Hello, this is Tate Taylor, director of Girl on the Train.
Thank you for watching the movie with me today, wherever you may be.
I look forward to telling you a little bit more about the production
and some of the daily ins and outs.
My husband used to tell me I have an overactive imagination.
I can't help it.
I mean, haven't you ever been on a train
and wondered about the lives of the people who live near the tracks?
The lives you've never lived.
These are things I want to know.
It's the amazing Emily Blunt, of course.
Some of the shots you saw earlier,
which are supposed to be her point of view, like this one, from the train track,
is actually a neighborhood that is on an abandoned golf course.
So we shot down the fairway on an e-car,
mimicking the movement of a train.
And then in post-production, with our wonderful special effects department,
we added... Like right there, this is really a golf course.
And we added the images,
so you get the feeling that she's along a river.
I'm not the girl I used to be.
I think people can see it on my face.
I made the decision to shoot this scene at night
because I was having trouble
finding a way to capture
the faces of Luke Evans and Haley Bennett who play Scott and Megan.
So, instead of trying to shoot them through the window at night,
I decided to put a fire pit in their yard.
As if that was a nightly ritual.
There's the wonderful Luke Evans.
This is Grand Central Station.
We spent two grueling days shooting in the working train station.
But it's such a beautiful place.
I imagine she's a painter.
Emily and I thought it would be fun that our Rachel gets her shoes shined
at the train station,
which would, hopefully, further make the audience member think
that she is actually going to work each day when, in fact, she's not.
I wonder what they say to each other before they go to sleep.
My dear friend from Mississippi, Coyt Bailey, shot all these aerials.
The train is a big, big part of the movie and a character,
so we wanted to get some aerials showing the route of Rachel.
The truth is, I don't know her name.
I don't know if she paints or whether he has a good laugh.
I just know they know love.
Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember
the last time I had meaningful contact with another person.
I used to live two doors down, number 13 Beckett Road.
No!
It was my first home.
We bought it together. It was ours.
This wonderful set was designed and built by Kevin Thompson,
our production designer.
And most of the interiors you see were shot onstage in Yonkers,
and of course, as I said, this exterior is along a golf course.
Are you alone?
Yeah. No. Come. It's all yours.
Okay.
- Your baby's so cute. - Thank you.
All these interior train shots were also shot in Yonkers.
We had an actual Metro-North train car wrapped in green screen,
and our team did a wonderful job
with the exteriors matching the line of the Hudson.
I wanted this to be the first time you gather that she had a little bit of a drinking problem.
Emily did such a fantastic job, like right there.
Just showing the despair and the loneliness.
And, of course, her reliance on alcohol.
Also that scene with the mother planted, hopefully, it plants the seed
that there's something else in her life she's missing,
which is a baby.
A teacher once told me I was a mistress of self-reinvention.
I wasn't really sure what it meant at the time.
I chose to shoot the Pilates studio
just as you see the other women are looking at Megan.
And I just wanted to create this fish out of water, this beautiful siren,
who's in this place where she doesn't want to live
and to get the impression that the women don't want her there either.
I wanna start my life over again.
So far, I've been a rebellious teenager,
lover,
waitress,
gallery director.
Ann Roth did our costume designs,
and one of the first things we built her character around
was that snakeskin jacket you had just seen her touching.
We wanted Megan to have three different looks.
A seductress, a little girl,
and the lonely housewife.
That's why I stay awake at night, staring at the ceiling.
In fact, the only time I feel like myself is when I'm running.
You always felt that way?
Maybe since I was about 17.
With Mac.
Mac?
Who's Mac?
My brother's best friend.
My brother who died.
That's Édgar Ramírez.
I tend to smile when I'm nervous.
Sometimes I laugh.
In the novel,
the character of Kamal Abdic was Eastern European.
It just seemed moving the movie to New York
that it would make more sense if, perhaps, if he was foreign, if he was of Latin descent.
And Édgar is from Venezuela, and I called Édgar and I said,
"What do you think about keeping the same name from the book?"
And he quickly responded
that Venezuela is one of the biggest melting pots in the world of all cultures
and easily, he can have that name, so we stuck with the name from the novel.
Everyone thought we were dead.
And if you were to run away today, right now, where would you go?
The character of Dr. Abdic's office is quite large.
I was really cautious
about having therapy scenes feel like the typical therapy scene in a movie
where they're in a closed proximity and they're stuck in one place, so...
I wanted him to have an unconventional office with a lot of space for movement.
I'm pretty sure Scott thinks the nanny job is gonna make me less restless.
Make me wanna get pregnant.
And that's not the case?
When I finish work every night, I run home and I get in the shower,
and I wash the smell of that baby off of me as fast as I can.
When you woke up this morning,
I went and I brought you back to bed with me.
That is one of the two twin girls of my DP, Charlotte Bruus,
who did just an amazing job.
And we used her two twin girls.
Okay, I think that's Selma.
I can't remember if it's Selma or Ellen
'cause, of course, they're identical twins.
But it was a big help to have the babies of our DP be in the movie.
Except, we had to hide Charlotte in some of these shots
'cause, of course, they wanted to get out of the bathtub and go straight to their mother.
So she had to hide in another room when we shot her children.
It was pretty hilarious.
There you go.
Hello.
I swear, I sometimes feel like my heart is gonna explode.
I mean, look at her. Look at her!
You're not sleeping!
Hello?
You're not sleeping.
Hello?
And of course, that's the beautiful Rebecca Ferguson.
She is just a hilarious, fun person to have on set and to work with,
and quite talented.
It was kind of tricky, because in the novel, these two characters look alike.
That when you are bringing that story trait to film,
you have to be very careful so they don't look too much alike.
So, this kind of served as a point in the movie
where I had them in a scene together,
where I truly tried to give them different hairstyles.
That's where the French braid came into play versus the hair clip.
