How the ‘Perfect Couple’ Director Talked Her Mutinous Cast Into That Choreographed Dance
As unexpected choices go, few in recent TV memory approach the opening title sequence to The Perfect Couple.
Netflix’s six-part adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s Nantucket-set novel kicks off with a suspicious death on the eve of a wedding — casting doubt on every have and have-not in the deceased’s orbit. But before they get to the bottom of their murder mystery, they gotta dance! The entire ensemble, including star Nicole Kidman and the victim, spend the 45-second opener of every episode partaking in some rough and ready choreography to Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals.”
If you’ve yet to see it — and this is no spoiler — imagine one of those numbers from an Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon surf movie from the 1960s, only everybody looks like they belong to a country club with deeply problematic membership requirements. (Or just watch the embed below.) The choice is very intentional. Susanne Bier, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning director behind The Night Manager and The Undoing helmed each episode. And she wanted to let viewers know that the show was going to be a bit more of a comic take on the genre, not just a bummer whodunnit like so many other anthologies.
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“I told Netflix and the producers that I wanted to do something fun with the show,” she says, Zooming in from her Los Angeles hotel room the day after the premiere party. “The script could have gone in either direction — towards the mournfulness of somebody dying or towards something lighter, something that I think elevates it. It does not mean to say that I don’t have huge respect for things that have other ambitions, but this was very consciously made for people to watch.”
Currently sitting in the No. 1 slot on the streamer’s U.S. charts, it seems people are watching. And for them and anyone else, Bier breaks down how the opening titles came together, who was immediately on board, who conspired to stop them and why she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
This may be the only murder mystery with a choreographed dance routine for the opening titles sequence. Where’d the idea for that come from?
In the script, at some point, there was a dream sequence where a dance turned into a nightmare. I didn’t want to do that. But there was something about the dancing thing. So when I took it out of the episode, it stayed with me. And I felt that the title sequence needed to be something which was suggestive that the audience is allowed to have fun with this show. There’s something joyous in a lot of people dancing together. And with all these characters, who are not necessarily sympathetic, having that moment, just seemed right to me. Sue Jacobs, our music supervisor, sent me some tunes, and I really liked Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals.”
Isn’t she from Nantucket?
Yes! So I decided to go for that song, and then the choreographer, Charm La’Donna, made this dance. We went back and forth a little bit within. When we sent it to the cast, everybody other than Liev Schreiber went, “No, I’m not doing that. No, no, no.” Then, we came back to shoot after the strikes, and we had a very short time to everything. We had to compress six weeks into three weeks.
How did you get them to come around?
We were doing the rehearsal dinner [from episode one], and everybody was still saying “no.” The producers, everybody, kept asking, “Are you sure you want to spend time doing something the cast doesn’t even want to do?” Nicole said she couldn’t dance in her dress. It was too tight. They even made a WhatsApp group to not do the dance. But when it came to it, I was just like, “Let’s just try it.” And then they all got totally into it! We shot it all in an hour and a half. I don’t know whether you noticed at the end of episode six…
Oh, I noticed.
I show up in the dance! I wanted the cast to have revenge. And then I understood. It was a difficult dance.
And Liev was the only one on board?
Yeah. He’s a great dancer. That was interesting because he didn’t want to play Tag. He really had to be convinced. We probably had 20 phone calls before he said yes. Once he was in, he was full on. He was even excited to dance.
We won’t give anything away in this conversation, but I didn’t see the reveal at the end coming. As a director who’s made a few mysteries like this, what do you do to throw people off the trail without being dishonest?
It’s a really tricky edit. You want to hold hands with the audience, and you can’t lie. That’s so upsetting, whenever I watch something, when they don’t stick to the truth. But you can avoid telling the audience stuff. And it’s not just bits of information. It’s showing the way somebody is holding another character’s hand. So many little gestures are just loaded with information. Sam Williams, the editor, and I had a lot of fun fine-tuning every single moment — switching things around, structurally changing things, putting scenes in other episodes and all those kinds of things. I think it’s a good second-time watch for that reason.
There are lot of flashbacks and jumps to interrogations throughout the series, especially that first episode. What are the perks and pitfalls of that kind of storytelling?
Well, the pitfall is the frustration of being pulled out of the storyline and put into another world — into other characters or time. I’ve watched shows that cut back and forth and been very frustrated. The perk is that you can add to the present by very sparse means. Cutting back in time can add to the present timeline in a more light-hearted way, which was the notion with this show. But it’s a very delicate balance.
What is a trope from murder mysteries that you can’t stand?
Police clichés! Police explaining the potential plot is in a very elegant way. When police dialogue becomes too much about exposition, as murder mysteries tend to be guilty of, that is a trap. These are supposed to be human beings talking, but you lose that when they’re just telling the audience something. It’s one of the more dangerous tropes.
I’ve spent a lot of time on Cape Cod, where you did most of the filming, and I can’t imagine the locals were thrilled. How was the location aspect of the shoot?
Well, they had mixed feelings about it. (Laughs.) I don’t think they were mixed on the trucks and the noise of 400 people. Even abiding the strict rules to ensure we were considerate of the neighborhood, those neighborhoods are not built for people arriving on set at 5 a.m. with cranes and trucks and lights. It was not an organic holding hands, “please come back” situation. Some of them were curious and interested and friendly, but there were also a number of people that definitely did not enjoy us being there.
You recently said that you’re only really good at doing something if you’re not quite sure how to do it. How did that translate here?
With this, the mountain to climb was getting the tone right. Balancing the murder mystery and who these characters were was not too obvious. The right tone is at a very precarious place that could have so easily gone wrong. There are lots of things that I hadn’t done. There are lots of things that scare me. I love to do more comedy. It takes immaculate precision.
Before I let you go, and I realize you’re not directing the follow-up to The Night Manager, but you’re still an executive producer. What’s happening there? It’s a departure from the John le Carré material, yes?
Yes, he only did that one book. So it’s sort of built upon that material. I read an early version of the scripts, and they were great. I think it’s going to be really good. The director is great. The cast is interesting.
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