Anya Taylor-Joy & Nicholas Hoult Break Down 'The Menu' Scene with Director Mark Mylod

Must give massive props, this one did not throw up once

and he ate all day long for two and a half months

and I was very, very proud.

Did it taste okay or was it just horrible?

A lot of it was very delicious.

I think the only day it was tough,

was there's a scene when the bread does arrive later.

Yeah. Right.

And my character's very upset

about him not getting to try the bread

and so gorges on it.

I call it Bread-Gate.

That was a long day. [Mark laughing]

Bread-Gate.

That was long day of only bread.

I was genuinely concerned about him.

Hi, I'm Nick.

Hi, I'm Mark.

Hi, I'm Anya.

And this is Notes on a Scene.

[Chef's footsteps clicking]

You haven't touched your food.

There...

There is no food.

We joined the scene at point in the story

where the wheels have not yet come off.

We're still as an audience trying to work out

who these people are, what these relationships are,

and specifically this table,

they wanna be seen in this exclusive club.

They wanna belong to this family,

to this movement with this cult leader of Chef Slowik

up there is as so much this human need

to belong on some level.

You're not gonna try it?

[Tyler] No No?

No. This is great stuff.

So what I'm trying,

is this is the breadless bread plate part of the menu.

So we've all been delivered no bread

but just the condiments and sauces

that would come with them.

I ate quite a lot of oil.

That was why I was had my little spoon right now.

I was just licking oil throughout the day.

How did it taste?

Oily, delicious. [all laughing]

I dunno, I remember after...

Do you know when you have too much oil in your mouth

after a while you're...

It starts to feel a bit funny in there?

[Anya] Yeah. Yeah.

I started to have that feeling occasionally.

[plates scratching]

[glass shattering] [guests exclaiming]

I'm gonna stop at it just to tell you

how long we spent trying to get the sound effect right

for the glass smashing.

You know the obvious, if something really scary happens

and you do the the strings?

[Mark and Anya scatting]

Yeah.

And so we did wanna create an unease whenever we could.

[plates scraping]

[glass shattering] [guests exclaiming]

With that, I think it took us about two weeks

to get the sound effect right of going back and forth

just for a glass smash

but if you hear it in a big cinema speaker,

it's really cool. It was worth it.

But also if you listen to this one,

so I did a little bit of a squeal.

[plates scrapping] [chair moving]

[glass shattering] [guests exclaiming]

I did that maybe 79 times in ADR.

Really? To get the right level

of squeal Of squeal.

[Anya] Really? Yeah.

[glass shattering] [guests exclaiming]

So yeah, two weeks of a glass smash

and a [Anya squeals] moment.

For one little moment. For one little moment.

[glass shattering] [guest exclaiming]

That was a total accident I did...

[glass shards clinking] [Chef's footsteps approaching]

We were in the edit with Chris Telson,

wanted to be kind of over Chef's shoulder

when he comes down and experience that fear

of like when the head teacher is coming over to your table.

But it was all lasting a bit too long

so I wanted something to fall short on it

but I didn't want to interrupt the moment,

and then Chris found this little look from Paul.

If you just keep looking,

stuff I didn't even notice on the monitor on the time,

you just find little nuggets of gold

that everybody was givin' all the time

and Paul just gave me this lovely little kind of

teacher's pet look- Perfect.

You're in trouble with the teacher

and I just loved it.

And it's interesting also

because the way that this restaurant is set up,

we the diners, are in our own little worlds at each table,

but we are all out there on a stage

and then you've got Chef Slowik,

wherever he walks, all heads turn

and he is presenting from his own stage.

So it really is all performances within performances

within pretension.

I remember saying to Mark,

I feel like I need to have my back to Chef Slowik

because that's the way that I feel about it

and he should be a presence behind me and it's a choice.

The back problems I now have

[all laughing]

from twisting into this S shape

so I could look at Ralph because also,

when Chef Slowik speaks it's a monologue.

Yeah, you're there for a while.

So I just hold this position and be like, I'm fine.

[all laughing]

I still maintain it was a good choice.

It was a fantastic choice.

Could've just shuffled that chair around a bit.

I know, I know. [Mark and Nick laughing]

I'm so sorry.

You haven't touched your food.

There...

There is no food.

I love Margot very, very much

because she is the character that I've played

that's the most comfortable in their skin.