That's great.
The thing is, it starts tomorrow.
I'm out all day tomorrow. That is so uncool.
I hate to leave you like this without childcare,
but you don't have a job.
Okay, that sounded wrong.
I know that you're busy volunteering.
It's not the volunteering.
It's all the shopping, it's spending hours in the farmers' market,
it's finding the right foods for her, it's pureeing sweet potatoes,
and I do all of this at the same time
as I'm nursing.
Maybe you should go back to work, too.
Mothers need to work. It's actually better for the kid.
And how would you know?
I said earlier about Haley playing the little girl,
and this is kind of that character.
There's no job more important than raising a child.
It's kind of the dressed down and plaid,
I mean, she's still beautiful, but...
And then, Rebecca and I talked about having a version of house clothes
that you kinda... An outfit you feel like she just wakes up and puts on
every single morning.
And, of course, this is the first hint of the connection of these three women.
Rachel!
What are you doing? Give me my baby.
Rachel, what are you doing?
Again, Rachel, the character, is standing in front of
a golf course fairway,
that just, again, shows how wonderfully our team filled in the background
with what appears to be the Hudson River.
There's Justin Theroux.
Beautiful.
Did a wonderful job as Tom.
How many times has she texted you today?
I don't know.
She called the landline three times.
- You have to talk to her. - I know.
It's getting crazy.
I will. I know, I know, I know.
Okay.
It's gonna be fine.
Isn't it always fine? Don't I always make everything fine?
Stop!
Who gives a shit? It's your birthday.
Are you sure you don't want me to take you out tonight?
- No, I like it at home. - Call Megan.
Ask her to come back.
And there it is, the famous corkscrew.
She what?
It was really tricky handling the corkscrew
which, of course, as you know, would be
the vehicle of death for Tom.
And in the book, Rachel's kitchen was just the same,
and she found it in a drawer, so I wanted to see it in a more subtle way.
So you didn't have a hand fishing for it in a drawer,
so, we decided that it was a permanent fixture on the refrigerator
until we realized it's a stainless steel refrigerator
and nothing magnetic sticks to it.
So we had to cheat and double stick it.
Again, this is onstage in Yonkers.
And that is a real shot of the Hudson River Line.
This montage, of course, obviously shows
the three degrees of the differences in these women's lives.
The woman who appears to have everything.
The woman who only has alcohol and memories.
And then, of course, the character of Anna,
who perhaps chose a life that she is bored in,
and can't seem to quite get rid of the ex-wife, Rachel.
There was very few opportunities to link these women together
within the montages or even scenes,
because they just aren't together, ever.
So, I had to really take advantage of these moments.
Hey, Tom. It's me.
I just wanted to wish Momma a happy birthday.
- Happy birthday, Mom... - Rachel!
Laura Prepon,
who's a wonderful actress and a real joy to have around.
- Cathy, come on! - Relax!
I just need some to go to sleep, that's all.
I just need a little bit to go to sleep.
What brought this on?
He posted another picture of the baby.
This is onstage, but we saw a location,
this town of Croton,
that we weren't able to shoot in because of the size.
But we liked the people's apartments so much
that we pretty much duplicated it on set. Kevin Thompson did.
Rachel, you have to stop calling them, okay?
I really appreciate this room.
I do.
I thought that I would just be here for a couple of weeks or months.
Emily and I came up with a way to keep track of her levels of intoxication.
And we had four levels.
And this would be, probably, a level three.
Level four, which is coming up later.
And they were all marked by certain prosthetics
that she would have at her cheeks.
And contacts that were more or less bloodshot at times.
There are very few moments of Rachel and Tom,
other than memories described in the novel.
So I decided to write and shoot this scene,
to have just a glimpse at happier times
when there was compassion and love in their relationship.
Again, bringing back the theme of motherhood and her being barren,
which was pretty much the catalyst of her drinking,
and what we thought was everything being her fault.
It's a good bit of reversal of expectation with that scene, of course.
And then, this is what she is longing to have, the idyllic life of Megan.
Again, amazing work there,
of putting reflection in windows that don't even exist.
This was all on stage.
That's Darren.
The red-headed man. He was a tricky character to handle.
In the novel, he had a bit of a different role.
And there was debate as to whether to keep him in or out of the movie,
and we ultimately decided to keep him in but kind of changed his role
as to be another person that Rachel feels is judging her.
Who is that man?
In the novel, you don't know who it was.
As written, like Rachel, you can't recall
or you can't see who it was that she was kissing,
and that proved to be very difficult in the film version.
Until I finally realized it doesn't matter if we know that it's Abdic,
because we don't know the nature of his relationship.
And Rachel doesn't know who he is.
So it was very freeing
to getting to abandon the obscured face, which proved very hard to pull off,
and, ultimately, didn't matter.
I decided on this location and the Dancing Maidens fountain
because you didn't really know where she went each day.
In the novel, you realize that she went to museums and such.
I really wanted to know what she did with her days in New York
and I picked that location.
And cinematically, I loved how it kind of represented
three very different women, yet connected somehow.
When it happened to me, I found dozens of e-mails.
Tom told her that he'd never felt like this before.
He said it wouldn't be that much longer until they were together.
I know what they say. You shouldn't check his e-mail.
I was stupid.
This is one of my favorite locations.
The Oyster Bar.
We are the first movie ever to film there.
And Emily is talking to Cleta Ellington, who is my first AD.
And she was in Get On Up and she was in The Help.
She's my muse and I love putting her in films. It's a lot of fun.
Come here for one second.
Say "Fuck you, Anna Boyd," but just yell it, all right?
- Fuck you, Anna Boyd! - Fuck you, Anna Boyd!
This is actually the women's bathroom of the Oyster Bar in Grand Central.
You wouldn't think it was but it is, and it just is such a harshly-lit location.
