Vicky Krieps Sings ‘Went Up the Hill’ Closing Song Live at TIFF Premiere
TIFF audiences got a surprise musical performance at the world premiere of When Up the Hill on Thursday night when the film’s star, Vicky Krieps, performed the closing theme live.
Krieps wrote the song, Jill, inspired by her character in the psychological ghost story from New Zealand director Samuel Van Grinsven. Krieps plays a grieving widow whose partner has recently died. At the funeral, she is confronted by her partner’s estranged son, Jack (Stranger Things star Dacre Montgomery). The spirit of Jack’s mother returns to possess both of them in turn, using their bodies to speak to the other and draw the pair closer together, with dangerous results.
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“I always write a song for every character I play,” Krieps tells The Hollywood Reporter, “but this is the first time I was asked to actually put it in the movie.”
Previously, she says, her songs were entirely personal. She’d write them during the making of a movie and perform them privately for herself, as a means for her to “exorcise” the emotions built up in the roles she created. Krieps said she began using the technique on Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread when she had small children at home “and I needed to quickly cleanse myself of the role so I could function normally again.”
Together with New Zealand singer-songwriter Mark Perkins, Krieps has compiled an album of all her songs, each named after one of her film characters. Perkins, who performs under the name Merk, accompanied Krieps on the guitar Thursday night at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre for her debut performance.
“We’ve recorded the album, and I’ll put it out in some form, maybe with a label,” says Krieps, “but I still haven’t decided exactly what I want to do with it.”
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