish I had a bit more of her in me, in that respect.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sandie is instantly dazzling \u2013 most of all for Eloise when she first sees her. \u201cAt the beginning, Sandie is London to Eloise,\u201d says McKenzie. \u201cEloise starts to discover her style, and maybe a bit of sexiness and courage and femininity, thanks to her.\u201d Yet Sandie\u2019s story takes place decades before Eloise was even born, so Taylor-Joy also had to find the period detail that would bring this vivacious starlet to life. Wright provided all his cast and crew with film references, but Taylor-Joy also fell down a YouTube rabbit hole of news clips from the \u201860s to capture their particular speech rhythms. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like Sandie\u2019s right on the precipice before all the free love stuff, she\u2019s right on that edge. Watching movies like Poor Cow <\/i>was really informative, just because it\u2019s almost like there\u2019s this air of melancholy that permeates most of these performances, and I wanted to pepper that in there. But at least at first, Sandie is a fantasy to Eloise.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, however, the only way to play the role was the one that Sandie herself would choose: head first, throwing herself in. We meet Sandie as she has dolled herself up and stepped into the Caf\u00e9 De Paris, one of London\u2019s hottest nightclubs at the time \u2013 and that was also the moment that Taylor- Joy found herself stepping into Sandie\u2019s silver shoes. \u201cThe first time I was ever really Sandie I had to walk out in front of 200 supporting artists and just stand there as if I own the room. I was like,
\n\u2018Wow, okay, well, I guess I just have to do it now\u2019. Slowly every day it became easier to slip into that skin and I started having more fun with it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She and McKenzie also formed a real-life bond to mirror the one onscreen. \u201cAnya Taylor-Joy brings a lot of joy, no pun intended, to the movie,\u201d says McKenzie. \u201cI think she\u2019s the most hard-working person I\u2019ve ever met in my life. You know, she just doesn\u2019t stop.\u201d With Wright\u2019s leads in place, the rest of the cast began to come together to create a perfect mix of Soho\u2019s past and present.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Matt Smith stars as Jack and Anya Taylor-Joy as Sandie in Edgar Wright\u2019s LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh \/ \u00a9 2021 Focus Features, LLC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

THE CAST\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a real Soho kid,\u201d says Matt Smith, \u201cand I know Edgar is too. I\u2019ve seen him out there in the dark.\u201d The actor knew Edgar Wright socially, and had even visited the set of Baby Driver<\/i>, but they\u2019d never found a project to work on together \u2013 until now. Wright thought of Smith immediately for the part of Jack, the 1960s man-about-town who looks poised to make all of Sandie\u2019s dreams come true.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always wanted to work together,\u201d says Wright. \u201cMatt is so naturally charming that the idea of him playing a character for whom charm is his secret weapon was really interesting to me. He struck me as somebody who had a great face for the period as well. It was a treat to finally do something together.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Smith was equally keen \u2013 almost before he even read the script. \u201cAny script from Edgar that comes through the door, you\u2019re like, \u2018This is going to be interesting\u2019. He\u2019s such a brilliant filmmaker; the flair and originality that he has is really a one-off. Then I read it and found it really compelling. I thought, \u2018Cool, let\u2019s go and be part of an Edgar Wright film\u2019. I can\u2019t wait to see this explode onscreen.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The period setting was an inducement \u2013 Smith rather fancied getting into some \u201860s suits \u2013 but what was most intriguing was the \u201cdark thriller\u201d that unfolded as he read. Here was a chance to play a great romance, and to delve into Soho\u2019s cooler, edgier, past. And, as the former star of Doctor Who jokes, \u201cI\u2019ve always been close to the idea of time travel\u201d. Simply put, the character fascinated him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI play Jack, who is always on the make, always on the move,\u201d explains Smith. \u201cHe\u2019s literally a Jack the lad. He\u2019s got a sharp suit and a nice motor, because a man like that, that\u2019s what he spends his money on. Then he meets Sandie. He\u2019s a man of a thousand faces, and he\u2019s looking to make a bit of money. Deep down there\u2019s a powerful insecurity in him. But it all starts on a great dance where they fall in love, so what can go wrong?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not all romance and roses, then, and as Taylor-Joy says, \u201cThey\u2019re very evenly matched. They\u2019re both very hungry, they\u2019re both willing to do things to get ahead and their ambition matches each other. I think they each see, in the other, they could potentially go all the way and then unfortunately it just doesn\u2019t go that way for them. It\u2019s a very good thing that Matt Smith is so lovely because we have to do some quite uncomfortable scenes together.