Charlotte just did a wonderful job.
She's operating right now. We just used the light that was there.
Sometimes when light is unappealing, it fits scenes perfectly.
Emily just really knocked this out of the park.
This is a level four of our drunk scale.
I could never find the words to describe how I felt...
You can see her puffed cheeks. That's prosthetic.
We called them "plumpers."
They're in each of her cheeks.
And you can see the bloodshot of her eyes.
That was done with menthol and contacts we had made.
Betraying her husband, I felt...
I felt it.
I felt pure rage.
It was like something had been taken from me again.
If I could...
If I could, I'd just go to her house...
Very emotionally draining for Emily right here.
We did this about five times.
And I'd just...
I'd wrap my hand in her long blonde hair and I'd jerk her head back.
I'd just jerk it back...
We had a great time working together. We had such a great collaboration.
I thought I was finished with that scene,
and then I had the idea for her to smear the lipstick,
and I asked her if she had one more in her, and she did.
And she just did such a great job.
You're listening to my composer, Danny Elfman.
This is one of...
It's his work, and this is just outstanding
and daring, and this is one of my favorite pieces.
This is a theme that will come back throughout the film.
That's actually a practical location.
The Ardsley-on-Hudson station.
This was a tricky sequence as well.
Because we're covering a lot of activity at dusk throughout the movie.
So, Charlotte did a wonderful job with the lighting
and picking our times of day to film.
Because you'll keep coming back to this time in the film throughout the movie
and you realize how much happened at dusk.
So we had to plan accordingly.
Hey!
You whore!
We decided to go forward with this.
Complete with vomit on the floor, dried blood.
I spent the past hour driving around looking for you.
You scared the shit out of Anna. Do you know that?
She thought you were gonna...
She wanted to call the police. So just...
Leave us alone.
You can ruin your own life if you want to, but you're not gonna destroy ours.
I'm not gonna protect you anymore.
Oh, my God.
Rachel? Open the door.
Cathy, I just need a sec.
Are you okay?
Rachel, open the door.
I have a stomach flu.
- Okay? I just... - You don't have a flu.
What the fuck, Rachel?
I'm not stupid!
- Rachel! - Cathy, just go away!
The day of shooting this was the day I learned that Emily was pregnant.
She had been keeping a secret from me
when she explained that we could not show her stomach.
I said, "Why not?" She goes, "'Cause I'm pregnant."
You whore!
No!
Anyone counting days 1 to 90, who would like to share a day count?
- Hey, I'm Jason. I'm an alcoholic. - Welcome, Jason.
I've got 22 days back.
I didn't let Emily rehearse this scene.
I wanted to bring her in into a room full of strangers
to really see how that would feel for this monologue,
and it was quite effective.
She said it was very scary.
Thank you. This is day one, I suppose.
This trepidation and embarrassment is quite real.
I'm here because I...
Because I...
Because I woke up covered in blood.
And I had bruises all over my arm...
It's usually from when I've fallen and someone's helped me up.
My husband...
He used to tell me what I'd done the night before.
And I learned when you wake up like that, you just say you're sorry.
You just say you're sorry for what you did, and you're sorry for who you are,
and you're never gonna do it again.
But you do. You do it again.
And there's time missing.
I need to remember.
- Okay. Thank you, Rachel. - Thank you, Rachel.
In the novel, Rachel recollected a lot about what she did wrong. And...
But you didn't see many of the instances.
So I created the character of Martha, played by Lisa Kudrow.
I took it from a line in the novel where Rachel, just in one sentence,
talks about how she used to ruin her husband, Tom's, office parties
and embarrass him.
Deviled eggs? Yeah, I do.
So I wanted to show one of those moments.
The classics. Do you wanna try one, anybody?
Those go outside. I don't want the eggs with the dessert.
It doesn't fucking matter where they go, okay?
So do you wanna put them here? Do you want them with your hot dogs?
And I'm from the south,
so somehow deviled eggs make it into every one of my movies.
First time they've ever hit a wall.
I'm fine, Tom! Stop it.
This is in Midtown, New York.
Of course, exterior, Grand Central.
Probably got me fired back there.
I don't give a fuck. I'm your wife.
- I'm your wife and you never... - Rachel.
- You never fucking support me. - Rachel, please stop it!
Hey, come on! I need you to focus here.
- Don't fucking talk to me like that! - Relax!
- Rachel. There you are. - Cathy, I'm sorry.
I need to get my shit together.
You must be Ms. Watson.
I'm Detective Riley. This is Detective Gaskill.
We need to ask you a few questions.
What's this about?
Wonderful Allison Janney.
In the novel, the female was the sidekick.
And I thought in the movie, it'd be great to make the chief detective a female
since this is a story of females and how they view each other,
and treat each other and judge each other.
And of course, Allison's been in everything I've ever made.
And she just really did such a great job.
And then I decided that it was a bad idea.
Around what time did you reach that conclusion?
I was back here by 11:00.
Yeah. Yeah.
On your way back here, did you stop anywhere?
No.
And what time did you take the train there?
6:00.
So, what'd you do during those hours in Ardsley,
if you weren't seeing your ex-husband?
Do you remember seeing this woman?
She worked for your ex-husband.
She's gone missing.
What do you mean she's missing?
Her husband said she never came back home
the same night you got off the train in Ardsley-on-Hudson.
I was just...
- Do you know Megan Hipwell? - No!
- Did you see her? - No, I don't think so.
Is that because you were inebriated?
Just to clarify, you said you were at work Friday?
Are you referring to your job in public relations?
Right.
It's my understanding you were fired from that job over a year ago
because of your drinking problem.
A big reveal.
Okay. That's enough for now.
If you're able to remember anything else, give us a call.
Did you really get fired?
Look, I didn't want you to worry that I couldn't pay the rent.
If you don't have a job, then what do you do every day?
