British actress Daisy Ridley and her screenwriter husband Tom Bateman are “already cooking up another two” film projects, because they loved the experience of working on upcoming thriller Magpie together. Ridley appeared at the UK premiere of the Sam Yates-directed production at the Odeon Luxe in London alongside Bateman, who wrote the neo-noir film for his wife and actor Shazad Latif. The Star Wars actress “came up with this seed of an idea” when the couple were “first talking about making a movie together”, Bateman told the PA news agency.
“We were inspired by quite a lot of different films in different tones, films like Tully, Memento, some Hitchcock stuff, so there was a real varied source of inspiration and I wanted to just pull it all together, because they’re my favourite kind of movies,” he said. Bateman described working alongside his wife of seven years, who is “one of my favourite actors in the world”, as “heaven”, adding “I loved it so so much”. “It’s crazy to be standing here and sharing it with everyone, because it honestly just started me and her talking in the car, I was picking her up from the airport,” he said.
“And then it was just us kicking it around in a house in the countryside, and me just writing pages in the morning, Daisy telling me what she thought, helping me steer it.” Bateman said he catered the role for Ridley and one of his “dear friends” Latif, knowing what audiences expect of them and subverting it.