You could never accuse David Lowery of being one-note. The filmmaker began his career with a riff on Bonnie and Clyde in Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, and has since given us arthouse spookfests (A Ghost Story), Earthy-toned Disney remakes (Pete’s Dragon, Peter Pan & Wendy), and existential epic fantasies (The Green Knight). Oh, and he directed episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew too. Next up? He’s going full pop star psychodrama in Mother Mary, starring Anne Hathaway as a legendary pop icon, reconnecting with Michaela Coel’s mysterious dressmaker after they parted ways years previously.
The film boasts true pop cred, with songs penned by Charli XCX, super-producer Jack Antonoff, and fka twigs – but it doesn’t stop there. To craft a genuine pop spectacle, Lowery found himself in his Taylor Swift era. “Her Reputation concert film is one of the best concert films ever. It’s truly phenomenal. And for our concert sequences we looked at that repeatedly,” he tells Empire. “You would not believe the amount of time we were talking about Taylor.”
Swift’s 2018 tour proved pivotal in helping Lowery and his collaborators figure out how to put on a Mother Mary production within tight budgetary constraints. “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 explains. “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. I can go on about Reputation all day.” Baby, let the games begin.
The spirit of Taylor lived on through the Mother Mary shoot and beyond. “When we wrapped, Annie [Hathaway] gave me a Taylor Swift style beaded bracelet with ‘Anti-Hero’ on it,” reveals Lowery, adding that they both went to see the Eras Tour in Europe. “I definitely brought a lot of Taylor Swift to the table in terms of who Mother Mary was. I would often would be like, ‘Imagine Taylor Swift in ten or 15 years – that’s sort of who this character could be.’” Mother Mary is coming. Are you ready for it?
Read Empire’s Mother Mary feature in the Steven Spielberg issue – on sale Thursday April 9. Pre-order a copy online here. Mother Mary comes to UK cinemas on April 24.