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That was the biggest other role for the \u201860s setting, but what about the modern day? Two different generations of actors were required: rising stars to play Eloise\u2019s fellow fashion students, but also a number of elder statespeople to fill more mature roles. Part of the inspiration for this film was Wright\u2019s love of 1960s British cinema, so it instantly made sense that he would also seek out icons of that era to join his cast.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to cast actors who had a connection to the time, but you also want to cast the right actors,\u201d says Wright. \u201cI felt that Terence Stamp would be perfect for his part, and I think he did the movie because his nieces were huge fans of Baby Driver<\/i>! But he has that connection to the decade so I loved the idea of including him.\u201d Stamp plays a modern-day denizen of Soho, a mysterious figure prone to loitering about the streets, and the bar at the Toucan, who Eloise begins to suspect may have a connection to her dreams of Sandie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another icon of the 1960s is Diana Rigg, who embodied the unstoppable spirit of the decade as The Avengers\u2019 <\/i>Mrs Peel and even tempted James Bond into marriage in On Her Majesty\u2019s Secret Service<\/i>. Here she plays Eloise\u2019s no-nonsense landlady, Ms Collins. \u201cWhen we were talking about people to play Ms Collins and her name came up, everybody <\/i>said she\u2019d be great,\u201d says Wright. \u201cJust so versatile. Funny or dramatic or foreboding, she could do anything. I went to meet her for a drink and I got there early but she was even earlier. Diana was wearing leopard print and massive bangles, really glammed up. And she really responded to the script. She actually said, \u2018Some people are scared by dark material but I\u2019m not. I really enjoy the darker side\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After one of the first rehearsal days, the veteran actress mentioned to Wright that she\u2019d actually been to Caf\u00e9 De Paris, one of the settings for the film, on her 18th birthday back in 1956. Wright invited her to tour the set, to see how it compared to her memories, and she was struck by how accurately production designer Marcus Rowland captured the original spot but \u2013 still sharp-eyed at 81 \u2013 instantly noted that it was fractionally bigger than the real thing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThen she said, \u2018It\u2019s very good though. Wonderful.\u2019,\u201d remembers Wright. \u201cThere was a little pause, and she says, \u2018I remember walking down those stairs and lots of rheumy-eyed men looking me up and down like a piece of meat\u2019. It was amazing, that moment, and it sort of crystallises the movie. The glamour and the excitement, and how quickly it can curdle to the darker moments that she remembers. She hadn\u2019t seen that scene, but that\u2019s exactly what happens to Sandie. All these middle- aged toffs look at her, like chum to the sharks, as soon as she walks in. Diana just offered her memories up without relating it to the movie itself.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sadly it would be her last film role, as she died in September 2020 at the age of 82. That was also true of Margaret Nolan, who has a small role here but who, in the 1960s, appeared with a sort of holy trinity of British icons, appearing opposite James Bond in Goldfinger<\/i>, opposite The Beatles in A Hard Day\u2019s Night<\/i>, and in six Carry On <\/i>films. \u201cShe’s basically at the epicentre of the \u201860s,\u201d is how Wright puts it. \u201cRight in the middle of everything. So I cast her in that role and she was amazing to have on set and it was so wonderful to get to know her. She had so many incredible recollections of that time.\u201d Nolan had long since retired from acting and become a visual artist before Wright lured her back for one last turn as a barmaid in a 1960\u2019s basement nightclub that Sandie attends. She died in October 2020.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The final veteran cast member was Rita Tushingham, an icon of the \u201860s thanks to her turn in A Taste Of Honey <\/i>which won her Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival. She plays Eloise\u2019s protective and loving grandmother. \u201cShe just emits warmth,\u201d smiles Wright. \u201cShe\u2019s so full of life, and so sprightly and funny. I felt remiss that I\u2019d never worked with an actress I\u2019d long admired, and who had given me so much joy. So I met with her and it was one of the best casting decisions I ever made. I really buy that she\u2019s Thomasin\u2019s grandmother. Just getting to know her as a person was one of the many things I\u2019m grateful for on this production.