Edgar Wright, the filmmaker behind hits like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs the World and The World’s End, has amassed fans worldwide for his idiosyncratic approach to moviemaking, breathing life into seemingly immutable Hollywood genres. His new film, Baby Driver (releasing on June 30), is no exception. Here, rising star Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars), stars as the eponymous ‘Baby’, a getaway driver who — unknown to his new girlfriend, Debora (Downton Abbey’s Lily James) — is conscripted by Kevin Spacey’s ‘Doc’ into an all-star crew of bank robbers, including Jamie Foxx (Bats), Michael Peter Balzary (aka Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers), Jon Bernthal (Griff) and the gun-toting husband and wife team of Buddy and Darling (Jon Hamm and Mexican bombshell, Eiza Gonzalez).
Still, Baby Driver is no straightforward affair. The highly stylised movie delivers not only the heist-genre staples of high-octane car chases and killer gunplay, but with an aesthetic all its own. Much of the action is also synchronised to a musical beat from a pre-selected
30-song playlist, handpicked by Wright himself. “It’s not really a musical,” says Wright. “I like to call it a car chase movie driven by music. That’s probably the best way to describe it.”
How did Baby Driver come about?
There was a song, which is actually the first song in the movie, called Bellbottoms by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. When I was 21, I would listen to that song a lot. I just kept thinking this would be a great car chase song. In 2002, before I started writing, I did this music video (Blue Song for Mint Royale) about a getaway driver who’s listening to music. And that, over the years, developed into the idea of doing an action movie and a car chase movie driven by music.
Ansel’s character, Baby, is somebody who has to listen to music. He has tinnitus from a car crash, and so he has to listen to music to drown out the whine. The idea of having this young getaway driver who has to basically play the soundtrack became the central device of the movie. I’ve always loved doing music and action together. And I like lots of movies that use soundtracks really well… like directors like (Martin) Scorsese and (Quentin) Tarantino.
When did you first begin writing the script?
I didn’t start writing until 2010. By this point I had the basic premise, the main character, some of the set pieces and the songs that would go with it.... As I started to properly write it, the idea grew more complex, the world more expansive. In doing research with people who are ex-convicts, ex-bank robbers and ex-getaway drivers, I would have new ideas for scenes, validate some of my own ideas, or give a bit of texture to something I already had. It probably took me about nine months to get through the entire script, and it was the first thing I’d written on my own since my first movie.
What do you like about car chases?
It’s funny, I wouldn’t call myself a gearhead. I’ve never had fancy or classic cars. And yet I am obsessed with driving and music. I’ve done road trips in the States, just driving across listening to music. That’s my idea of the perfect holiday. That’s kind of what the character does in the movie… it’s not about using fancy classic cars or muscle cars. In reality, a lot of bank robbers use cars that can blend in and then be ditched and switched. In the opening chase, for example, it’s a Subaru and the whole premise of using a Subaru is so they can blend into traffic… I actually interviewed several ex-getaway drivers for the movie, which was fascinating.
Did Ansel meet them too?
He did, actually. One of them is actually in the movie. A guy called Joe Loya — he plays a security guard in the movie; somebody that eventually gets robbed, which I thought would be funny. He was sort of our technical consultant. He was in prison in the late ’80s into the ’90s, after committing something like 30 bank robberies. He was just an absolute font of amazing knowledge and detail.
Such as?
The basic premise, which you don’t always see in movies, but the idea of have a car that blends into the flow of traffic. Don’t drive fast. If you’re not being chased, just blend into the normal flow. Take the next turnoff, go into an underground car park. Switch cars. Drive off and nobody will know what happened. Or little things like stealing cars from long stay parking lots at airports, because it won’t be reported so quickly. Go in with a different ticket, break into a car, steal it… This is lots of information you don’t want to know! (Laughs) But I just find that stuff fascinating.
How did you go about actually creating the car chase sequences?
That was an extremely painstaking process. The first step is writing each one, and I wrote them in time with the music. Then I drew storyboards, and then we made animatics out of the storyboards, where you cut the storyboards to the music. The next step, which is the trickiest part, is not only do the stunt guys have to look at how they can practically do everything — what rigs you need and how exactly you’re going to do these bits — but also getting the locations. Each part of any given sequence, you might be able to close off four blocks at most. So you’re then like this travelling circus, shooting it bit by bit. It’s incredibly painstaking.
There are three big car scenes in the movie. They’re all specific and meticulous and you just can’t really do enough prep. Stunts obviously are a huge part of it and the camerawork too. But a movie like this is really hard on the location department.
Tell us about casting Ansel Elgort and Lily James...
Through the audition process, I was very charmed by Ansel. I was really taken with his presence on camera and how charismatic he is, but also that he could fully inhabit the music. When you had the right music playing, he’d be playing along with it or just lose himself in the moment. We did some action try outs with him as well, running and jumping stuff, and also the driving. He’s got that rare star quality that you don't always see in younger actors.
Lily also came in through the casting process. I actually wasn’t familiar with her previous work, apart from Cinderella. I hadn’t seen Downton Abbey....
You must be one of the few people on the planet who missed it!
I know! (Laughs) I just told Lily that at lunch the other day. She’d been recommended by a couple of people as being someone to watch, and so I auditioned her and thought she was perfect. She really brought out the warmth and innocence that’s in that character. Again, similar to Ansel, she’s one of those actors the camera just loves.
What’s the significance of the title Baby Driver?
He’s baby-faced. It’s like old gangsters have names like ‘Baby Face Nelson’ or ‘Pretty Boy Floyd’. That was the idea. He’s the young driver.
That’s it.
Why did you cast big stars like Kevin Spacey and Jamie Foxx in supporting roles?
The great news was that they absolutely loved the script and their parts. If Kevin and Jamie had said ‘no’, there might not be a Baby Driver. I actually had an out-of-body experience on the first day shooting. The first scene we did was this scene with Kevin Spacey and Ansel outside this restaurant. Just watching Kevin rip through this dialogue, I was completely entranced. And then I’d remember, ‘Oh yeah, I wrote this!’ It was a real trip watching Kevin Spacey saying my dialogue.
Jamie was an absolute dream, as well. Sometimes with these movies and you see a cast like this and then you see the movie it’s like, ‘Oh they just shot for two days and it’s just an extended cameo’. But they are in the movie the whole way through.
Tell us about working with Jon Hamm...
When I was writing the script, I actually wrote with him in mind. We did a read-through of the first draft before I made The World’s End, and Jon was at that read-through, playing the Buddy character. He’s the only person who was at that table who’s still in the movie. So it was amazing. All the other actors are all people I’ve not worked with before. Very few of them I knew before… but Jon has a certain kind of charisma and persona and then in the movie he starts to kind of unravel. And so it’s great seeing him go to pieces (laughs).
We read the other day that Meryl Streep is also in the film? For real?!
That’s sort of a white lie! (Laughs)… Is Meryl Streep in the movie? Yes, she is. Was she ever on set? No, she wasn’t. In the movie,
Baby is at one point flicking through the channels, going through various movies, and one of them is It’s Complicated (starring Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin).
