Edgar Wright on Making ‘Last Night in Soho’ During Lockdown – The Hollywood Reporter

One of the most anticipated films to see its release schedule repeatedly torn to shreds due to the pandemic, Focus Features’ psychological horror Last night in Soho finally bowed out in Venice, almost a year after its initial release. It’s the end of a moving journey for director Edgar Wright, who first began to imagine the idea – a time-consuming tale of a young fashion student (played by Thomasin McKenzie) who is transported in the 1960s and in the body of a singer. (Anya Taylor-Joy) – over ten years ago in homage to the legendary Central London district. A messy street grid still inundated with bars, sex shops and much of the UK film industry, Soho is currently in a desperate battle to save its creative soul as it battles gentrification, incessant demolitions and development. It is also a place where Wright has spent more than a quarter of a century working on his films.

Adding more spice, Last night in Soho was one of the very first productions to restart in the UK when the lockdown was lifted in August 2020 (something, according to Wright, added a “great weight of responsibility” to its shoulders), while also marking the last appearances in the cinema of British icons. Diana Rigg and Margaret Nolan, both of whom died last year.

Talk to Hollywood journalist ahead of the film’s world premiere in Venice, the British filmmaker – behind some of the most visually stunning films in recent memory, from Shaun of the Dead To Scott Pilgrim vs the world, Baby Driver and this summer’s acclaimed rock-doc The Sparks Brothers – discusses filming a movie in one of London’s busiest areas (mostly dead of night, while the city slept), scouting Taylor-Joy while on the Sundance jury and why he felt it was important to turn down offers from major studios to to make his original film.

How does it feel to finally be able to share Last night in Soho with the world?

It’s actually very emotional to finally show people this thing that we’ve been living with for a long time. Elements of the production are now just entwined with the film in my head in an emotional way. Diana Rigg and Margaret Nolan have passed away since we shot the movie. And even on a different level, with Soho himself somehow changing, it makes the movie perhaps even more poignant than it already was. So with all of that in mind, I’m just excited people are seeing it because it’s something that’s been a pretty emotional journey in so many ways.

Were you able to take advantage of the confinement to spend more time on the film?

I’d be safe to say the pandemic brought something good, but one thing that happened was we took a break from editing the film. It’s rare to have a little distance and come back with solutions. So there was this weird thing that I hadn’t seen [editor] Paul [Machliss] in the edit for six months, and I would come back and be like, “Hey, I was watching this Robert Bresson movie, and he edited this track like that.” So you found solutions to things you didn’t have before. And the extra shoot that we did last August was still quite emotional because we were one of the very first movies to come back. I think it was just us and Jurassic World: Dominion, and we were both filming in Pinewood. Everyone on the team had obviously not worked in six months, so it was a really powerful feeling, and I can’t really describe it. Also, there was this great weight of responsibility because you felt that everyone was looking to your production to see if it was going to work. I think my main dread was for Focus to go the other way and say, “We don’t know when we’ll be back, so let’s just summarize what you already have. And to their credit, they didn’t.

And they didn’t unload the movie to a streamer, either.

I think everyone who had worked on a movie wanted it to be seen on the big screen, and when we pushed it back from April to October, that was exactly why. Plus, it’s actually more of a movie made to be seen when the nights get longer – it feels like a fall / fall movie. It’s funny because when the second flare was announced I got all these messages from people saying, “Oh you must be gutted” and I was like, “Hollowed out? It was I who suggested it!

Where did the idea for Last night in Soho comes from? When it was announced you said you had never made a central London film before.

Yes, I think in the 25-26 years that I’ve been in London I’ve probably spent more time in Soho than on any couch. In the cinema, you work here, you write here; all of my films, even the ones I made in North America, were edited in Soho, and they were mixed and rated in Soho. So you also know that central London is not used that much as a filming location. Sometimes big budget movies shoot in Trafalgar Square, but Soho doesn’t often get featured, mainly because it’s a pretty tough place to work. There are always a lot of people. It’s only between 3am and 7:30 am when it’s really quiet, and I know that precisely now because I did. So I wrote the film with that in mind. Not only is this something that is very close to home, but it’s also quite ambitious to do in terms of making a film that is so on the spot. We walked into the movie knowing how difficult it was going to be.

