David Lowery’s upcoming film Mother Mary stars Anne Hathaway as the titular character, a tormented pop star seeking the help of a scorned friend, played by Michaela Coel, amid a grand comeback concert.
When speaking with Empire, the director shared how he drew inspiration from Taylor Swift‘s 2018 Reputation tour and concert film when shaping both the character’s performances and identify. “Her Reputation concert film is one of the best concert films ever,” Lowery said. “It’s truly phenomenal. And for our concert sequences we looked at that repeatedly,” he told the publication. “You would not believe the amount of time we were talking about Taylor.”
In theaters April 17, Mother Mary also stars Hunter Schafer, Atheena Frizzell, Kaia Gerber, Jessica Brown Findlay, Alba Baptista, Isaura Barbé-Brown, Sian Clifford, and FKA Twigs. The pop star backdrop of the film will be soundtracked by original music from Charli XCX, Jack Antonoff, and Twigs.
Lowery also said that Reputation served as a template for certain scenes when it came to budgeting. “We took three songs from Reputation and broke it down, shot by shot, and looked at them like, ‘Okay, if we were doing these, how much would these shots cost to do in visual effects?’,” he said. “We used that as a budgeting tool, because we didn’t know how to wrap our heads around actually pulling off a stadium concert-show on a minimal budget. We were literally using Reputation as a guide.”
Swift’s impact on the project left such a mark that when Mother Mary wrapped, Hathaway gifted Lowery a “Taylor Swift style beaded bracelet” with “Anti-Hero” on it, a nod to Swift’s massive 2022 hit from her 10th studio album, Midnights. Lowery added that both he and Hathaway attended her Eras Tour in Europe. “I definitely brought a lot of Taylor Swift to the table in terms of who Mother Mary was,” he said. “I would often would be like, ‘Imagine Taylor Swift in 10 or 15 years – that’s sort of who this character could be.’”
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