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Having such legends around was initially terrifying for the younger cast. \u201cIt was, at first, very intimidating,\u201d says McKenzie. \u201cAs part of my research I read about Terence and Diana, and saw\u00a0 <\/span>films of their past roles that Edgar sent me. Seeing how amazing she was, and how strong and cool and talented, yeah, I was a bit intimidated, because I wanted to honour and respect that.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Smith felt much the same. \u201cIt\u2019s an incredible thing, really. They were huge stars of the time and still are, you know? I mean, Terry is in a Kinks song. Doesn\u2019t get any bigger than that! We\u2019re very lucky. I hung out on set and asked them questions about everything.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Less far along the career spectrum, there was a younger group to find to play Eloise\u2019s fellow students at the London College of Fashion. Synn\u00f8ve Karlsen, one of the stars of TV\u2019s Medici<\/i>, plays Jocasta, the most confident and outgoing of the bunch. \u201cIt\u2019s rare to come across feature films about young women,\u201d says Karlsen, \u201cand this comes to life in a way you don\u2019t often see, I think.\u201d For Karlsen, her character doesn\u2019t precisely mean to be mean \u2013 but she doesn\u2019t deny that the effect may largely be the same. \u201cShe maybe doesn\u2019t have the best intentions when it comes to her and Eloise\u2019s relationship. I think she\u2019s very self-aware, and wants to be very cool, and wants to be wearing the right clothes and wants to be perceived as the big name on campus, so… they\u2019re quite contrasting people,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI think Jocasta is the judgmental voice over Eloise\u2019s shoulder, until the end.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The fact that she has already established a coterie of friends \u2013 including Jessie Mei Li, recently the star of Netflix\u2019s Shadow And Bone<\/i>, as Lara, Kassius Nelson as Cami and Rebecca Harrod as Ashley \u2013 only further cements Jocasta\u2019s status as the popular girl in school. But not everyone is as impressed by her as she is by herself. John, played by Michael Ajao who previously worked with Wright and Park on Joe Cornish\u2019s Attack The Block <\/i>at the age of ten, is more interested in Eloise. \u201cI play John,\u201d says Ajao. \u201cHe\u2019s a fashion student and quite a cheeky, gentle but also slightly awkward character. John\u2019s a huge admirer of Eloise: her style, her aura, and her work as well. He\u2019s not the best in articulating sometimes. I think that\u2019s what makes John very genuine, especially when he wants to listen to what Eloise\u2019s got to say and how she feels.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All the young cast visited the London College Of Fashion and talked to students there to get a taste of the competitive, hungry atmosphere that drives the would-be designers of the future. As he was playing one of the more serious-minded students (like Eloise), Ajao also took a few sewing lessons to get a better sense of what\u2019s involved. \u201cIt even helped me connect with my dad, who has a tailor background, which is similar to how John would have been brought up, from a tailor family. It\u2019s so interesting because a lot of the students are quite introverted spirits, but once they start sewing clothes, you see their personalities just splash out.\u201d And clothes, of course, would play a key role.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Thomasin McKenzie stars as Eloise in Edgar Wright\u2019s LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh \/ \u00a9 2021 Focus Features, LLC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

COSTUME AND MAKE UP\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux was familiar with \u201860s fashions, having received a BAFTA nomination for her work on An Education<\/i>. The double time period of Last Night <\/i>in Soho <\/i>presented her with fresh challenges, but that was only an extra attraction to the work. As was the location.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I went for the interview with Edgar,\u201d she says, \u201cwe joked about how great it would be to shoot in Soho because we could walk to work. I\u2019ve lived in the area since the \u201880s, so I know it well, and it\u2019s just great to have worked on a really inspiring original script, something completely new.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Edgar was so enthusiastic, and he had a lot of film references which were exciting to hear about. He made this incredible mood reel. I think that\u2019s a really generous thing for a director to do, because it gives you an idea of the tone and feeling that he wants for his film. You feel like we\u2019ve done something really special.\u201d Major touchstones were Brigitte Bardot, Cilla Black, Julie Christie and Petula Clark as Dicks- Mireaux assembled documentary and film references, watched Wright\u2019s mood reel and went to visit modern fashion students to get a sense of their approach.