So you managed to film everything in Soho itself?

Yes, all the localization work is in central London. Little bits of Fitzrovia and Bloomsbury, but all the Soho stuff that we shot in Soho. And in two different time periods, so we’re shooting contemporary Soho and 60s Soho. I’m saying this, and I’m not arrogant, but in terms of what my production team, production designer Marcus Rowland, the crew filmmaker and the AD crew managed to achieve to shoot in real central London, transformed in the 60s in some key shots, it’s really extraordinary. I’m just saying that – and I don’t want to sound my own trumpet – because there were several days when I was shooting these scenes when I came to work and I saw how many people were in the streets and I was like, I was just wonder if we can be successful today, maybe we would have finally been beaten on this movie. It’s happened a few times, but we always got it, and it was pretty amazing when it happened.

Did you manage to film any during the lockdown while the streets were empty?

There is indeed one thing about the film’s end credits, and it’s not a spoiler. I live near Soho myself – about five minutes or so – and I was there during the lockdown when it was completely deserted, and it was a really scary experience because everyone had moved, there had no one there. So I said to [produc- ers] Eric Fellner and Nira Park, we have to film this. So in July, before it all reopened, we went out one night with a very small film crew and shot a lot of empty London because I was thinking, I don’t know if it will be a day like that again. It was an extremely surreal experience to be standing in Piccadilly Circus with no cars in the road. So in the end credits you’ll see a few shots that were filmed in the true lockdown of Soho.

I remember talking to your co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns, who said she showed you around some of Soho’s darker haunts.

In fact, I had the idea for the film a long time ago – I realized that I had made a playlist for the film in 2007. It is something that I have talked about a lot with friends. But I didn’t start writing until later. When i was editing Baby Driver, Sam Mendes introduced me to Krysty, and she told me that she had worked as a bartender at [renowned Soho drinking hole] The Toucan. So I told him about this idea. And then we had a separate night, and as Krysty recounts, even though I don’t remember, it was Brexit night, and we toured Soho and went to different places that she knew after hours. Then that was about a year later, after Baby Driver, and I was about to start writing, and it pestered me all the time that it was better to write it with someone, and I knew that that person had to be Krysty. I called her from Los Angeles, and she said she would love to but start this thing with Sam in six weeks, so can we do it soon? So we started right away, before she left to write 1917. It was very fortuitous.

Your two lead roles, Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin Mackenzie, are not only great, but, like Wilson-Cairns, have seen their careers soar since they were cast. Where did you see them for the first time?

I was part of the Sundance jury in 2015 and saw The witch, and like everyone else, it was my first time seeing Anya. And I met her in LA soon after, and I wasn’t planning on doing it, but ended up telling her the whole story. I actually had it in mind for Eloise, the role Thomasin plays, but over the years of talking with her her star was starting to rise, and you saw what she was capable of, and we were also expanding the role. by Sandy. Luckily when she read the script she said she loved it and wanted to play Sandy. With Thomasin, I had seen her in Leaves no trace, which was amazing. It’s such a naturalistic performance. So I met her and just felt that obviously was the person to do it. Also, and this is something that works very well for the film, she is exactly the age of the character.

After the enormous success of Baby Driver, Are Offers Arriving For Big Blockbusters And Franchise Movies? Have you been tempted?

Yes there was. There were things like that. I’m not going to say it’s always going to be that way, but when you get the opportunity to do an original film with a studio, with Universal in this case, it’s like, take it. Because it is the films that are threatened. Franchise movies aren’t going anywhere, and I wouldn’t be so stupid to say that I would never do a franchise, but right now it’s like, do I want to go do any of these things or is- what i want to do this original script i have? So for me, it was something I had to do, and it was important to do it. I won’t say what they were, but there were films I had to turn down because I was doing that. I just think it’s important to try and make original movies while you have the chance.

How is baby driver 2 I am coming?

I have a lot of movies in development, including this one, and one of the things the pandemic has done was throw all the chess pieces off the board. So I really didn’t understand what I would do next because it’s more about the order in which to do things and where the world is going to be. For example, I wouldn’t want to do something like this in a way where the pandemic compromises production.

This story first appeared in the daily September 1 issue of The Hollywood Reporter at the Venice International Film Festival.