Cast members from Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho have spoken about the impact the film’s swinging sixties and central London setting had on them.
Synnøve Karlsen, the actress behind antagonist Jocasta, who the introverted central character Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) initially rooms with at university, said that Soho gets her ‘adrenaline pumping’ as an actor.
The Medici star, 25, explained to Metro.co.uk at the film’s London Film Festival premiere: ‘Soho’s quite important as an actor because it’s where you go and have your meetings for things, and then you have your recalls and your auditions. So there’s something that’s always been quite heightened about Soho for me – you leave a meeting and you’ve got this adrenaline pumping through you and you’re sort of like, “Where do I go? What do I do with this?”. And it always happens to be in Soho! So I’ve always found it an exciting place to be and it’s so lively, and you feel you’re in the city.’
The actress also weighed in on the female focus of the film, which features Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin McKenzie sharing a body across time as Eloise is transported back decades and into Sandie’s (Taylor-Joy) body.
Saying that it was ‘clear from the beginning’ that director Edgar found her character ‘important’ as a catalyst for a lot of the film’s action, she continued: ‘I met with Anya and Thomasin very early on to create that sort of dynamic. The dynamic between Thomasin and I, who plays Eloise, was particularly important.’
Synnøve also shared her personal connection to the film’s signature tune Downtown, initially a hit for Petula Clark following its November 1964 release, and eerily used to great effect in the film’s trailer.
‘I love Downtown. It’s a song I used to sing to my granddad when he was really ill, so it means a lot to me. And I just think that the soundtrack to the 60s is pretty epic anyway, so to have it put in a film by Edgar Wright is really cool.’
Michael Ajoa, best known to audiences as Mayhem in 2011 cult hit Attack the Block, also enjoyed the film’s history lesson.
‘It was like an educational experience because it’s a different time for me,’ he said. ‘I’m from the twenty-first century and this is the sixties, blended together.’
A big fan of the suits of the era that were featured in Last Night in Soho, which Michael branded as ‘quality’, the actor also shared his awe at the production’s design, which created a ‘a real pinch me moment’ for him.
‘I feel like there was a penny drop for me. I have a running scene and I came out and was able to watch a bit of Anya and Thomasin and Matt [Smith] do their thing – and how they just changed the cinema to this old Bond movie, and the cars and the suits, I was like: “Woah, this is the real deal!”‘
Last Night in Soho hits cinemas on October 29.
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