Carey Mulligan & Cast Discuss Making a Fictional Band "Real" in The Ballad of Wallis Island
Estranged music partners (and life partners) come together again in The Ballad of Wallis Island.
While actress Carey Mulligan has told many an interviewer over the years that she's terrified of singing for work, that certainly hasn't stopped her from featuring her pipes in plenty of films. The latest is Focus Features' The Ballad of Wallis Island (get tickets here), where Mulligan plays Nell Mortimer, one half of the fictional folk duo McGwyer Mortimer.
RELATED: Everything to Know about Focus Features' The Ballad of Wallis Island
The feature film is an expansion of director James Griffiths' (Episodes) 2007 BAFTA nominated short film, The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island, and follows the surreptitiously orchestrated reunion of McGwyer Mortimer on the remote Wallis Island by their biggest fan, eccentric millionaire Charles Heath (Tim Key). The problem is that Mortimer and her estranged bandmate, Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden), haven't spoken in years — and there are most definitely unresolved feelings lingering.
NBC Insider recently spoke with Mulligan, Basden, and Griffiths about their curation of the music in The Ballad of Wallis Island, and how they chose the songs that best told the story of this fictional band so they could convince audiences this musical act could have really existed.
Creating McGwyer Mortimer through every song
Throughout the film, Charles spins his favorite folk duo's albums on his turntable, each one featuring real vocals from Mulligan and singer/songwriter/actor Basden, which establishes their "back catalog" of music. Basden said that he felt the pressure of sending Mulligan a selection of potentially great songs so she would sign on to play Nell.
Asked how many songs she was initially sent, Mulligan laughed and said, "I don't feel like I had a boatload. But I feel like I was drip-fed quite a lot."
Basden agreed and explained they were judicious with their picks because "I didn't want you to pull out of the movie by sending you, like, 25 songs."
Mulligan was already familiar with Basden and Tim Key's comedy work, including the short film upon which this film was based. Plus, it helped that she already liked their music.
"There were songs from the original short that I already loved. But every single song [here] is an absolute banger," she praised. "I was so excited, and I just was trying to figure out what little bit I [could do] in the background. I think they're all brilliant songs, so I was very excited and super happy to get to sing on any of them."
Director James Griffiths on staging performances that speak volumes
In The Ballad of Wallis Island, every song Mulligan and Basden sing on camera is a window into their characters' complex shared history. Be it the lyrics or their harmonic rapport, the songs tell their own story that fills in the blanks about these former artistic partners.
Griffiths praised Basden's work crafting songs that helped him tell the duo's backstory.
"If you pay real attention to just the lyrics, you get the 'when they were in love' era, or 'when things were more problematic,'" the director pointed out. "And then [Herb's] work after that. It felt very easy, actually, just to pick the songs for those specific scenes that could help us in that moment of our story, not just their band story."
The film features a few performance scenes, as a duo and solo, during their time on the island. Griffiths said Herb's beach concert was the most difficult because they all wanted more time to shoot it.
RELATED: Black Bag: Cast and Characters of Steven Soderbergh's Spy Drama Film, Explained
"We had one evening to film the entire thing," the director explained. "Unlike Glastonbury, we didn't have eight cameras filming it live, so it was very challenging. We had a lot of songs that didn't make the cut, but Quin Williams, our editor, did a really good job of just giving a sense of that concert.
"The crew had a great time listening to three hours of songs," he continued. "But we had to kind of make those tough choices to find that journey through those scenes that felt right, mood-wise. To take Charles and the audience on a little bit of a journey through the concert, or through the film. Adem Ilhan, who is our composer, worked really closely with Tom as well to find a sound for the island that also joined those moments up, which I think [he] did beautifully."
The Ballad of Wallis Island premieres in theaters nationwide on March 28. Click here for tickets!