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One look that was important to get right was the dress made of newspapers that Eloise wears at the beginning of the film. The idea was inspired by something that Krysty Wilson-Cairns\u2019 seamstress great-grandmother used to make. \u201cShe used to cut patterns out of newspaper and pin them to you,\u201d says Wilson-Cairns. \u201cThere\u2019s pictures of my mum with newspaper dresses on, and I\u2019ve always wanted to use it in something.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I thought if we make Eloise a fashion student we could use all these playful things.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Dicks-Mireaux, that opening look was an important one. \u201cThat was quite a big thing to get right. You have a shot of her backlit, so the silhouette was crucial, and she needed something she could move in. That dress tells you she can already pattern-cut well; some of the other fashion students just want to play a part. You can make really good dresses out of paper,\u201d she laughs. She still had to go on set just before shooting and crumple the dress to get it moving just right, however (eagle-eyed fans may spot that Eloise has used her local Cornish daily).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never worked so closely with the wardrobe team before,\u201d says McKenzie. \u201cEloise has a very specific, really cool style. It was amazing having such an input and an opinion, it really helps to bring Eloise alive. The newspaper dress is incredibly detailed and intricate, something only a very skilled person could make.\u201d Eloise\u2019s other clothes, initially, are a more eccentric selection of prints and colour, as if drawn from vintage shops and her own wide-ranging interests. McKenzie describes her opening ensembles as \u201cher country mouse look\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The other vital introductory dress was Sandie\u2019s. When she enters the Caf\u00e9 de Paris she\u2019s in a short but flowing pink dress, what Dicks-Mireaux called a \u201ctent dress\u201d. It\u2019s an authentic \u201860s shape, a relatively modest one, but it comes alive when Sandie moves and has to have an instantly traffic- stopping impact. \u201cThat is the <\/i>dress to me, in the film,\u201d says Dicks-Mireaux. \u201cI had to find something that could inspire [Eloise\u2019s] modern fashion designs. And Edgar\u2019s not afraid of colour.\u201d That\u2019s why they settled on a sequin-trimmed, coral-y pink that set off Sandie\u2019s blonde hair \u2013 though there was one extra ingredient that Dicks-Mireaux does not take credit for. \u201cI have to say thank you to Anya because she really made that dress work,\u201d she marvels.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSandie likes to stand out, for sure,\u201d says Taylor-Joy. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t just throw anything together. It was really important for both Odile and I that when you first met [Sandie], it was classy. We didn\u2019t want to show a lot of skin. I\u2019m wearing quite a tight dress underneath all of the flowing chiffon, but it was demure, because she sees herself as a duchess.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Matt Smith\u2019s Jack, in the same scene, is also dressed to the nines in a sharp suit and carefully coiffed hair, looking to impress. \u201cI like the tailoring,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s that sort of \u2018gangstery\u2019 look, and the colours are quite vivid. If you look at any of those movies and the references Edgar gives you, the women are in very bright clothing, and the men are sometimes as well.\u201d When it came to Sandie\u2019s hair and make-up, Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou, the film\u2019s hair and make-up designer said, \u201cI based her on Brigitte Bardot with that platinum blonde hair.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201860s also bleeds into the modern-day world as Eloise, inspired by Sandie, bleaches her hair and starts working on her own pink dress in class. And since this became another essential element to the story, Karen Cohen, make-up and hair supervisor and another An Education <\/i>graduate, proved to be another crucial member of the crew.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first met the actresses, I thought, \u2018They are so different\u2019,\u201d says Cohen. \u201cI know that Edgar was keen to sort of make them merge into each other, but even the way they hold themselves is so different. Then after their dance and movement classes, I invited them into our make-up room for different try outs, and I could see Thomasin blossoming and sort of standing up to the character that Sandie would be. Once she saw that Anya could wear it, she rose to the challenge too.\u201d McKenzie describes the resulting mid-film look as \u201colder and more mature, and gaining some attention from guys\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe girls had to look alike, and they actually don\u2019t,\u201d agrees Georgiou, \u201cBut I love that kind of challenge. It wasn\u2019t just about getting make-up on them and plunking make-up on. It was about helping them pick the character and let it happen, with the dance and movement coach and costumes and everyone working together.