This is a character I hadn’t seen before... You don’t know if you can trust her
Based on a book, Earthquake Bird is an unsettling thriller set in late 80s Tokyo. GEORGIA HUMPHREYS chats to its stars Alicia Vikander and Naoki Kobayashi and director Wash Westmoreland, to find out more about the project
ACTRESS Alicia Vikander studied Japanese for her latest role in Tokyo-set film noir Earthquake Bird. She plays prim Swedish translator Lucy Fly living in Japan. Based on Susanna Jones’ novel of the same name, it’s a thriller about a deadly love triangle.
It’s a far cry from her last major role, as action hero Lara Croft in 2018’s Tomb Raider, but Swedish star Alicia, 31, liked how enigmatic Lucy felt “like a character I hadn’t done or hadn’t really seen”.
“You don’t know if you can trust her,” notes the Oscarwinning star of The Danish Girl, who’s married to Irish-German actor Michael Fassbender.
“Part of the mystery of the film is realising who she is and why she’s there [in Japan] and what she’s come from.
“Because 1989 – for a Western woman to have travelled that far and to have created a new life is quite a big thing.”
Alicia worked with “amazing coaches” to perfect her accent as she speaks Japanese in numerous scenes.
“I wish I could tell you that I learned Japanese in three months,” she says. “I did an immense amount of work to be able to do the Japanese...It was a lot of hours.”
The story sees buttoned-up Lucy enter into an intense relationship with Teiji (Naoki Kobayashi), a handsome photographer. But sexually confidant American nurse Lily Bridges (Riley Keough), arrives on the scene and becomes entangled in their lives.
When she goes missing, presumed dead, Lucy is brought in for questioning.
The feature is written and directed by Leeds-born Wash Westmoreland. The 53-year-old lived in Japan when he was a student, and fell in love with “Japanese language, Japanese culture and history”.
“So, when the opportunity came to return to Japan with this film and work in Toho studios, which is the centre of the Japanese film industry, that was a birthday present and a half,” he says.
Wash has had plenty of experience of adapting novels for the silver screen, having previously worked on Still Alice, which starred Julianne Moore as a 50-year-old woman who suffers early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
He co-directed the 2014 film with his American husband, Richard Glatzer, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2011, and died in 2015, aged 63.
As Wash points out, Earthquake Bird is actually the third film he has made in a row that is based on a book by a woman.
After Still Alice came 2018 biographical drama Colette, which saw Keira Knightley play author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, and was “kinda based on Colette’s writing too”.
“It’s really about interacting with the text to find the story,” he continues.
“And, with this, Susanna Jones was very open to both what I was including but also what I was reinventing.”
He reveals that the script for Earthquake Bird was actually written while travelling on the number 38 bus in London, while he was in post-production for Colette.
“I was living in Hackney and getting the bus into Soho every day. It takes an hour, and I was sort of like, ‘Oh, this is boring’.
“So, I put on my headphones, cracked open my laptop and would write for an hour every morning.
“It may evoke the streets of Tokyo, but it came from London city transport.”
When it came to casting, Naoki is already famous in Japan – he is a performer in two J-Pop dance and vocal groups, Exile and Sandaime J
Soul Brothers.
But this is the 35-yearold’s first Englishspeaking role.
“I’m so excited,” he says. “This [acting] is my original way to express myself, so to see new people and create together... making great art, that’s exciting for me.
“And especially Wash, he’s so open and generous with his time to discuss the character and the film, so that it connects with Japanese culture.”
There’s a particularly memorable dance scene in the film, in a nightclub, in which Wash recalls “Naoki and Riley are really strutting it, and Alicia comes out and dances really badly”.
What’s funny is that Alicia actually trained as a ballet dancer at the Royal Swedish Ballet School in
Stockholm; as the director puts it, “she’s got moves”.
“But you can see her almost like counting to four in her mind as she’s dancing, to try and stay in time. So, I thought that was an amazing piece of acting from Alicia, to act like a bad dancer.”
He reveals with a chuckle: “I think she met Michael Fassbender on the dancefloor – I think that’s part of their story.
“I’m sure she wasn’t dancing like Lucy.”
Discussing what it was like working with Alicia, Naoki explains: “Of course, I speak English, she speaks Japanese.
“Even in the scene, we could connect with each other as a character, but also as an actor.
“She created the trusting atmosphere, that could make a great scene.”
Alicia’s next project is forthcoming biopic The Glorias: A Life On The
Road, in which she plays American feminist Gloria Steinem at various stages of her life.
How was that experience?
“Terrifying! She’s an incredible icon and woman.
“Growing up, I knew a certain amount about her, but doing this film... Our film is going to help other people go and find out about her history and what she’s done and what she still does.”
She adds enthusiastically: “She is still on the road and lecturing, doing what she does... She is remarkable.”