I ride the train.
You what?
I ride the train to New York and back.
That's what your alimony's paying for? Tickets to nowhere?
That's really fucking weird, Rachel.
Okay, okay.
I got on the train, and then I got off the train.
I don't know. It's very unclear.
You don't remember anything, do you?
I read about this man in Long Island who blacked out.
He left a bar,
drove to the house that he'd grown up in, stabbed its occupants to death.
He woke up the next morning oblivious to what he did,
until the police came to get him.
Rachel!
What? What?
You have to leave.
I can't do this anymore. I'll give you a few weeks...
Hold on.
As you could've seen from that last shot,
it was virtually impossible to have Megan kiss a man
without having any idea of who he was, which is why we just let that story point go.
She was having an affair. She had a lover.
That's what I'm trying to tell you.
I thought you didn't know her.
About 12 degrees right now, 1:00 in the morning, on the river.
And needless to say, we were freezing our asses off.
This man was different and they were kissing.
It's one of those scenes in a movie
where you're so glad you're working with such pros.
That a woman you don't know, but somehow recognize
is cheating on her husband?
Allison's... Listen to her.
The way she could just rattle this dialogue off.
I think it comes from her days of The West Wing.
There was no flubs ever, and we were glad to get warm again.
Mrs. Watson reported that you go to their house sometimes uninvited
and that on one occasion, you actually broke in and took their child.
Let me give you some advice.
Don't go back to Beckett Road. Don't contact your ex-husband.
Don't go anywhere near Anna Watson or her baby.
Are you listening to me?
Yes.
You don't live there anymore.
Stay away.
You know, I lie all the time.
I lie to Scott.
Of course, Megan the seductress.
I mean, I know that's not the point of therapy,
but I have to keep things vague.
Jumble up all the men, the exes, the lovers.
It doesn't matter who they are. It matters how they make me feel.
Lying is like taking a trip.
It's like having a secret.
Erin, who adopted this for screen,
just did such a wonderful job with the dialogue in these therapy sessions.
Except you.
But you're just pretending.
You're just pretending to touch yourself.
That line right there came during rehearsal between Édgar and Haley and myself
in my apartment in New York.
I just was really trying to find a way to make him more engaged
in her overt sexuality
to where you were left wondering if he had an ulterior motive.
And that came out during rehearsal. It was really fun.
"You're just pretending to touch yourself."
So, when I came home last night,
Scott was on my laptop, wondering why...
Scott's behavior is not normal.
It's a form of emotional abuse.
Are you ever afraid of Scott?
It's not abuse.
And now Haley is the little girl again.
She did such a wonderful job going between the three Megans.
Is it normal I think about you all the time?
"Almost exactly a week ago,
"Megan Hipwell walked out of number 15 Beckett Road and disappeared.
"No one has seen her since.
"Neither her phone nor her bank cards have been used since Friday."
The very first day, I scouted by myself.
Just to get a feel for the days of Rachel,
I went to the Whitney Museum and I found this painting,
and looked at it.
And it just struck me how relevant it was in its theme to this movie.
So I incorporated it into the film.
It just shows such great loneliness and isolation.
And I just had the idea that Rachel went there to look at it each day.
But then I realized, if Megan worked in a gallery,
how interesting would it be that that painting was also a fixture in Megan's life.
You Megan's friend?
Yes. Rachel.
Come in.
The Whitney was gracious enough to let us duplicate the painting for the film.
Tooker is the artist.
Sorry, it's a mess.
I've been hunting for her social, her birth certificate.
The cops need a lot.
Have we met somewhere before?
I don't think so.
And you know Megan from...
From the gallery.
You're an artist?
I think this scene shows some of Emily's greatest work in the film.
One of the few times she's actually sober.
And look how differently she's carrying herself,
and how frightened she is without her companion.
Which is usually vodka.
With who?
She was up there on your porch.
I saw her from the train, because I commute to Manhattan every day
and I go straight past here.
She kissed him.
They were kissing.
I'm sorry. I know this is a terrible thing to hear.
Luke was the perfect man to cast for this role.
There's danger, there's sexuality and such pain.
What did he look like?
You get that he knew what he got when he married Megan,
but like all of us, you think you can change people when you cannot.
You can just see this realization.
This shot represents...
In the novel, Rachel talks about Scott in a very sexual way.
Fuck.
I just wanted to remind everybody that she's obsessed with these people.
And of course, that ventures into sexual fantasy.
Okay, sure.
It could... I don't know.
Maybe it's a good thing.
Could mean she's all right.
Rachel takes that beer and it gets a big laugh with the audience,
and there was some fear that it was a bad laugh.
And I insisted, and everybody agreed, that it's actually a good laugh.
You know her well enough to know where we live.
Megan doesn't have many friends.
Well, I used to live nearby, and she and I...
We took... We took...
We took Pilates together.
I think I should go. I feel like I've taken up too much of your time.
So sorry to have had to tell you that in that way...
Hey.
Do you think you'd recognize him again if you saw him?
I don't know.
There's a guy. A therapist.
His name's Abdic...
Kamal Abdic.
Is that who you saw?
I don't know. I really can't tell.
She spends a lot of fucking time with her shrink.
That's him.
I remember. That's him.
This is one of my favorite shots in the film.
Charlotte did such a great job capturing her face half-lit.
I'm sorry.
Where are you?
Snakeskin jacket.
Again, representing the seductress,
and Megan at her most manipulative
and sexual,
but if you realize, the lowest points of her life.
That shot came to me as we were about to move locations.
I realized I wanted to have him jump up out of the chair,
so we had to run everybody back into the set for that shot,
'cause I knew it would make a great transition to this.
What subject?
Megan?
What subject?
It's okay.
Megan.
All right, Megan.
I decided to shoot the scene of Megan in the cabin.
No.