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cohen and her team played to the same hymn sheet and worked to tie even lip colours into the palette that production designer Marcus Rowland had created. \u201cEdgar talked about the colours being quite strong and our references were all when Technicolor first came in. We\u2019ve ended up with really beautiful but quite stark and sexy looks. We make the \u201860s look really attractive to start with, and we make our young character so springy and fresh.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But both make-up and costumes begin to change as Sandie\u2019s story develops. The colour fades from Sandie\u2019s face, her outfits get steadily darker and her sense of reserved elegance is eroded. \u201cWe upped the hemline a bit more,\u201d says Dicks-Mireaux. \u201cIt\u2019s much more naked; now she\u2019s dressing to seduce men in a more obvious way.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Eloise reflects the same evolution, also moving into darker colours and heavier make-up. The colours subtly shape and reflect the story\u2019s themes, taking us from neon brights to something much, much darker. In that respect, they tied in perfectly with Marcus Rowland\u2019s production design and the film\u2019s extensive Soho location shoot.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Anya Taylor-Joy stars as Sandie in Edgar Wright\u2019s LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh \/ \u00a9 2021 Focus Features, LLC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ON THE STREETS OF SOHO\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

There was no hesitation in Edgar Wright\u2019s mind: this film was going to shoot in Soho, because only Soho could play itself.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cI felt like central London, and Soho, had been missing from the big screen,\u201d says Wright. \u201cYou get the occasional big-budget film that shoots in Trafalgar Square, but the films I grew up with from the 1960s and \u201870s like S\u00e9ance on a Wet Afternoon or Deep End<\/i>, both great examples of using central London locations on film, have largely gone away. So the idea and the challenge of shooting a film there really spoke to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the sort of directorial decision to strike fear into the hearts of many producers \u2013 but this group immediately moved heaven and Earth to make it happen. \u201cThe first thing was to find a location manager,\u201d says executive producer James Biddle, \u201cLuckily Camilla Stephenson, who did The World\u2019s End<\/i>, became available and she gave us a heads up that this is only going to be achievable if we have lots <\/i>of time to plan it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Stephenson began scouting just after Christmas 2018 with a view to shooting the following May, a far longer scouting period than usual. Several locations were specified in the script; others were implicit because, unlike most films, this one takes geography seriously and generally uses real routes from A to B. She liaised with Westminster Council, spoke to shop owners and tenants, and did early morning \u2013 5:30am \u2013 scouts of Soho with Wright and his team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of it is the same as it was in the \u201960s,\u201d says Stephenson. \u201cThe streets are in the same places, of course. Different bars, different clubs, but some things about Soho haven\u2019t changed at all. It feels like an independent village sat right in the middle of our capital city.\u201d But every street scene had to be dressed as it would have been in the 1960s, with the extensive research once again proving its worth. Much of their set dressing had to be put in place and stripped out in a matter of hours, to allow normal Soho life to resume each morning after the night shoot. Not to mention the challenge of parking huge production trucks out of shot. \u201cWhen we were building and blocking off Bateman Street,\u201d remembers production designer Marcus Rowland, \u201cpeople would come up and talk about what shops were there before, and we tried to add elements of shops that were there in the \u201860s. We wanted the \u201860s, which is more of a fantasy world at the beginning, to feel much more aspirational and desirable and to stand out against the more mundane world of Eloise\u2019s college life.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To achieve that wow effect, the production focused on a few huge scenes to establish the glamour and excitement of Eloise\u2019s 1960s experience. For logistical reasons they couldn\u2019t shoot the entrance of the real Caf\u00e9 De Paris, so they recreated it at a cinema on Haymarket, occupying a major London street for the scene. A huge poster for the James Bond film Thunderball <\/i>was erected over the cinema in advance (several punters tried to buy tickets for it) and during the short summer night, the production pulled off Eloise\u2019s spectacular first contact with the \u201860s. \u201cThere were old cars and buses driving through,\u201d remembers McKenzie. \u201cIt was amazing, looking up at the massive vintage poster.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That was a really crazy thing to shoot and quite terrifying, because I could see all the cars in my peripheral vision coming towards me and had to trust that they\u2019re not\u00a0 <\/span>going to run me over. It\u2019s been amazing seeing London transformed. The general public must have gone, \u2018What the hell is going on? Have I just walked through like a time portal or something?