Netflix’s new series “The Perfect Couple” focuses on a police investigation following a death on the wealthy Winbury family’s Nantucket estate, derailing what would have been the wedding of the season.
While the show is firmly grounded in the murder-mystery genre, just like the bestselling novel it’s based on, the opening credits feature a rather incongruous scene: the entire cast performing a dance routine on the beach.
At a Q&A after the show’s UK premiere at the BFI Imax in London, attended by Business Insider, director Susanne Bier and cast members such as Nicole Kidman explained how the dance sequence came together.
None of the cast were on board with the dance — until Nicole Kidman agreed
Set to Meghan Trainor’s recently released song “Criminals,” the dance sees the stars of the show bust some moves in unison while dressed in suits and evening dresses.
The initial idea for a dance came from executive producer Gail Berman, who previously worked on “Wednesday” and knew firsthand how a viral dance routine can really capture an audience’s imagination.
But Jack Reynor, who plays the eldest Winbury sibling, said the cast group chat descended into chaos upon learning that Bier wanted them all to memorize and then perform a dance while in character.
“There was an absolute panic attack that happened when they announced that we would do this TikTok dance,” Reynor said, adding that people were joking that they would “have to pay us $10 million each” to do it.
However, in the end, it all came down to whether Kidman would do it or not, as the scene wouldn’t have worked without her. While the Oscar-winner eventually agreed, she did put up a bit of a fight too.
“Nicole came to set and said, ‘Look, I can’t. My dress is too tight, I can’t dance,'” Bier, who previously directed Kidman on HBO’s “The Undoing,” said.
Kidman said that Bier put her foot down and insisted that the dance go ahead. “She ignored me and said, ‘Get out there! Dance!'”
Only Liev Schreiber, who plays Kidman’s character’s husband, was particularly excited about the scene. He said that while everyone was complaining on the group chat, he was busy learning the moves.
“I was the only one who wanted to do it, and I’m hardly in it,” Schreiber said. “I worked for three weeks on that dance. Barely in it! Like two seconds.”
Despite their protests, the dreaded dance didn’t turn out to be such a problem.
Instead, it marked the end of the cast’s time filming the show together and seems to be something none of them will forget.
“It was the last day that we had shot together, and we had gone on this entire journey,” Eve Hewson, who plays bride-to-be Amelia Sacks in the series, said.
Since production was interrupted by the SAG-AFTRA strike last year, she added, it was a “yearlong process of trying to finish this show. And so our last day together as a group was doing that dance.”
The scene was mapped out by Dua Lipa’s choreographer of choice and featured some of Taylor Swift’s backup dancers
Dua Lipa’s renowned choreographer, Charm La’Donna, put together the moves for the dance.
La’Donna, who has also worked with Kendrick Lamar, Rosalía, and Selena Gomez, told Glamour that her aim with the dance was “to create something that the entire cast could enjoy, like a dance you might join in at a party.”
Bier told the official Netflix companion site Tudum: “It puts the show in a very definite space of, ‘This is a slightly heightened reality, and as an audience, you can allow yourself to have fun and enjoy it.’ There was something very joyful about having everybody doing it.”
Kidman said that the cast also ended up having extra support in the form of professional backup dancers who had previously worked with Taylor Swift.
It turned out that not all of the cast knew that small detail.
“No wonder I couldn’t get on camera,” Schreiber said.
