Plenty of Edgar Wright’s work so far – from Shaun Of The Dead, to Spaced, to the gory splashes of Hot Fuzz (caveat: at one point it’s bolognese) – has played around in elements of the horror genre. But for his latest, Last Night In Soho, he’s going all-in with his own mind-bending chiller. Originally intended to arrive last year before being delayed to 2021, its twists and turns remain tightly under wraps, but the central gist is that it’s a definitively London-set film (hence the title) that sees our central scream queen and burgeoning fashionista Eloise, played by Jojo Rabbit’s Thomasin McKenzie, make a mysterious connection with Anya Taylor-Joy’s 1960s starlet Sandy. As seen in the new issue of Empire, here’s a fresh look at McKenzie in the film – all bloody nose and terrified eyes.
If most people will have caught McKenzie in Taika Waititi’s Nazi satire, it was Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace that put her on Wright’s radar. “She’s great (in Last Night In Soho),” the director tells Empire. “She’s so young and fragile that the film is going to be twice as scary.” And stepping into Sandy’s shoes is Taylor-Joy, an actor who made her name in a series of horror roles in the past few years, and recently broke out to new audiences as the central star of Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit. Wright originally thought of Taylor-Joy for the Eloise role, but changed his mind when he revisited the actor’s previous work. “I saw Split, and Anya plays an innocent girl who gets thrown into a situation” he says. “I thought, ‘Maybe she’s played Eloise. Maybe she should be Sandy.’”
Read more about Last Night In Soho in Empire’s massive 2021 preview in the Greatest Cinema Moments Ever issue – on sale Thursday 21 January, and available to pre-order online here.
Plus, there’s plenty more of Edgar Wright in the magazine – he’s behind our massive cover celebration of the cinemagoing moments that brought the house down, enlisting 40 of the biggest and brightest names in Hollywood to share their personal moviegoing memories. Contributors include the likes of Steven Spielberg, Kevin Feige, Greta Gerwig, Jordan Peele, Daisy Ridley, Daniel Craig, Taika Waititi, Patty Jenkins, and plenty more. Last Night In Soho is expected to arrive in UK cinemas from 23 April.