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For Rowland, it was not just a matter of worrying about oncoming traffic but the oncoming dawn as well. \u201cWe wanted the scale of the Haymarket, but it comes with quite big logistical problems,\u201d he says. \u201cThe set elements all had to go in during one afternoon. So it doesn\u2019t leave you a lot of time for any discrepancies. We took as much of the flavour of the real place as we possibly could and recreated it on the Haymarket. We tried to get as much signage in and neon and bright lights as possible.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a white-knuckle ride,\u201d remembers Wright. \u201cThat was one of those shots where you’re saying, is this really going to happen? It’s a testament to our location manager, Camilla, and Richard Graysmark, the First Assistant Director, that we could even get through that. We were shooting in the centre of London in the summer with tons of period extras and also we have an actress in a Steadicam shot walking across the street with period cars, but you had to leave one lane open for modern buses and ambulances. We thought we\u2019d get two takes an hour, and I think we did more than that. We had to nail that in eight takes or something.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When roads couldn\u2019t be closed, as during a spectacular shot where Jack and Sandie speed through Soho on a date, Wright took an innovative approach to dealing with passers-by, many of them stumbling merrily out of bars. \u201cHow do you stop normal people walking through the shot? You have your own extras, and you just fill up the pavement. It\u2019s a war of attrition; you have to keep staking out your territory.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That was, however, Matt Smith\u2019s favourite moment. \u201cI\u2019ve got this amazing Triumph that I drive around in. I had mates coming up to me saying, \u201cMatt, are you in a movie in the middle of Soho?\u201d It\u2019s cool!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The other major locations were the Ramsay Hall student residence, chosen because Wright thought its concrete exterior would make a brutalist contrast to Eloise\u2019s native Cornwall, and the London College of Fashion just north of Soho near Oxford Circus. Housed in a landmark concrete block, the school allowed the production to shoot inside during the summer break.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt took quite a while for the location team to persuade them that we were not going to trash the place,\u201d says Rowland. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t by any means the easiest location, it was very difficult to light, but I think those restrictions benefited the scene. [Cinematographer Chung-hoon] Chung has a very instinctive and imaginative way of lighting and it brings life and drama to even the most mundane scene.\u201d The production even managed to film in the SOAS College\u2019s striking library, despite the fact that it\u2019s open 365 days a year. For one scene, where Eloise rushes out of the college and onto Oxford Street in a hurry, they simply left the streets open, full of crowds of shoppers, and Wright hid behind a lamp post to watch the moment unfold. Sometimes the simplest option is best.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Last Night in Soho\u00a0Actor Anya Taylor-Joy, director Edgar Wright and actor Matt Smith on the set of their film LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Greg Williams \/ \u00a9 2021 Greg Williams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BACK IN THE STUDIO\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

For several principal locations, however, Wright and his team decided to create the sets they needed. That allowed them to specifically design for cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung and his team and create a little more space in which to manoeuvre \u2013 in turn, this also gave them more freedom to work. More importantly, it allowed them to build a certain amount of trickery into the sets so that Chung, Rowland and visual effects supervisor Tom Proctor could create the effect of Eloise and Sandie occupying one space over different timelines in an immediately comprehensible way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked into shooting in the Caf\u00e9 de Paris,\u201d says Wright. \u201cBut it was prohibitive in many ways to shoot there and take the sets down so they could open the club at night. I\u2019m so glad we didn\u2019t shoot there, because the set that Marcus [Rowland] built is just extraordinary.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are things that we wanted to do that could only be done on set, like some of the mirror shots. We created a double lobby, one with Thomasin in it and another with Anya in it. There are a lot of amazing in-camera mirror effects.