Take a wild ride through a hip, fashionable, neon-lit setting in the psychological thriller LAST NIGHT IN SOHO. The movie follows Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie), an aspiring fashion designer who grew up in the country, but moves to the Soho area of London to pursue her dreams. But she gets more out of dreams than she expected as she travels back to the Soho of the 1960s as she sleeps. What starts off as a good time ends up being a real nightmare.
We sat down with McKenzie to chat about her character, and discuss why she is fascinated by that decade. "I think [Eloise] draws a lot of inspiration from the '60s in terms of the fashion back then and the colors," McKenzie said. "But also it's her grandma who raised her and her grandma who introduced this world to her."
Edgar Wright, the creator, co-writer, and director, drew inspiration for the movie from his own past. “I became obsessed with the '60s first with my parents record collection,” Wright said, “and then I would kind of have these time travel daydreams about going back to the 60s.”
"I started to think about nostalgia itself, why was I thinking so much about going back in time? Was it in fact a problem? Was sort of like my desire to go back in time like me failing to deal with the present day? So, I guess this movie is sort of an answer for that, the dangers of romanticizing the past and imagining that everything was great and nothing was bad."
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO goes to dark places, and certainly doesn't create the idea that nothing was bad. Wright said his takeaway from it is, “you cannot do anything to change the past, you can only deal with the present and moving forward.”
McKenzie said her takeaway is “be kind to yourself. From the very beginning, [Eloise] has set such high expectations for herself and putting a lot of pressure on herself because she wants to do her grandma proud, she wants to do her mom proud. Just be kind to yourself and be present in the moment.”
Watch our full LAST NIGHT IN SOHO interview with Thomasin McKenzie and Edgar Wright:
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO is in theatres now!
All images courtesy of Focus Features.