Last Night in Soho screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns has revealed that she and director Edgar Wright were set up on a ‘friend date’ by Sam Mendes – which ultimately led them to work on the highly-anticipated film together.
Stating that there was no initial plan to work together, Krysty shared their set-up, facilitated by Sam, who she worked with on 1917.
Speaking to Metro.co.uk at the film’s London Film Festival premiere, Krysty said: ‘When I was introduced to Edgar, Sam Mendes just thought we’d be friends. It was nothing to do with this film. It was just a sort of “You two will get on”, and he was right. As Sam Mendes often is, he was very right!’
Krysty was then able to enjoy a Soho surprise coincidence with Edgar, leading to a night out ‘in dingy bars’ and, later, a film together.
‘On our first night we were drinking just opposite the strip club I used to live above – we were at Dean Street Townhouse. And I just happened to mention, “I used to live above there and I worked around the corner” and he was like, “Well hold on, I have this Soho story that I would love to tell you about what it is and we go on a night out.” And I was like, “Yeah, of course.”
‘So we ended up at a few dingy bars and he told me the story in a basement corner and I loved it. And then about nine months later he phoned me and asked me to write it.’
The 34-year-old Penny Dreadful writer also used a lot of her mother and grandmother’s experiences of the 1960s to bring the screenplay to life.
‘The newspaper dresses – my gran and my great-gran were seamstresses and used to do that, so it was a little knowledge here and there. And I suppose it’s quite hard to work out how much you put in there because you put so much of yourself in the script. And Edgar and I sat in the room together every day and worked on it and worked on those characters, so it’s hard to tell where his idea ends and my idea begins.’
Agreeing that it was a prefect collaboration, she added: ‘I’d do it again!’
Edgar, if you’re reading…
The director himself was also delighted to make his debut at the London Film Festival and help facilitate getting audiences back into the cinema post-pandemic.
‘I’ve never had a film at the London Film Festival before,’ he said.
‘This is my first, so that’s very exciting in itself, and it’s really just nice to be back with the audiences – it’s such a big part of [it]. The feel of the cinema, to me, is watching a film in the dark with strangers. So I just want to give people the opportunity to do that.’
Last Night in Soho hits cinemas on October 29.
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