And ultimately what horrible, horrific things happened there
just 'cause I really thought her character needed it for us to have empathy for her,
and to realize that we misunderstood her the entire time.
Or yet, we now really understand her.
I don't give a fuck!
I don't give a fuck about your fucking practice!
I don't give a...
Dr. Kamal Abdic has been brought in for questioning...
In the screenplay, there was a lot of texting and news reporters,
and reading of magazine articles in Rachel's head.
And I just did not want that in the film,
so I made the decision that
since so much is playing out in Rachel's head,
that I would have her read the news reports
and hear her voice reading news articles.
And I kept the texting to a limit.
If someone was reading a text,
you heard the person who authored that text in their own voice.
I think that technology can be very intrusive in storytelling,
so I really wanted to lighten it as much as possible.
There wasn't enough evidence.
And because I'm the one that got him arrested, he talked.
This is Luke's very first day.
It'll just take some time.
One of his toughest scenes. He had to walk in and do this on his first day.
You sure as fuck better be.
I don't understand.
The police think I did it.
Yeah, but he's the one...
His accent work is fantastic.
He was going for the outskirts of Boston.
Abdic told them I'm abusive.
When she walked out, I didn't go after her.
I never called to check on her.
I went to a sports bar for fuck's sake.
Got drunk.
No. We just need to find more evidence on Abdic.
I've spent the whole day going through her stuff.
There's no e-mails, there's nothing.
You can see Kevin did a great job.
We decided that the interior of Megan and Scott's house was not finished.
It's as if they moved in and have just slowly been unpacking boxes.
That's why you see behind her a lamp without a shade on it.
Do you mind?
And now we're approaching Justin Theroux's first day.
Rachel, no.
Ann, get in the house.
Your wife hit me on Friday night.
- No. What are you talking about? - Yes.
Yes, you did. Yes, you did!
And then she... She got in your car.
No. She said you yelled at her that night.
No. That is not what happened.
She was in the tunnel and she hit me.
I don't wanna argue on the street. It's the middle of the day and you're drunk.
Look, I'm not drunk, Tom.
My wife is scared of you.
Of what?
I don't even know if that's a joke or not.
Justin did such a great job.
You have no idea he is completely lying to her.
Everything out of his mouth is bullshit,
but you believe every bit to be true.
Were you just at Scott Hipwell's house?
Why are you at Scott Hipwell's house?
Because I'm helping...
I'm helping him.
- How? - To try and find Megan.
You don't even know Megan!
Rach,
I don't think you're helping anybody.
So you're here because you want to uncover lost memories?
- Is that correct? - You have an accent.
Pardon?
No. Sorry. I wasn't expecting you to have an accent.
Well, you have an accent.
Where are you from?
I'm American citizen.
But I guess you're not here to talk about me.
- Unless you are. - No.
Sorry, I was just trying to make conversation.
The blackouts.
You're experiencing blackouts?
Do you wanna tell me about them?
Édgar and Emily and I spent quite a bit of time rehearsing this scene,
and it changed quite a bit.
It just doesn't feel like me, or like something that I would do.
And the end result, I think, is beautiful.
But it's like it's so far removed that I have a...
I just don't feel bad enough.
You wanna take personal responsibility for what you've done...
I wanted her to go from coming there with a motive of investigating him
and then see how quickly he can
turn it into a therapy session she was not intending on having.
Because you clearly drink.
You've been drinking today, haven't you?
And now it shifts.
And she's trapped.
I like to draw.
Art, I guess.
Good. We can try to regain some of your memories by drawing them.
I've tried it. It doesn't work.
And have you ever tracked all the way back to when you started drinking heavily?
When was that?
It was with Tom.
When I couldn't get pregnant.
Who's Tom?
He's my ex-husband.
You wanna talk about that?
I really wanted a baby.
We tried everything and nothing worked.
And it just absolutely...
It just broke my heart and...
So I got really sad.
And then...
And then the booze just broke us.
Good. Tell me more.
I used to watch this perfect couple.
Another one of Danny's themes creeping in the background.
Just beautiful.
Danny Elfman, our composer.
And then she betrayed him.
And it sparked something in me.
This cut right there is one of my favorite.
My editor, Mike McCusker, and Andrew Buckland.
It's a seemingly harsh cut to that profile,
but it, in a way, shows who she is, truly is, for the first time.
What she's been hiding, that ugly side of her face,
and what's in her mind.
That's my dog, Earl, and my partner John.
And July 6th. You get the point.
She sometimes texts him dozens of times a day.
But these are all from an unknown number.
This scene did not come into the movie until about midway through.
I realized I really needed to paint
a potential duplicitous nature of Anna.
But these are texts, they're not threats.
I wanted everybody to be a suspect, and I needed more.
And it also served Allison's character, Detective Riley.
It leaves you wondering what she's up to.
If she's creating all of this on her own, for her own reasons.
You sure your husband doesn't wanna stay in touch with his ex-wife?
What? No. She's harassing us.
Is that what he calls it?
Hi.
- Hey. - Hey.
Hi.
Reporters are in my yard.
They're everywhere. I didn't know where else to go.
Come in.
The detective just...
The detective just told me something I've wanted to hear for a long time.
This scene used to be about three times as long.
And more and more my editors and I realized,
we just needed to get to the crux of it,
which was, he's in pain and she's pregnant.
But she fought me every step of the way.
We always fought about it.
Did Megan ever say anything about me to you?
She loved you.
She loved you in ways that people only dream of being loved.
This is one of my favorite shots and scenes in the movie.
In the book,
Scott and Rachel have sex on this evening.
It just didn't translate.
It did not serve any of their characters in a good way.
When you have such an unreliable narrator, who's so damaged,
it was just too much to add that to the mix.
This is a Frank Lloyd Wright home, outside of New York City.
It's beautiful.
I just...
I wanted Abdic to be really into architecture and art and furniture.
