The twisted mind of Matthew Vaughn is one of my favorite places to be. I absolutely love getting to explore how he tackles the spy genre, and it has made Argylle one of my favorite of his films, mainly because I love when cats get their time to shine.
In talking to Vaughn about his work, it was clear that he tries to constantly reinvent himself and the stories he is telling. What makes Argylle stand out from his other spy franchise, the Kingsman, is that we get to see a woman at the center of it all. Author Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is writing her spy story about Agent Argylle (Henry Cavill) when she finds herself wrapped up in her own espionage case with Aidan (Sam Rockwell) as her guide.
One of the things that really grounds Elly as a character, for me, is her love of a certain song. The film uses “Now and Then,” the final song by The Beatles, as Elly’s song, and when I spoke with Vaughn, I asked him about whether or not they always had plans for “Now and Then” or if there was another song they had in mind to use as the score for certain moments in Elly’s journey.
“No, it definitely wasn’t always intended to be ‘Now and Then’ because I didn’t even know there was gonna be one,” Vaughn said. “I’ve got a pretty good imagination, but I never got to the point that I thought there’d be a new Beatles song coming my way. Giles (Martin) played it to me about a year and a half ago, because I said to him ‘I’m really struggling to find a love song that has pathos and hope and nothing was fitting.’ And a lot of it would work. All the love songs would either work for when she was in her home and the first dance, but it wouldn’t work for the action sequence at the end. And we were all over the place.”
Vaughn went on to talk about finding “Now and Then” and how it worked (and how he had to get approval from the remaining members of the Beatles, Ringo Starr and Sir Paul McCartney, to use it).
“I was getting really nervous and then Giles played me the song and we put it on the movie and it just fit. We didn’t have to change anything,” he said. “And the lyrics fit and the haunting ness of it and I was like, ‘Wow, this is meant to be.’ And then I had to, which was a pleasure by the way, then had to meet the surviving Beatles and the children and the records people and just go through and explain what we were doing with the song and how we wanted to use it. They looked at everything and by the end of it, they said yes. So, I mean, what a privilege to be able to say that I got to a work with the Beatles, use the last Beatles song. I’m very happy how it all turned out, it’s crazy. I mean it’s something that my life every now and then, something, excuse the pun, every now and then something happens to me, which every time I think I can’t have an astonishing moment, I get an astonishing moment. And ‘Now and Then,’ for me, is the highlight of making this movie because what a pleasant surprise.”
You can see our full conversation here:
Argylle is in theaters now!
(featured image: Universal Pictures)