I've never been a particularly passive aggressive person

and I deeply enjoyed being passive aggressive

and so on this I'm just gonna write Sass level 1,000.

I'm just gonna keep writing those, yeah, let's go.

You can feel how much you enjoyed it,

the character's enjoying the moment.

There is no food.

No, no this is food.

So lots more food to come, don't I wanna fill up.

That would not be possible,

I've precisely designed the portions to account for that so-

I remember a conversation that you and I had,

where you said Margot is an enigma

that we as the audience are trying to figure out.

Yeah.

And that kind of led me down a path of,

okay I need to figure out

who this individual is at her core

and it also made me feel a lot calmer.

Cause I think I initially went in wanting to know

exactly who she was and every single moment.

And then I was like, Oh, of course.

It is a performance within a performance

and allowing that curtain to rise and fall

was really helpful and fun.

As the story reveals itself, you kind of realize

that they're not what they appear to be at all

so it's very fun to watch that veil drop occasionally

and then yeah quite go straight back up so quickly.

It was like...

Which is incredible.

You won't fill up.

Please eat, the menu only makes sense if you eat.

But you told us not to eat.

That is not what I meant, madame.

These two characters,

who obviously for all intents and purposes

take instant loathing to one another.

He wants this character to eat,

you don't want him to tell you what to do

and yeah, eye contact- Is, yeah.

And actually there's an enjoyment of the connection,

there's already a dance going on between.

The central conversation had to be

this conflict stroke connection

between this character and Margot this force of light

and this character who sees nothing but darkness.

Cause I knew that actually you up against Ralph

would be absolutely fascinating,

would feel like a really equal combative,

and yet had this underlying warmth and connection

because of that shared empathy that both of you had.

You can both see that foundation, I think really works,

and we build out to those other relationships

from that place.

That is not what I meant, madame and you know it.

Well, thank you for your concern

but I am perfectly capable of deciding when I eat and what.

There's a joint empathy

because they both work in the service industry.

I think both of us enjoy our scenes together

but I think the characters weirdly enjoy discourse

because there's a massive part of Chef I think,

that wants to be told no.

Yeah. Or that wants somebody

that's not just following everything that he says

all the time and potentially she's been holding her tongue

for a little bit and so having somebody to just,

immediately be able to be like, [Anya snaps] no.

For her too. Aa intellectually equal.

Also perhaps the Chef also feels seen

by this character suddenly.

He's such a commodity, such a badge of honor.

I am perfectly capable of deciding

when I eat and what.

Some wonderful acting from Nick Hoult right there.

[all laughing]

Oh I'm embarrassed, this isn't going well.

No it's just like, and the dream has just shattered.

This is awkward.

The fact that you are defying him, he's my hero,

I just want everything to go smoothly-

You're like, Please- And him to take me-

Dear God just-

And be close friends forever.

Just drink the oil.

And the fact that you're not playing his game

suddenly is yeah, disastrous for me.

Having the worst date.

[Anya] Can we go back to Ralph? Yeah.

And how he manages to be so warm and intimidating,

and look straight through your soul all at the same time.

Yeah. Anya.

Is incredible to watch. Yeah.

His approach is also kind of monastic.

There's this kind of monk in his art form

a good 90% of the performance is in that,

just meticulously everything is perfect and smooth.

It's like I would love to have

a little kind of bedtime story from Chef Slowik.

Yeah, he's at peace.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Thank you.

That little thank you that I gave just before he walked off.

Thank you.

I remember doing it and thinking,

Oh God, very Ralph Fiennes is gonna think

I'm an absolute brat.

Because that was not scripted and I was just like,

Oh God, oh God, oh god.

But I'm glad you kept it in

because it meant that it worked and-

Oh it was fantastic, yeah.

Yep, so thanks for that

Christ, that was humiliating.

[Margot] Humiliating? Yeah.

[Margot] Tyler, the guy's a prick.

[Anya] He goes and has a deep moment with mummy.

I said, Can you go up and kiss her?

And we went for the take and he went down to kiss her

and then changed his mind and puts put his head on her

and I think it was completely in the moment.

[Anya] Yeah.

And I absolutely loved it.

Yeah.

It was just a perfect Ralph-ism,

of just a character who cannot show that much intimacy,

a character who cannot show that much affect

and with all that luck it just speaks so much

of what we'll hear about

and that troubled past of the character,

is so eloquent in that one gesture.

