(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
By the end of the four days it took to shoot the dance scene that is the beating heart of Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novella, The Life of Chuck, Tom Hiddleston had burned literal holes in the soles of his shoes on the Alabama asphalt. His dance partner, Annalise Basso’s footwear, didn’t suffer the same wear and tear. Instead, she lost a couple of toenails in the process.
“It was all worth it, though,” Basso tells The Daily Beast’s Obsessed. “I didn’t burn holes in my shoes. I think where Tom was pressing into the ground [with his feet], the ground was pressing into my [feet]. There was a reverse effect because all the damage went inward into my feet instead of into the shoe.”
Hiddleston and Basso’s footwork is a big part of the Life of Chuck marketing campaign, and it is easy to understand why. When the movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, it won the People’s Choice Award, continuing to resonate now that it is in theaters. Both King and Flanagan are known for horror stories, and while The Life of Chuck deals with death, it won’t leave you sleeping with the light on when it is over. Instead, it will have you twirling in the street.
Split into three chapters charting the life of one seemingly ordinary man, the middle section depicts Charles “Chuck” Krantz (Hiddleston) as a nearly 40-year-old accountant who is overcome with the desire to dance when he hears a busker (Taylor Gordon aka The Pocket Queen) playing the drums. What starts as a solo performance quickly evolves when Chuck plucks a stranger from the crowd who has started to move to the beat. Janice (Basso), who has just been unceremoniously dumped over text, was on her way home from work, and her rage toward her ex slips away the minute Chuck beckons her to join him.
“I did not know that the dance was gonna resonate with so many people. I thought people were gonna be like, ‘Oh, what a fun moment,” Basso says. “I didn’t know it was going to be the ambassador of joy for this film.” Though Basso also understands why this sequence is so infectious: “It felt very much like if somebody pulled me off the street, I would absolutely dance, and if it turned out like that, I would absolutely be smiling from ear to ear.”
I can confirm that it is impossible not to have a massive grin on your face during the five-minute-plus sequence that combines jazz, swing, salsa, cha-cha, the Charleston, bossa nova, polka, quickstep, and samba. Hiddleston oozes charm and charisma, whether he’s starring as Loki in a Marvel project or playing with puppies on Buzzfeed, and Basso matches his showmanship and appeal.
To bring King’s words from the 2020 novella to life required teamwork, combining the blueprint Flanagan had written, Gordon’s drums, and steps designed by three-time Emmy winner Mandy Moore: “Mike created a foundation for what you saw, and a space to collaborate. Although it is really specific in the book, Mandy wanted to make something that spoke to Tom and my strengths. Then with the music that Taylor made, it informed the steps as well.
The choreographer’s impressive résumé includes La La Land, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, Dancing with the Stars, and the Oscars. Moore also had the extra challenge of designing a sequence that the partners could learn from across the pond, as initial rehearsals began with Basso in Los Angeles while Hiddleston was in London.
The pair didn’t meet until Basso traveled to the UK with Moore after first learning the steps with Moore’s associate choreographer, Jonathan Redavid. Basso was nervous when she first stepped into the rehearsal room with Hiddleston, but any worries quickly disappeared. “This is truly a testament to the routine that Mandy choreographed because when we got together, it came together so seamlessly,” she says.
Basso doesn’t brush this off as being effortless or without a learning curve (“We both worked really hard”), adding “there were a few hiccups in the beginning.” But after doing the routine a couple of times, they were off to the races: “We understood each other immediately, because we both share this mutual love of joy, and there’s a passion for it. We let passion and joy lead us.”
In the movie, Janice needs a boost. Similarly, the project came at a time when Basso was questioning her career choices. Basso had been steadily acting since she was a child (including a memorable guest appearance in New Girl and as a terrifying teen on three seasons of Snowpiercer). She asked herself, “Is this something I’m meant to do as a career?” While she loved acting, it was hard not to compare her success to others. “I’ve learned now that success is what you make it,” says Basso. “This project helped me redefine what my career means to me, and success now is to be truthful and preserve my creative integrity.”
When Basso met Flanagan for lunch in Los Angeles, it was the first time she had seen the writer-director since they worked on the 2016 horror Ouija: Origin of Evil (Basso first worked with Flanagan in Oculus in 2013). Flanagan is known for his ever-growing troupe of actors, with Basso now among them. During that lunch, as Basso talked about not knowing what she should be doing next, Flanagan asked, “Hey, Basso, do you dance?”
The answer was a quick yes. “I was like, ‘Come on, dancing?! That’s something I’ve loved my entire life. It’s my happy place.’ I think those words got me the job,” Basso says. “Because this isn’t about being a professional dancer. Janice can be anyone, and I’m just someone who loves dance. I am a dancer, but I’m not a professional dancer.”
Rather than a standard audition, Flanagan asked Basso to send some videos of her dancing, before the strike interrupted pre-production. “I thought the project died, and when the fall came around, Mike said, ‘Okay, so you’re gonna start training with Mandy.” Basso had been training throughout that summer because of her love of this art form, but there were styles that she lacked experience in, like cha-cha, bossa nova, and polka.
What followed was around 50 days of rehearsals. “For one routine that might seem excessive, but for people who aren’t professional dancers, we needed every second of that,” says Basso. Hiddleston had no dance background (beyond busting out moves on talk shows), and they needed to master the different influences (Basso’s favorites were swing and bossa nova). The other key aspect of this public display is that it is “supposed to feel organic and spontaneous.” On every single take of the eight to 12-hour days when on location, it had to look “new and alive.”
They would run through the entire routine from “head to tail” in front of the swelling crowd, and Basso had to shake off her perfectionism. “That’s not what the routine or movie is about. It’s not about getting life perfect or the routine perfect. It’s about surrendering to the joy,” Basso says. However, the first few times in front of everyone, she was so “obsessed with getting it right” that it didn’t feel as free. “The more we did it, the easier it was to not only trust Tom and the crowd,” she says. “But it became less and less about getting it right, and more and more about what the movie is about.”
When the dance ends, there is a sense of pride and relief from both Chuck and Janice and Hiddleston and Basso: “I feel like I’ve been preparing for this role my whole life, with how much I love dance. To be able to share that with everyone, it was hard not to have that authentic pride, joy, and satisfaction come through.”
Dance was not the only thing Basso shares a passion with Hiddleston. While Janice turns her terrible day around by saying yes to spontaneity, Basso was thrilled to “geek out” about theater with the classically trained Hiddleston. These behind-the-scenes conversations also had an impact on her professional choices.
“To have him tell me, ‘You can absolutely be Juliet [in Romeo and Juliet], you will be, and you have to believe it.’ He’s such an inspiring individual,” says Basso. “To have him say those words of like, ‘I know Shakespeare, and you can do it,’ gave me a lot of support and encouragement.” Earlier this year, Basso put up a play she wrote, directed, and produced, featuring some of the Bard’s words (“Shakespeare is the language of the soul,” she says).
The Life of Chuck’s middle chapter is about taking those leaps of faith, and when I ask Basso what she would like audiences to take from watching this movie, she brings up something I said earlier about my lack of coordination. “I’ve been telling people to dance. Life is too short. Just dance. You said you’re not coordinated. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because nobody really cares,” Basso says. “I think there are two types of dancing. There’s professional dancing, and there’s just having a good time. Dancing brings you joy. Go have a good time.”
Looks like I’m about to get my dancing shoes on (hopefully with zero injuries to come).
The post The Best Part of the New Stephen King Movie Is…a Dance Scene?! appeared first on The Daily Beast.
