Nicole Kidman and her co-stars in The Perfect Couple set up a WhatsApp group to try to get out of having to film a dance scene for the show’s opening credits.
The six-episode series is streaming on Netflix now, and stars Kidman alongside Liev Schreiber, Eve Hewson, Meghann Fahy, Jack Reynor and Dakota Fanning.
The mystery drama is an adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s 2018 novel and follows Hewson’s Amelia, who is about to marry into a wealthy family to the disapproval of the family’s matriarch Greer (Kidman). On the morning of the wedding, one of the members of the wedding party is found dead on the beach.
Despite the show’s serious dramatic themes, director Susanne Bier (Bird Box, The Undoing) insisted on filming a flashmob-style dance sequence on the beach for the show’s credits, set to Meghan Trainor’s ‘Criminals’.
Bier said she wanted something which had “a lot of life and a lot of fun” at a time that is otherwise “a little bit gloomy”, but she soon found that her cast were much less enthusiastic about the idea.
Kidman was very unsure about the idea: “I didn’t feel like Greer would dance!” she explained at a press conference for the show. “I felt like Greer would watch.”
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The actors started a WhatsApp group text to try to bring down the plan. Fahy, who plays social media influencer Merritt on the show, told Variety: “Everyone was on that group saying they didn’t want to do this because we just didn’t understand. I actually have a really, really huge issue with learning choreography so I was very nervous about it.”
Ishaan Khattar, who plays best man Scooter, agreed. “I don’t think any of us could make sense of doing this choreography in these characters. We’re like, ‘Wait where does this fit into the scheme of things? This was not part of the assignment.”
The one key cast member who was enthusiastic about the idea was Schreiber, who plays Greer’s husband Tag. “I wasn’t in that [WhatsApp] chain,” he said. “The entire cast had a mutiny about this idea except for me, I was already in my trailer practising the dance moves. I just like dancing and I was kinda disappointed when it came out that I’m not in it more because I thought I did it really well.”
The Perfect Couple is streaming on Netflix now.
Kidman is also starring in the upcoming Babygirl, which she said is so “exposing” that she is afraid to watch it with an audience in the cinema.