I just loved it as a choice.

Another excellent moment by Janet McTeer.

[Mark] I know, right?

I mean the side eye action

Peter Deming's photography,

I just give my little shout ahead.

Of course we hadn't put these skies in at this point

we had the green screen so he had to kind of

imagine that from shots we shot earlier

and like the foreground

so that it would match when the green screen went,

and the way that he will frame it here,

there's this beautiful foreground action

but there's also you getting this lovely insight

into Nick's humiliation upstage

so it makes the frame so rich.

Something that Mark does,

was he wanted us all on stage essentially the whole time

and improvising because you never knew

when you were going to be caught on camera,

which was such a fascinating way of working.

But the other wonderful thing,

which I've not experienced in any other film

is usually if it's someone else's closeup,

you'll go and rest in your trailer.

We never left this set.

We were constantly on set improvising

or watching everybody else around us

and it was such a supportive environment.

We've got such great stuff outta that

in the edit of those extra layers.

From what I was finding from you, there's one point where...

Where the camera is primarily over

with Aimee and John Leguizamo's characters

and I've got the two of you in the background

and I'm just seeing this dynamic of the two

of you having the most lovely date.

Yeah. You just connected.

It's one of those things where

if you just rack the focus and see that going,

you think, Oh they look...

What a lovely young couple they are.

Well, I mean so we, we committed to the improv

pretty hardcore the first couple of days.

And then there was definitely a certain point

where like, Nick, take it away.

Well, ultimately we were like...

We couldn't continue to improvise that deeply.

Then we just started kind of getting to know each other

through improv stories about the characters

that would be partially true but then also partially false.

So you'd yell, cut and then we'd say,

Okay, I think this bit was true,

I think this bit was a lie.

I think this bit was fabricated, I think whatever.

And we got to know each other.

You all played Balderdash on camera, that's fantastic.

Kind of yeah. [Mark laughs]

There was one day when I remember telling you a story

about being force fed cheese or an onion

as punishment as a child.

And this is why I don't cheese anymore

cause it gave me nightmares

but I can eat onion like an apple and just random-

Yeah.

What is going on in your life?

We know each other to a very bizarre degree.

Is that true or false?

That's false. That's false, yeah.

Don't worry, I'm not revealing my-

Inner trauma.

[tense orchestral music]

Plating in three, my friends.

Yes, Chef!

All the actors that played all the chefs

were incredible in their ability

to kind of be so intimidating kind of soldiers of Chef.

You had them do training,

it was all choreographed faultlessly.

Yeah, we had this one week bootcamp with Lauren Candela,

our Second AD and John Benhase,

our local brilliant Chef from Savannah.

And also ever overseen by Dominique Crenn, of course.

Three Michelin Star,

literally the only woman in America still

to have three Michelin stars...

Getting that kind of backup in the kitchen

was a massive thing for me

to make sure we had that authenticity.

Literally everything they're doing

is completely correct for whatever course is being prepared.

Interestingly, I don't think any of us necessarily

describe ourselves as foodies

but I do remember we have really hard jobs...

We have to watch Chef's Table

and go to nice restaurants as research.

[Mark and Nick chuckling]

But I remember when Dominique came on set,

all of us were really starstruck

because we'd been obsessed like,

She is a rock star as well. She really is.

Don't mess it up, don't mess it up.

Something that I thought was really interesting

about how we're such ritualistic creatures

and that was something that you talked about a lot

at the very beginning,

where it's like we do not switch tables even when we leave,

when something shocking happens, we stay in our position-

Yep.

Because that's our only grasp of familiarity

or it makes us feel safe.

There were so many psychological studies on that

where when things become threatening in this restaurant,

there's so many studies backing it up

that given the choice of can you believe

that something is really bad could be happening here?

Or do you just wanna pretend it's all a show.

Every, nine outta 10 people will just go, It's a show.

And choose to believe that as,

rather than faced up to an uncomfortable truth.

I think we get saved in these movies when they get dark

because Mark hired very kind, wonderful people.

So it's quite shocking when staff or the chefs

will look so serious and then they all cut and it's like,

So how's your book?

How are you doing today?

Are you having a great time?

And I'm like, You're terrifying

but yes, okay all good, all good.