"I wanted it to be sexy": Andrew Haigh on All of Us Strangers
The British filmmaker on directing Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott. Plus: Quentin Tarantino's best motor movies and the influence of American Psycho on TikTok.
Andrew Haigh on All of Us Strangers
In cinema’s today, Andrew Haigh’s latest offering, All of Us Strangers, which stars Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott, might be his most emotionally resounding work to date. On our website Haigh talks to our features writer Luke Georgiades about the film, a romantic ghost story which is as stirring as it is sensual. “I knew when I first cast Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott that the internet was going to find them super hot,” he says. “I knew they’d love these two together. And I wanted that. I wanted it to be intimate and tender, but I also wanted it to be sexy. I wanted it to be hot.”
Are ‘Getting Ready With’ videos inspired by cinema?
All over social media, tweens and twenty-somethings are busy filming themselves “waking up” in the morning, walking through their concealer and callisthenics routine before slipping into a tightly choreographed outfit. Whilst this may seem perfectly innocuous, writer William Hosie asks whether the trend’s aesthetic may have its roots in canonical cinema of the 2000s such as American Psycho, The Devil Wears Prada and Miss Congeniality. “What defines today’s beauty reels, to me, is not narcissism. Rather it is a weird sort of tension between detachment and intimacy,” he writes. “Influencers turn their toilette – a private ceremony – into a public audience. By putting such an act out there for all to gawp at, they turn their ablutions into a collective ritual.”
Quentin Tarantino’s best motor moments
Quentin Tarantino isn’t necessarily the first director that comes to mind when you think of cars. You might sooner jump to William Friedkin, Michael Mann, or Tony Scott—filmmakers who feature pulsing car chases and high-adrenaline set pieces. From Issue 6 and now online, A RABBIT’S FOOT explores the holy motors of Tarantino’s oeuvre, from Pussy Wagon and Kill Bill to Jackie Brown. “The movie’s funniest moment doesn’t take place in a car, but instead captures the age-old problem of simply not remembering where you parked the fucking thing.”