Edgar Wright has made a career of mashing up genres and bringing an absurd level of energy and charm to his films like “Shaun of the Dead,” “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World,” and “Baby Driver.” In this episode of The Discourse, Edgar Wright and writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns join host Mike DeAngelo to talk about doing a straight-up, wicked thriller in “Last Night in Soho,” which is in theaters now.
During the conversation, Edgar discusses having the idea for Last Night in Soho for quite a long time.
“I had the idea for it for a decade or so. I’d been thinking about it for a long time,” Wright shared. “I guess from a genre level it was not so much any one specific film, it was more of the sense or the feeling that some films gave me…the dark deliciousness of Alfred Hitchcock.”
Also, unsurprisingly for Wright’s fans, “Last Night in Soho” has a musical element to it that was inspired by Wright’s parent’s record collection.
“I really had sort of become obsessed with the sixties through my parent’s record collection first,” Wright noted. “I remember being left in the house with the records and the record player to just kind of play them on my own and listen to the White Album a million times as a seven-year-old.”
Wright even delved into his fondness for the sixties and the dangers of nostalgia in modern times.
“In later years, becoming sort of obsessed with the sixties through music first and then film, then art and fashion,” the filmmaker said. “And then, in more recent years, having this recurring time travel fantasy of going back to the ’60s sort of as a cultural tourist…but then the more I thought about it, it was like why am I constantly daydreaming about going back in time? And you start to feel that you have a problem and then nostalgia itself is kind of a complaint in a way or a failure to deal with the modern-day.”
As always in our discussions, we try to touch on what’s next for Wright and Wilson-Cairns, as they both have anticipated films possibly coming up soon, with Wright’s “Baby Driver 2” and Wilson-Cairns’ untitled Taika Waititi ‘Star Wars‘ film, but, sadly, Wilson-Cairns is sworn to secrecy and Wright has a new policy when it comes to future projects due to a little film he almost made with Marvel Studios called “Ant-Man.”
“I’ve developed this new policy because I didn’t make a movie once [‘Ant-Man’] and I have no regrets about not making the movie. The only regrets I have is about doing print interviews before I made the movie, so I didn’t make the movie, but there are still interviews about me making the movie and talking about before and those are more embarrassing to me than anything else. So, I’ve made it my policy now to never talk about a movie until it’s in the can,” Wright said.
“Last Night in Soho” is in theaters everywhere now. You call hear our full discussion below:
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