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Free to make things a little bigger (as Diana Rigg had noticed) and a little shinier, the effect was overwhelming to virtually everyone. \u201cWhen I first walked onto the Caf\u00e9 de Paris set, I couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d says Taylor-Joy. \u201cI\u2019d never been on a set like that before.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Caf\u00e9 de Paris scene establishes the entire premise of the film, demonstrating the bond between Eloise and Sandie through one dizzying nightclub experience. It had to be perfect \u2013 so the team went above and beyond to ensure that it would be. Through largely practical effects on a dazzling, mirror-lined set, Sandie and Eloise spin around one another and switch places, each dancing with Smith\u2019s Jack as past and present seem to collide.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can pack so much about a character, without having to say a word, through movement,\u201d says Taylor-Joy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSandie is a dream to Eloise, so sophisticated, and you really experience all of that in the first sequence that you meet her through a very special dance that Matt and I get to do. It was so much fun.\u201d It\u2019s a dance for Sandie and Jack, but also with Eloise as she dreams herself into Sandie\u2019s place and therefore into the middle of the dance floor. Their movements were carefully choreographed by Jennifer White, who worked with both actresses to help them match their tiniest action and step seamlessly in and out of the frame as mirror images of one another.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe set, that\u2019s Marcus,\u201d says Wright. \u201cThen Tom is doing some VFX work in there. What\u2019s also happening is choreography which Jen is counting the actors through. Then what Chung is doing with his lighting and framing as well as what his amazing camera operator, Chris Bain, is able to control is astounding. We would call Chris the human motion control. And that\u2019s a great summary of how this shoot operated; everybody working together in unison at every moment.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The effect took weeks of rehearsal and preparation. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit nerve-wracking when you know that you\u2019re going to have to mirror somebody,\u201d says Taylor-Joy. \u201cIt\u2019s only happened to me once before where somebody\u2019s so immediately in sync. We really have watched each other a lot and it came very naturally to do certain moves.\u201d Smith faced the tricky challenge of pretending to be acting against one actor while filming it with two.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting because they have to play the same scene against you and their energy is completely different as people and as actors,\u201d says Smith. \u201cThe scene suddenly becomes a different scene when Thomasin\u2019s in it, and instinctually you do it a bit differently. But it\u2019s going to be a really interesting element of this film, one that I haven\u2019t seen before.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The result is a remarkably visual way to communicate the bond between the two women, and some of the rules of this film. They\u2019re not both there in the flesh; Thomasin hasn\u2019t walked through some magic portal or travelled by a DeLorean. She\u2019s experiencing what Sandie is, essentially living her life. But of course, creating that effect took months of work. Visual effects did augment backgrounds and blend shots where necessary, but the purpose-built sets help to make the results look seamless.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very, very complicated,\u201d says McKenzie. \u201cI have no idea how Edgar and Paul [Machliss, editor] and Chung [-hoon Chung] have figured it out. There\u2019s so many layers, and you have to really be on the ball with all the different angles and eyelines.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve all jumped into this dreamscape world gung-ho,\u201d says Taylor-Joy. \u201cFilming those sequences is so exhilarating, because you\u2019re all dancing around each other, and Chris [Bain], our Steadicam operator, he\u2019s amazing because he\u2019s doing all of it with this massive camera on his back, and trying to not hit any of us with it. It\u2019s definitely something that we\u2019re all really proud of.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The film was, luckily, deep into post-production when Covid hit. And, even more luckily, production was able to schedule a few days of pick-up shots when the pandemic lockdowns lifted last summer. That extra time was a frustration but did offer compensations; little tweaks and ideas came up, and there was extra time to lavish on the visual effects. \u201cWe had an extended post,\u201d says Nira Park, \u201cand we were really lucky that we were able to keep the cutting room going. Because of the shorthand that Edgar has with [editor] Paul Machliss, in a way working remotely didn\u2019t affect them. We essentially got additional post-time, and particularly in terms of the visual effects that made a huge difference, because they were able to explore creatively ideas that they might not have been able to in the time we originally had.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n