I’m still seething with jealousy at those who got to see filmmaker Edgar Wright’s new movie Baby Driver at SXSW this weekend, but I’m heartened that the first reviews are overwhelmingly positive. This is the film that Wright fired up just after he left Marvel’s Ant-Man, choosing to forge ahead on an original idea that’s been percolating in his head for over two decades. Ansel Elgort stars as the titular Baby, a getaway driver who suffers from tinnitus and constantly listens to music to drown out the ringing in his ears. But as he strikes up a relationship with a local waitress (played by Lily James), his world comes into danger of crashing down.

Two trailers hit the internet this weekend, a domestic one and an international one, and Wright sat down with the good folks at Empire to break down the international trailer and offer some more details about the film. Wright reveals that Baby has a way of understanding what others are saying even as he’s listening to music:

“Baby signs and can lipread, so he has no problems taking in exactly what’s happening even if he’s listening to jazz and playing along on the table.”

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Image via Sony Pictures

Wright also explains that the central premise of the film explores Baby’s thinking that he does crime but isn’t a criminal:

“He’s somebody who’s in it for the buzz more than the spoils. Baby genuinely excels at, and likes, driving fast. What the movie becomes about is the idea that Baby can’t be in crime without becoming criminal. Can this getaway driver escape himself?”

Wright broke down one particularly impressive shot in the trailer while expressing that the majority of the film’s stunts are practical, unlike some other car-centric action movies…

“Jeremy Fry, our ace stunt driver, and Darrin Prescott, our Stunt Coordinator, came up with that one, which is this idea of doing a 180 in and a 180 out. It’s quite astonishing to look at. We tried to do nearly everything for real on the roads. This is real driving. These are real stunts. And it feels like a real getaway chase in terms of the short cuts, outfoxing the police, and hairpin turns.”

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Image via Sony Pictures

As for the film’s soundtrack, Wright says it’s full of digetic music:

“One of the premises of the movie is that Baby is pretty much soundtracking the movie. Every song you hear in the movie is actually happening within the scene. And in some parts of the movie he can’t really operate properly without the right music playing.”

Wright also took a very specific approach to the progressive chase sequences:

“The idea with the progression of the movie is that the chase at the start is the dream chase where everything goes right. And then things start to go wrong. It’s the idea of pulling away the fantasy of being a getaway driver, to the nightmare reality of it. And in this situation, Baby sees that this is not a job he wants to continue with.”

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Image via Focus Features

The Hot Fuzz and The World’s End filmmaker also singled out his influences in the dynamism of the action sequences:

“I tried to design it like a Hong Kong movie or a musical where there’s five setpieces. I’m a big fan of setpieces that radically change, where something goes wrong and the nature of the action changes.”

And finally, while the film is funny, Wright says he very much conceived of it as a genuine action-thriller:

“I think some press and people just assumed it was a comedy. But it was definitely my dream to make an action thriller, with a particular tweak to it. It’s in the mode of action movies and thrillers I love.”

As if I wasn’t already excited enough without the revelation of the practical stunts, the thinking behind the soundtrack, and the Hong Kong action influence, I need this movie now. Unfortunately there’s a long wait ahead—Baby Driver opens in theaters on August 11th.

 

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