I wanna tell you.
And then I'll be gone. I swear.
It was a big day for Haley Bennett.
Two of her toughest scenes we filmed back-to-back.
This was the end of the day, that day. Her confession.
I was 17.
I had her by myself.
She had dark eyes and blonde hair.
I expected it to be hard, but it wasn't.
It was easy.
Because I loved her.
I loved her.
We called her Elizabeth.
Libby.
The flashback you're about to see right now, we shot the very morning of this night shoot.
He'd gone off and left.
The roof was leaking.
This is actually a garage in a real neighborhood
in someone's backyard.
And we turned it into a hunting cabin.
We made sure the tub water was hot for Haley,
but it was 40 degrees outside.
We had a rain machine.
Very demanding for this young lady.
I fell asleep.
I let her go.
I couldn't look.
I didn't wanna see it.
I didn't wanna see her like that.
I wrapped her in a blanket and I buried her.
But in reality, shooting that scene the morning of this day,
putting her through that,
allowed her to do this amazing work that evening.
And he never came back.
He never came back.
I missed our home.
So one day, when I was drunk,
I decided to go there.
Of course, this is a level four of intoxication for Emily's character.
And I think one of Danny Elfman's most successful pieces in the film.
And then I heard Evie.
Who's Evie?
Tom's baby.
That was one of six babies we had that day.
I'm very much against fake babies or plastic dolls.
I will not do it.
So we bring in the troops.
I know this sounds insane.
But I just wanted to hold her.
Just for a moment.
And besides the symbolic fountain in Central Park,
this is really the only time we have the three women linked together.
Megan, Rachel and Anna.
Rachel!
What are you doing?
Rachel.
I made the decision to lay the baby in the grass,
and it was met with some objection at first from both Emily and Rebecca Ferguson.
Being mothers themselves, they just couldn't imagine doing that,
but I got permission from the children's mothers.
And I think it's pretty haunting.
It just shows the desperate exit of Emily.
I would never hurt her.
Another one of my favorite shots in the film.
I just wanted to hold her.
Emily was a real trouper.
She went off with the second unit and ran through the marshes.
I wanted to reveal Megan's body and murder in a subtle way.
I just thought it would be more horrific
and more tragic
to just see how she was left
than a big discovery.
And here is what I was describing about Emily reading out loud,
in voiceover, the news reports.
I wanted it to be chaotic.
"Sources say the partially decomposed body found
"is missing Ardsley woman, Megan Hipwell.
"Death a result of blunt force trauma.
"Megan Hipwell's investigation now being called a homicide."
What's wrong?
I'm sorry.
This reminds me of when I used to watch you getting dressed before going back to her.
Back to this house.
I actually miss being the other woman.
Did you enjoy cheating on Rachel?
Seriously?
Can we not fixate on her?
I saw her again today.
Where?
This afternoon, when the police brought Scott back home.
She was across the street.
And when she saw me, she got aggressive.
Aggressive how?
What if Rachel killed Megan?
Rachel did not kill Megan.
Then why is she creeping around Scott's house?
- She's dangerous and you know it. - Anna. Anna.
Sweetheart.
Rachel is a sad person.
She's completely harmless.
What are you doing here?
How did you get in?
Come here. Have a beer with me.
I'm not drinking right now.
Detective Riley came to see me last night.
And turns out, I'm not the father.
Neither is the shrink.
Did my wife confide in you about a third man?
Sit down.
Sit down!
Look, I don't know what this is about.
Come on.
Luke's one of the sweetest men you'll ever meet,
so it was quite impressive to see him go to this place.
Admit it.
It's definitely not in his nature.
Admit that you never even fucking met my wife.
The detective said you didn't even know Megan.
She used other words, too.
Alcoholic. Maybe even mentally unstable.
I am sorry. I was honestly just trying to help you.
You're Tom's crazy ex.
When the fuck were you gonna tell me that?
And now the detective is asking if you and I are in a relationship?
You?
I would never even get near someone like you!
My wife is dead and you're lying to me!
What's wrong with you?
Who does this?
I needed to tell you about Megan's affair,
and you wouldn't have believed me if I was just Tom's ex!
Thank you for getting Abdic to point the finger at me.
For getting the cops to say that you and I are fucking!
How are they going?
You know, the sessions.
With the doctor.
I wanted to know about Abdic and I went to him to help you.
You're just a sad liar with no life.
You're all liars.
Please!
God.
We had to actually go back and shoot that entire scene
due to a technical problem on the first day that we shot it.
And they brought it back wonderfully.
Name?
Rachel Watson.
Pete, I got this.
I chose to shoot this next scene in a women's bathroom
just to, A, avoid a typical interrogation scene
in a police holding area.
And I wanted Detective Riley to back her into a corner
where no one could hear what was going on,
what she was going to try to pull from her.
But that's what you wanted, isn't it?
You got him to stay overnight at your apartment, right?
No, you need the context.
I know the context.
But what I'm trying to determine is when your obsession with Mr. Hipwell began.
Was it before or after his pregnant wife was murdered?
You were neighbors at one point.
I met him after.
After being questioned by me,
you befriend another even more obvious suspect than yourself.
And then you manage to get him to incriminate himself,
all the while hoping he'll fuck you.
I came here trying to help you. He just assaulted me in my own house!
You were seen in the area that night.
There are several hours that you say you can't account for.
It was Scott. Scott Hipwell killed his wife.
No, he didn't.
Surveillance footage from a sports bar
accounts for Mr. Hipwell's whereabouts that night.
You're lying.
Tell me what happened.
It's okay.
Tell me.
I don't know.
Did you murder Megan Hipwell?
Hi.
I need to see you.
Can you please come over?
I can still see her dark eyes. I can smell her skin.
I can feel how cold she was.
This was originally a big, long scene,
and it just wasn't working.
