Actor Liev Schreiber admits he wasn’t expecting an angry tirade from Nicole Kidman while she was improvising on the set of ‘The Perfect Couple’. He was joined at the UK Premiere of the show alongside the cast and the director, Susanne Bier. As she was discussing shooting ‘The Perfect Stranger’, Liev returned to gatecrash her interview.
Liev and Nicole star as a married couple in the new murder mystery show, which arrives on Netflix on 5th September, 2024. Report by Burtonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Liev and Nicole star as a married couple in the new murder mystery show, which arrives on Netflix on 5th September, 2024. Report by Burtonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00What is it about something horrible happening in a beautiful location that interests us as audience members, do you think?
00:07I think our gut tells us that things are not always perfect in paradise.
00:17And I think that that's part of the perfect couple. I think that irony is in the type.
00:23The more beautiful, the more expensive, the more glamorous often, the more we suspect it.
00:29And it doesn't get any more glamorous and beautiful and expensive than this family.
00:37It's a very interesting family dynamic, not just between yourself and your on-screen wife, but you've got your kids as well.
00:44How did you find this experience? You must have been part of ensembles where you're a family dynamic before.
00:49Did you do any pre-work ahead of time to work out your characters and how they'd interact with stuff?
00:55Because I know there was improv on set, wasn't there?
00:57There was. There was a lot of improv. It was a very different way of working than I'd worked in the past.
01:01And I really loved it. I think it all began with Suzanne.
01:06She had an idea about how she wanted to work that I loved.
01:12And she also had a sensibility as a person, as a filmmaker, that for me was just right on point.
01:23And then add to that an ensemble of actors that are really smart, really funny, have great timing, can improvise and make room for each other.
01:35And I had a feeling pretty early on.
01:38When we think of improv-ing on set, we always think about the comedy, but was it also improv-ing like dramatic scenes?
01:43Oh, absolutely. No, no, no. Nicole, on one of the first days she was on set, and I thought, well, I didn't know that Nicole was an improviser.
01:55And we're in the middle of the scene, we're sort of waving goodbye to this family in this sort of derogatory way because we don't like them very much.
02:03And in the middle of this thing, without any dialogue because it was being shot in slow motion, she turns to me and just lets loose on me with this insanely vulgar and angry tirade.
02:17And it just shocked me. And I didn't end up making it into the film, but it sort of put me on notice that this woman was a world-class improviser and that we were going to have fun.
02:27I was going to ask her, like, how was it to kind of work with her? But that sums up wonderfully. Like, did she shock you in that regard, do you think?
02:33Yeah, she shocked me badly. And, you know, the camera was sort of on a dolly. And then there was also a handheld steadicam. I'm not a handheld. There was a steadicam as well.
02:42And so she started with her back to the camera. So it was clearly it was my reaction that was selling until the steadicam came around.
02:52And the fact that she got that so quickly, I was really hard not to laugh because I was so shocked by it. But holding it together and keeping going was like, it was a wonderful throwing down of the gauntlet.
03:06And it was a reminder because we had already been improvising for about three weeks, primarily kind of darkly comedic, that there was a whole other world open to us. And I just loved it.
03:19Finally for me, we as audience members are going to watch A Murder Mystery and we always try and guess and inevitably we're always wrong. When you were reading the script or when you found out who done it, were you right?
03:30No, I had no idea. I read the script and I knew. Yeah, I had no idea. I mean, it was obvious. This show does a very good job of twisting the turn of this.
03:44I'm halfway through and I can't tell at all.
03:47Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you.
03:50Cheers. Congratulations on this piece of work. I'm halfway through and I cannot tell who done it, which I think means that you guys nailed it.
03:59Hey, what are we talking about?
04:02We're not talking.
04:03Can I tell you what she thinks about a lot of things?
04:06Yes, please.
04:07Let's see.
04:09Is filming A Murder Mystery in a beautiful location more enjoyable than filming, say, a gritty cop show, do you think? Is it just more glorious to film somewhere nice?
04:20I can't answer that one for you.
04:22Yes. I want to say, I want to say the weird thing is that it's actually, it kind of weirdly makes, once you're filming, it doesn't make that much of a difference.
04:35But what is wonderful here is that you come to set in the morning and nobody's there and you can see the sun rise and it's beautiful and quiet. And then the entire crew comes.
04:45And then we come and ruin everything.
04:47Yeah, then it's gone.
04:48That's what happens.
04:49Since we have him here, can we throw some compliments at the man in your act?
04:52No.
04:53Yes.
04:54You can't.
04:55No, you can't.
04:56You can't.
04:57But I can say some things about her.
04:58No, we can throw some compliments at him.
04:59No, we can't.
05:00He's so funny.
05:01I've got another interview to do.
05:04So him and Nicole as well.
05:06Aren't they amazing?
05:07They seem like such a wonderful couple to be called. The perfect couple who, as we know, are an imperfect couple.
05:12How did you find watching that, Dan? I've been trying to manipulate it for what we see on screen.
05:16It was just so alive.
05:17You know, it was so interesting.
05:19The two of them improvising.
05:22There was a huge space of...
05:29I mean, there was a huge amount of respect and all of that.
05:32But there was an enormous excitement between the two of them.
05:37And I feel you can see it strongly on the screen.
05:40I very much enjoyed the opening sequence.
05:44Were you in charge of directing that scene?
05:46Yes, I was.
05:47Was it a bit surreal putting all that together, considering the tone of the show might be very different to what we see?
05:52Well, you know, it was a bit of a jump.
05:55I mean, it was a bit of a kind of...
05:56And I was a little bit...
05:58Everybody was like, are you sure about that?
06:00And we had no time.
06:02It shot in one and a half hour.
06:04And we had no time.
06:05And all the cast were like, I can't dance.
06:07I can't dance.
06:08And everybody was like, I can't dance.
06:10But I don't know.
06:11There was just like a part of me that was, no, we want it.
06:14It's going to work.
06:15It's going to be really fun.
06:17And finally, a murder mystery is always fun because audience members will watch
06:21and then ultimately be wrong when they guessed who did it.
06:25I don't know if you read the script and then had the big reveal at the end,
06:28but were you correct when you were trying to guess who'd done it?
06:33I can't tell.
06:35Does that give too much away?
06:36Yeah.
06:40I don't know.
06:41I don't know.
06:42I don't know.
06:43I don't know.