‘Argylle’ director finds inspiration in unusual places
“Argylle” keeps you guessing as to who the good guys really are. But the spy-comedy from “Kingsman” creator Matthew Vaughn has two music titans on its side: Taylor Swift and the Beatles.
The Fab Four’s “new” song “Now and Then” is featured in the film starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Henry Cavill. Vaughn cleared the rights to the song a year before it was revealed to the public through producer Giles Martin, who was coincidentally the music producer for “Argylle.”
“We were struggling to find a romantic theme, and the lyrics summed up the movie,” Vaughn says. “Try having a Beatles song, a new one, and not being allowed to tell anyone about it for a year.”
The Swift connection was “not by design but by default,” he says. The film stars Howard as introverted author Elly Conway, whose bestselling spy novels have somehow predicted the future. She is targeted by an underground organization and goes on the run with her cat, Alfie, inside a designer backpack.
Earlier this year, Swifties began making a connection between the film, Conway and Swift. It culminated with the theory that Swift wrote the original “Argylle” novel. The real author has yet to be revealed. The big connection was the Scottish fold cat featured in the film. Swift owns two and inspired Vaughn’s two daughters to get their own Scottish fold. That’s the one featured in the film. He also got the backpack idea after seeing Swift’s in the “Miss Americana” documentary on Netflix.
“It was total bemusement at first, because my daughter came up to me saying, ‘Why didn’t you tell me Taylor Swift had written this book?’ ” Vaughn says. “I was laughing, because it was a very compelling argument. But it’s not true.”
Music figures prominently throughout “Argylle.” Singer Dua Lipa, who Vaughn discovered through his daughters, battles Cavill in an early action sequence. The film also stars Ariana DeBose, who won an Oscar for her performance as Anita in the “West Side Story” movie musical. She joins Boy George and Nile Rodgers for “Electric Energy,” a Boney M-esque disco original featured in multiple scenes.
“Music is what takes the film off the screen and sends it to your soul,” Vaughn says. “It’s really important to get it right.”
Vaughn also wanted to make sure he got it right with daughters Clementine Poppy, 20, and Cosima Violet, 13. They’d seen his previous “X-Men” and “Kingsman” films and asked Dad to make a movie they could enjoy. “Argylle” is loaded with action, but the PG-13 rating means none of it is graphic. And a lot of it is goofy fun.
“They’re like, ‘Dad always makes movies for boys. Make something for us and give us a heroine that we can be proud of. They’re harsh critics, but at the same time, they do it with love,” he says.
Vaughn was inspired by the 1984 film “Romancing the Stone” starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner and says he ultimately wants “Argylle” to be “a ray of sunshine” for moviegoers.
“‘Romancing the Stone’ was my first successful date when I was a young teenager. I thought, ‘I’m going to hate every second of it.’ And I came out just buzzing. They gave me something to discuss with this girl. We responded to different elements of the movie, but we both came out agreeing that we loved it,” he says. “That was one of the ideas with this, that I just think different people will enjoy it for different reasons, but everyone comes out smiling.”