“It’s kind of like a fever dream” set to Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals”
September 9, 2024 — What’s a wedding without a little dancing?
Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson) and Benji Winbury’s (Billy Howle) wedding weekend in The Perfect Couple is no exception. But in this instance, every guest/cast member comes together to dance the same choreography to a Meghan Trainor song — fittingly, for this juicy murder mystery, titled “Criminals.”
“I’m most excited for people to see the dance sequence that we shot,” Meghann Fahy, who plays the bride’s best friend and maid of honor, Merritt Monaco, told Netflix. “We were all a little bit nervous about it, and then we ended up having so much fun.”
The flash mob dance sequence — mapped out by renowned choreographer Charm La’Donna — accompanies the opening credits and serves to set the tone of the series. “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,’ ” director Susanne Bier tells Tudum. “There was something very joyful about having everybody doing it.”
Based on the bestselling novel by Elin Hilderbrand (https://
The initial idea to feature a dance in the series came from executive producer Gail Berman. Also a producer on Wednesday, Berman knew the value of having a viral dance routine on her hands. (Who could possibly forget Jenna Ortega’s moves to The Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck” at Nevermore Academy’s annual Rave’N dance?) “We thought that was really fun, so that was kind of in our minds,” The Perfect Couple showrunner Jenna Lamia tells Tudum. “Though this is a very different show, of course, tonally.”
Bier discovered Trainor’s bop during filming. She received a few song suggestions for a planned dance sequence, but fell in love with Trainor’s “Criminals,” with the repeated lyric “Call us criminals, criminals” that leads the audience to ask along with the characters, “Who’s guilty? Who’s not guilty?”
Originally, the dance was going to be in an entirely different place in the series, as part of a nightmare dream sequence at the beginning of Episode 5 that was ultimately cut. In the dream, Amelia and Merritt are sitting on the beach talking about the future and how excited Amelia is that Benji proposed. But then, Merritt strangely asks Amelia, “Hey, who do you think did this?” And as Amelia turns to look at her, water starts pouring out of Merritt’s eye sockets and her mouth. “It’s really scary, and then Amelia gets up in bed sweating,” says Lamia. “It was a horrible dream!” A dance was going to be incorporated into the nightmare. However, it turned out that for practical reasons, it would have been difficult for production to shoot –– so they pivoted.
“Susanne had this really brilliant thought that if we were to use a dance like that as the opening credits, it would tell people right away that, yes, this is a murder mystery, and yes, it’s a thriller, but you’re also going to have so much fun, so sit back and enjoy the ride,” says Lamia. “It’s really important, I think, that people realize the tone of the show is not The Undoing, or something that Susanne has done before; this is a fun murder mystery. Sure, somebody’s going to be dead, but you’re also going to laugh.”
The cast learned the dance sequence, in which Bier advised La’Donna should have a Saturday Night Fever vibe, in a few days, max. “I learned it in 10 minutes,” Mia Isaac, who plays Chloe Carter, the police chief’s teenage daughter, told Netflix. “It’s a very easy dance. It’s kind of like Macarena-style, so we got the hang of it after a couple takes.”
Well, learning the dance was easier for some than for others. Sam Nivola, who plays Will, the youngest Winbury, says that he and a number of cast members were all “so intimidated” by the daunting task of dancing that “we made a mutual agreement to just say, ‘We’ll figure it out on the day.’ And then we did, and it was so much harder than we thought it would be! But Charm was amazing and walked us through it.”
Ishaan Khatter, who plays the groom’s best friend and best man, Shooter Dival, loved busting out his dancing chops. “Where I come from in the Indian film industry, music is a very big part of our narratives and storytelling, and so, in a sense, I felt warm and comfortable with it,” he told Netflix. “I mean, where else would you say you’re going to see Nicole Kidman, Isabelle Adjani, and all these veterans doing a TikTok dance? It’s kind of like a fever dream.”
Khatter also tells Tudum that filming the dance sequence was the last thing they filmed as a cast. “We wrapped out the show doing that dance!” he says.
While Donna Lynne Champlin, who plays Detective Nikki Henry, and Michael Beach, who plays Police Chief Dan Carter, did not join in on the dance, a big part of them wishes they had. “It looked like a bonding experience, the kind of trauma bonding that a dance routine always brings,” says Champlin. And she speaks from experience, as an alum of the musical series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
Bier didn’t think it should directly be a TikTok-style dance, even though that’s how the cast and crew referred to it on set for short. “I was worried that if it was a TikTok dance, it would be out of fashion by the time the series came out,” says Bier. “It had to be something which didn’t have a sell-by date.”
When it came to performing the choreo, the director knew nerves were rampant among the cast, who kept telling her, “I’m not dancing. I’m not dancing. I’ll be watching.” That resolve didn’t last long when Bier reminded them all, “ ‘It’s not about perfection. It’s about having fun. Let’s just go for it!’ ” she says. “They all totally threw themselves into it.”
Not wanting to miss out, Bier also jumped into the flash mob with the cast — you can see that footage at the very end of Episode 6, after the credits. “I felt that I had forced them to do this, [so] I’m going to put myself out there and be really embarrassing and they can get their ‘fun revenge,’ ” says Bier with a laugh. She wanted them to feel like, “ ‘OK, I am so bad at this and you’re so great at this, and you can all have permission to laugh at me.’ ”
The opening credits are intentionally unusual — and Lamia absolutely loves them for it. “Doesn’t it make you want to get up and learn the moves?” she says. “I can’t sit still when I watch it.”
Additional reporting by Keely Flaherty.
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