So I shortened it and made it on the back of Megan's head.
As scripted, they were having coffee in the kitchen,
and it just seemed like too much.
You're not alone.
The golf course. They're looking over a golf course right now.
It's just so fun, the movie magic, what people can do.
This was a fun scene to shoot.
I didn't know if I was gonna keep it in the movie,
her confronting the red-headed man, like she did in the book.
But the very first time I showed an audience,
it was one of their favorite parts of the film.
That just shows you never know.
I think it's because they liked how aggressive Rachel's being about discovering the truth.
I saw you that night in the tunnel. I saw you there and...
- All right. - I know I saw you there.
Lady, I live here. I'm always in that tunnel.
But what did you see?
What happened that night? What did you see?
All right. You...
You busted your ass. You fell.
I felt sorry for you. I tried to help you up.
You told me to fuck off, so I fucked off.
Was I with anyone? Was I alone? What happened?
I don't know.
You hear the Cowboy Junkies back there.
One of my favorite bands.
I splurged a little bit.
Paid for that one.
What did you see that night? What happened that night?
I don't know.
I'm assuming it's the worst.
God.
Come here for one second. Just one second.
Say "Fuck you, Anna Boyd."
- Fuck you, Anna Boyd! - Fuck you, Anna Boyd!
I wonder if she knows that I fucked Tom on the...
When I saw that woman kissing someone else,
betraying her husband, I felt
pure rage.
If I could, I'd go to her house, I'd find her sitting there and...
Smash her head all over the floor!
I wanted to keep it ambiguous or vague
as to what Rachel was doing at this moment.
You'll notice that she doesn't even have her purse with her.
I wanted you to wonder if she was going to take her life,
or if she was just going to disappear,
or if perhaps she was going to go to Detective Riley.
I wanted to keep that question up in the air,
leading up to the moment where, just in the nick of time,
she finds out the truth about her life from Martha.
It's the worst restaurant ever.
Why do we keep going back?
In the novel, Paula Hawkins writes that suddenly Rachel remembers,
and you just don't get to do that in the film version.
So this is how I wanted to show the gas lighting
that had been going on her entire life.
But Tom said I should just leave it alone.
I'm so sorry.
For what?
For the barbecue,
and I just need you to know that I don't remember anything,
and I just completely blacked out.
Everyone had a little too much to drink, so it's okay.
I know, but with the eggs, and then I screamed at you.
That I was that abusive, I just feel...
I just feel so ashamed about it.
I don't...
Tom said that I smashed your plate. I don't...
Tom was fired because of how I behaved.
You felt sick and you took a nap in our guest bedroom.
Do you wanna lie down?
- Come with me. - Okay.
Excuse us.
Rachel, are you feeling better?
You guys can stay the night if you want.
No. That's fine.
- Thanks. - Okay.
I think I'd remember if you caused a scene.
I'm so sorry.
Get up.
And then Tom took you home.
I'm sorry, Tom.
Stop fucking saying that! I know you're sorry!
Sorry.
What's your fucking problem? You can't even focus on me.
Can't even fucking stand up!
What is wrong with you? Can you stand?
Fucking disgusting.
No. No.
Yeah. Tom got fired because he couldn't keep his dick in his pants.
You did nothing wrong. Nothing.
I wanted this to be a moment where Rachel's looking directly at us,
but yet it's to feel like she's looking directly at herself,
and that her brain is finally going to unlock the mystery that was her life
and tell her everything she needed to know.
You can sleep out here.
We all felt so bad for you.
He's such a bad guy.
God.
Are you okay?
In the novel and in the original script,
she unlocked this and successfully got through,
and read a bunch of emails of Tom's that didn't implement him in any way.
And as I said earlier, I wanted to keep technology out of this.
So I had her not ever successfully figure out his password
and just get to finding the phone.
So, this is a practical location.
Everything shot in the kitchen was in the actual house
that we used for Tom and Anna's.
And the upstairs, the bedroom, and all that, we built in on a stage,
and that was in Yonkers.
I'm here. Where are you?
This again, it shows you how I wanted to hear characters read their texts
instead of seeing them on the screen.
What are you doing up?
Picking up after Evie.
Really cool shot.
You whore!
Leave us alone.
No new messages.
No saved messages.
To hear your current voicemail greeting, please press two.
Hi, it's Megan. Leave a message.
I set up this shot as a wink and a nod
to all those fun, traditional thriller scenes of, "He's coming after you."
It was a lot of fun.
You okay?
I thought I heard something.
You should wake me up if you heard something.
I just...
Come back to bed.
This was our last shot at the tunnel.
It was, again, freezing,
and we were very happy to be getting out of this location.
But it really served its purpose as the scene of the crime.
Whore!
Again, this is the dusk I told you about earlier,
that we had to maintain
a believable way of the sun slowly and slowly going down.
What the hell are you doing?
Come here.
This side channel right here is what really got me excited about this location,
because she had to have, in a way, in our story,
not be in broad daylight of commuters.
She had to be kind of discarded
so that she could believe that this wasn't seen by anyone else.
So that little side channel really helped with that in our story.
Hey, get the fuck out of here. Get the fuck out of here!
You're okay. You just need some help.
- Don't touch me. - You just need to get a little help up.
Just fuck off. Fuck off!
We had about eight minutes to shoot this entire scene outside in the backyard
because of the sun.
And of course, keep in mind that's a golf course back there.
We had a particularly packed day,
so we just put the camera on Charlotte's shoulder, and we went for it,
and it turned out great.
I just need to talk to you.
I don't wanna hear anything you have to say.
Where's Tom?
He's lying to you.
He always does. He's a good liar.
I know he's a good liar.
We went behind your back for months.
He's just done it to you.
I know he's cheating.
I know.
- Anna, he killed Megan. - No, we don't...
We don't know that.
