For the most part, James Watkins' Speak No Evil is pretty faithful to Christian Tafdrup's Danish original – but there are few ways in which it deviates massively from the source material. One is how it ends and another is a toe-curling scene that sees James McAvoy's antagonist Paddy sing at Scoot McNairy's Ben on a drive.
After Ben and his wife Louise (Mackenzie Davis) unsuccessfully try to leave the Felds' farmhouse in the wee hours, Paddy tries to defuse the tension by taking the former out for a spin in his prized sports car. En route, 'Eternal Flame' comes on the radio, which prompts Paddy to fully turn towards Ben and belt out lyrics like, "Give me your hand, darling" and "I watch you when you are sleeping".
"I channeled a friend of mine for that scene who – and I probably didn't even do as much as my friend does – will get the vibe to start singing a song, and then he won't stop singing till it's finished," McAvoy tells 12DOVE and Inside Total Film. "Usually, I don't even know the song, and he looks me dead in the eye with a huge smile on his face, and he's just singing it in my face, as if I'm singing it with him, and we're sharing this moment. I don't know the words, but he will go all the way to the end, as if we've shared this beautiful thing together. He's on his own, but I'm stuck in it. I'm just stuck in it. And so I definitely channeled him in that scene."
"James was like, 'Christ, you're going to make me sing?!'" Watkins recalls. "But he's so up for it, James, he's so committed. He's so in it. He's the most – I really mean this – brilliant, world-class actor and partner to be working with.
"That scene was great fun to film because there were so many outtakes of Scoot and James just cracking up. Literally, half a second after we cut on the take that's in the film, they both just lose it," the filmmaker continues. "But it's this weird thing, right? It's that queasy bromance.
"It's like, 'is this charming? Is this weird? Am I enjoying this? Is he serenading me? Is this cool? Is this uncool? It's all unspoken, and the music is so brilliant as well," he goes on. "We had an issue with the rights, so Jason Blum actually went to Jay Roach, who’s married to Susanna Hoffs from The Bangles – we needed that Hollywood connection to sort of sweeten the deal. I'd written that song into the script, I wanted it so bad. It was just perfect."
Speak No Evil is in UK cinemas now. It releases in the US on September 13. For more, check out our list of the best horror movies of all time, or our guide to the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way.
Listen out for more of our chat with McAvoy on an upcoming episode of the Inside Total Film podcast, which is available on Apple, Audioboom, Spotify, and more.
