STACK #157 Nov 2017

DVD&BD FEATURE

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BABY ON BOARD

Ansel Elgort, star of EdgarWright’s music-driven (see what we did there?) action-thriller Baby Driver , tells STACK ’s Alesha Kolbe how he learned sign language for the film, and about the challenge of acting to music.

A nsel Elgort is Baby, a kid that got into a bit of trouble when he was younger and has since spent his life paying off a debt to crime boss Doc (Kevin Spacey). He’s a driver, but he’s not just a simple courier. Baby is a getaway driver for coordinated heists, and every move he makes is synchronised to music. Baby was in a car accident as a child, and as a result suffers from tinnitus. He uses the music to drown it out, and sometimes even mixes recordings of his own. Baby Driver has long been in development for British filmmaker Edgar Wright, and Elgort admits it was a dream come true to be able to work alongside the director of Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World . “I met with Edgar a while back,” muses the actor. “We talked mostly about music, actually. We really hit it off. He said ‘well hey, I have a script that you might like,’ and didn’t really tell me anything about it at first. I read the script and I just thought it was incredible; I had to try and get the role. I’m a big fan of Edgar’s and I knew that whatever he did next was going to be

pretty special.” If you’ve seen the film, you’ll notice that all the scenes are choreographed to music. No, the cast do not spontaneously break out into song

and dance, but the actors will do little things like tap their fingers or nod their heads in time to the tune. Elgort reveals the cast would listen to the music on the set, and also credits the film’s

The Simon & Garfunkel Cinematic Universe

Edgar Wright has joked that Baby Driver is the second film in the ‘Simon and Garfunkel cinematic universe’ – being, of course, films named after Simon and Garfunkel songs. The other being The Only Living Boy In New York , also released this year. But, what about Mrs. Robinson - a murder mystery involving a missing person’s case, featuring Joe DiMaggio? Or Bridge Over Troubled Water , involving a long distance relationship; boy travels to meet girl, only to discover she is terminally ill...

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014 NOVEMBER 2017