- He's dangerous. - We don't know anything.
- Anna, you need to leave. You need to leave. - No. No.
- You need to take Evie and you need to leave. - No.
- Get out of here. It's not safe. - I'm not leaving him.
It's hardly the first time he's had an affair.
It's not about the affair and you know that deep down.
- Anna, please, just come with me. - I'm not leaving him.
Please come with me.
- Anna, don't. - Come in the house, honey.
Please.
That's either Selma or Ellen.
One of our twins.
I saw you, you murderer! You fucking murderer!
You killed her! You fucking killed her! I know it!
Un-fucking-believable!
Listen to me. Megan got into his car that night.
You think I don't remember. You thought I blacked out. I saw you.
Why did Megan get in your car?
- Did Megan get in your car? - No!
Yes, she did!
Tell her the truth.
Just tell her the truth right now.
You attacked me in that tunnel because I saw her with you!
I found Megan's phone.
This was a particularly challenging scene to block and to shoot and to write.
We rehearsed this more than any scene in the movie.
For obvious reasons,
but also to really discover and find
the motivations for each character.
And especially what Rachel had come to realize about her life with Tom.
It's all about Evie.
That's right.
It was all about you, wasn't it?
Tom, give her to me.
It's all right.
It was all about you, wasn't it?
Tom, give her to me. Please.
- Please give her to me. - She's fine.
It was particularly hard for our DP, Charlotte,
to watch her child so unhappy and to be in this scene.
911, what's your...
What's your emergency?
No. Stay.
Stay.
Do you need a drink?
No.
Yeah, you do.
All those things that you said I did...
Those terrible things, I didn't do any of them.
You just watched me suffer. You made me feel so worthless.
You made me think that everything was my fault.
Drink it.
You told me I got you fired.
But I didn't.
You know, I saw Martha on the train.
Drink it!
I saw Martha on the train,
and she told me that you were fired
because you were fucking everyone in the office!
Emily did such great work in that moment.
I think we had to throw water in her face about six times to get the take right.
Rachel's down there.
Wait here.
This goes to my point about the little side channel obscuring what happened
because there's just no way Megan wouldn't have seen it
if it had been at the end of the tunnel.
Gonna get in the car?
What's going on?
Don't worry about it.
Come on.
Okay, I'm here.
So what is it?
I just wanna go to the woods.
It was important for me to make it be Megan's idea
to go to the spot where they used to make love.
I wanted it to be apparent
that nothing that's about to happen was pre-meditated in any way.
It's just where bad choices can lead you sometimes.
Is that what you want?
No.
Like this?
What?
I'm pregnant.
Congratulations.
I thought you should know.
You thought I should know?
There's a chance it could be yours.
Then get an abortion.
Or if it's Scott's, do whatever you want,
but if it's not, then get rid of it.
You can be as involved as you want.
You're a shitty nanny.
What makes you think you're gonna be a good mother?
Why did you bring me there in the first place?
Because I thought it would be fun to have you both around.
This was a very hard day.
We had one day to shoot everything you're about to see.
Very detailed,
and we were racing to keep the sun where we needed it.
I took care of your kid to be near you!
You fucked Anna 'cause you couldn't fuck Rachel anymore,
and you fucked me 'cause you couldn't fuck Anna.
Take us all away and you're just a pathetic, impotent man.
You're not gonna get rid of me.
You're gonna pay for this child for the rest of your life.
The idea for this last resting place came from Mother Nature herself.
I was scouting woods, and I saw this tree and immediately thought,
"We're gonna shoot here, and this is where I want Megan's body to be hidden."
And ironically,
this is the exact spot where they made love.
You're like a dog.
Like one of those unwanted,
mistreated dogs.
And if you kick them,
they keep coming back to you.
Thinking that somehow if they're good...
You're not doing this again.
...you'll love them.
This is what you do. You're not doing this to me.
You brought this on yourself, Rachel.
If you'd just stayed away that one night...
Just left us all alone...
You brought this on Megan.
In a way, you killed her.
But I didn't.
You did.
No!
And you did this to me in our marriage.
Right at this shot, I wanted to plant the seed of not knowing if Anna was in on it or not,
or if she's just protecting Evie, their child, from this murderer.
The corkscrew.
Our team did a great job with this prosthetic.
Although it was quite cold this day,
and after numerous takes, Justin was laying in the same spot,
covered in fake blood which became very, very, very cold.
So we kept having to run out blankets to him and heaters
while he laid on the 40-degree lawn.
This was Rebecca's first take for that shot.
I didn't intend to keep rolling and she didn't know I was going to,
but her work was just fantastic.
It often is,
when you just keep going and no one's expecting it.
I wanted that last bit of closure for Scott and Rachel.
Just a little understanding between them.
I had no choice. He was...
He would have killed me.
I never wanted to hurt him.
It was self-defense.
This was the last scenes we shot in the film.
Of course, we replaced Rachel with Megan's character
in that one shot.
Rachel was right about Megan.
We had intended this to all be done in voiceover.
But ultimately decided it would be more effective
to see them talking to Riley.
And it really did a lot for Detective Riley's character
to realize she was wrong all along.
In the novel, Rachel visited both
Megan's grave and the body of little Libby,
the baby Megan had lost.
But since I had had Megan and her boyfriend, Mac, bury her deep in the woods,
it just wouldn't have worked.
So we opted just to have Megan's grave.
Bound forever by the story we share.
And of course, now the fountain has another meaning.
It first represented pain and betrayal and now, understanding and resolution.
Today, I sit in a different car and I look ahead.
Anything is possible, because I am not the girl I used to be.
Another beautiful aerial from my pilot Coyt Bailey.
And the train heads north, along the Hudson River.
Appreciate you watching this with me.
Hope that was some little fun tidbits of information.
And thank you so much.
This is Tate Taylor saying goodbye.