When the director proposed a dance sequence to kick off each episode, the actors were as skeptical as the murder mystery’s characters.
The opening credits of “The Perfect Couple” are palpably ecstatic — but they almost never happened.
Netflix’s new whodunit begins each episode with a joyous choreographed dance, but the cast once launched a near “mutiny” over the sequence, according to a Variety story published Thursday.
The series, based on Elin Hilderbrand’s novel of the same name, follows a wealthy family forced to postpone a wedding in Nantucket, Massachusetts, when the maid of honor is found dead shortly before her best friend’s nuptials.
“I think I felt that I want to do something where we are telling the audience ‘This is going to be fun,’” director Susanne Bier told Variety ahead of the show’s Los Angeles premiere Wednesday. “I feel this time [period] is a little bit gloomy and I felt I wanted to do something which had a lot of life.”
Bier settled on a flash mob-style beachfront dance set to Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals.”
The stars were as skeptical as the murder mystery’s characters, however, as various cast members apparently hated the idea — and launched a WhatsApp group chat in hopes of derailing the dance.
“Everyone was on that group saying they didn’t want to do this because we just didn’t understand,” actor Meghann Fahy told Variety. “I actually have a really, really huge issue with learning choreography so I was very nervous about it.”
Nicole Kidman, who plays family matriarch Greer Garrison Winbury, also wasn’t sold on the opening. “I didn’t feel like Greer would dance! I felt like Greer would watch,” she told Variety.
I don’t think any of us could make sense of doing this choreography in these characters,” said Ishaan Khatter, who plays Shooter, the groom’s best man. “We’re like, ‘Wait where does this fit into the scheme of things? This was not part of the assignment!’”
Even the show’s producers were reportedly worried about it. The determined Bier ultimately got her way, however, and said she shot the sequence in under two hours.
