A choreographed dance on the beach is not exactly the opening sequence you would expect from a glossy crime thriller starring Nicole Kidman. But for director Susanne Bier (“Bird Box”) there was no other way to open “The Perfect Pair,” the six-part adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s novel.
“I was so bored with title sequences,” Bier told IndieWire. “At some point in the script, there was a nightmare sequence with a dance. I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to do that.’ But the word ‘dance’ stuck in my mind and I thought, ‘We’re going to do the title sequence as a dance with everyone.’ First of all, it’s going to be really lighthearted and funny, but it’s also going to suggest to the audience, ‘Hey, you’re allowed to laugh here. You don’t have to think this is very dark and very serious, because it’s not.'”
“The Perfect Couple” follows Greer Garrison Winbury (Nicole Kidman), a famous novelist who, along with her husband Tag (Liev Schreiber), is hosting a lavish wedding for her son Benji (Billy Howle) and his fiancée Amelia (Eve Hewson) at their sprawling Nantucket home. When a murder occurs at the wedding reception, everyone is under suspicion. Bier was initially hesitant to direct the project, feeling she didn’t know the world of Nantucket. But after agreeing, she went to Netflix to see if Kidman, with whom she worked on the 2020 HBO drama “The Undoing,” would be interested in playing Greer. Netflix was interested, and from there, it was easy to build the cast. Once everyone was in place, Bier said, the set of “The Perfect Couple” was a veritable improvisational playground. Bier said Schreiber was particularly involved: Tag’s constant smoking of weed was his idea. “I laughed so much every time (Schreiber), Jack Reynor and Dakota Fanning appeared on the screen. At one point the sound engineer said, ‘Could you please stop laughing so loudly, because we really need to be able to use the recording.'”
That joy Bier felt on set was an inspiration for the opening credits. When the director first suggested it, no one wanted to do it – not the producers or the cast. “The cast created a WhatsApp group to avoid having to do the dance,” Bier said. “The only one who wanted to do it was Liev, and he’s a great dancer. Charm La’Donna, the great choreographer, designed the dance, and then we sent the tape out. I can’t tell you how many calls I got from the cast saying, ‘I can’t do it.’ And Nicole, who is a great dancer, came to set and was like, ‘I can’t dance. This dress is way too tight.’ I said, ‘Guys, we’re just going to try it. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.'”
Watching the sequence, there is no sign of reluctance from the cast. The scene is beautifully lit, bathing the actors in the golden hour as they dance to “Criminals” in their bright outfits — bold colors were important to Bier on the show. “I did think it was visually enriching to have this amazing cast dancing on the beach in different colored clothes,” she said. “I imagine at some point at the rehearsal dinner they would all go out and do that dance, and that scene is the only one you see here.”
The dance was shot in 90 minutes, mainly due to time constraints. “We got hit by the strikes, so we had five weeks to shoot. Then we had this cast, so after the strike, it was virtually impossible to get everyone back together to find five weeks. So we shot a little bit in London, and then the rehearsal dinner in January was shot entirely in Los Angeles. That was planned for five days, but we only had three days. Then I squeezed the dance into those three days, which is why everyone was like, ‘Hey, are you sure about this? It really should take two days to shoot a dance sequence,'” Bier said.
Once the cast got going, they really hit the ground running. Bier could tell who was fibbing about their dancing skills, but the credits also show what makes the show so entertaining. “Eve is a great dancer. I feel like they all are. Even the ones who said otherwise, I think they all were like that in their own way,” Bier said. “Dakota dancing around with that big belly, and Isabelle Adjani, who insisted on not dancing, is great. It was a group that really enjoyed playing with each other, and they enjoyed dancing with each other too.”
Aside from seeing some of today’s best actors doing a silly, fun dance, the dance also sets the tone of The Perfect Pair. “I felt like this was a real opportunity to signal to the audience that they’re not going to be pretentious. Just enjoy the fun of it. The show has a dark side. It’s a crime thriller, and there are things that are sad and real issues. I wanted those things to have room to breathe. It was important to do a title sequence that said, ‘We’re going to have the darker things, but we’re also going to have fun with it.'”
“The Perfect Pair” is now streaming on Netflix.
