In The Ballad of Wallis Island, directed by James Griffiths, a wealthy superfan arranges a reunion of his favorite late-aughts indie-folk duo for a private concert on the remote island where he lives. But getting the band, a long-estranged former couple, back together begins to dredge up old tensions, leaving them to grapple with whether the past can—or indeed should—stay in the past.
Shot on the windswept Welsh coast, this low-key charmer is buoyed by the irresistibly funny performance of comedian Tim Key and the endearing folk songs by costar Tom Basden, longtime collaborators who wrote the film based on a short they made 18 years ago. Three-time Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan is its heart, providing a grounding presence between the grumpy musician and lovable weirdo. The rare crowdpleaser that never tips into full schmaltz, the film debuted to a rapturous audience at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.
As The Ballad of Wallis Island opens in New York, here the three British actors speak with Vogue about the dearth of heartwarming films, whom they’d ask for a private concert, and what Marcus Mumford, lead singer of British folk-rock band Mumford Sons (and Mulligan’s husband), thought of the film’s music.
Vogue: This film was based on a BAFTA-nominated short from 2007. Where did the idea for the premise come from?
Tim Key: Tom and I were living together at the time, writing sketches and throwing around tons of ideas, trying to come up with anything decent. This one just felt bigger than a two-minute sketch, and when we hit upon the idea of a millionaire scurrilously, under false pretenses, bringing his favorite musician to the island, it felt like it was a good fit for the type of characters that Tom and I play. The challenge in the story was to make it not look like one person is a horrible mercenary and the other is a guy with lots of money and no other redeeming qualities. We tried to get the balance right, where you didn’t just hate everyone concerned.
What was it like to revisit these characters all these years later?
Tom Basden: I definitely think we’ve finally got to the right age to play these characters. We wrote it from the perspective of being in our mid-40s rather than our early 20s. All the things that are bubbling away in the film felt like the concerns when you hit our age now, like the fact that Tim’s character is quietly grieving and has accepted a sort of isolation in this middle of his life and my character has had this first flush of success and now is trying to find a way to stay relevant. We wanted to tell the story of people having changed over time and looking back at a time in their lives when they were really happy and excited and innocent, and you can only really do that when you’ve got some years on the clock.
Carey, what drew you to this role? Did you know Tom and Tim before this?
Carey Mulligan: I didn’t know them personally, but I knew their work and was a big fan. It was one of the best scripts I’ve read, just lovely and so funny. It looked at the fact that music plays such an enormous part in our lives. There’ll be a time when you’ll choose the song to be played at a christening, a wedding, or a funeral. We do soundtrack our lives regardless of whether we’re massive music fans or not, and this script tapped into that in such a brilliant way.
Tim, you play a compulsive chatterbox. How much of that was improv?
Key: We try to write the script precisely, but once you start doing it on set, there’s a lot of license to play around. Tom and I have worked together for years, so we understand each other’s rhythms, and actually, it can improve it if you throw a very small curveball to disrupt the other guy. Carey organically fell right in with that, elevating all those rhythms. Before she arrives onscreen, everything’s a little awkward, and the magical thing that Carey brought was turning it into a really warm friendship between the three of them.
Tom, you wrote all the songs in the film, some 25 songs in total. How did you manage that?
Basden: I’ve been writing songs for the film since we first made the short. A couple of songs from that made it to the feature, other songs I’ve written over the years, and some I wrote specifically for the film. As soon as we hit on the idea that it was a duo act and that they had been a couple when they performed, it meant that I could write songs specifically to tap into that feeling and make them romantic but also innocent. That made the process of songwriting a lot easier. I could see the dramatic potential of the songs: They offer a glimpse into the way he used to be and how he used to feel about her. All you’ve seen up until that point is him being quite guarded and grumpy and unemotional. I was excited that the music could do something particular for the story, that it wasn’t just incidental.
Carey, what did you think when you first heard the songs? And what did your husband think of the songs?
Basden: Oh, don’t ask her that!
Mulligan: [Laughs.] I love the songs. I mean, “Raspberry Fair” is an instant classic. It’s the kind of music, unsurprisingly, that I really enjoy anyway, so I was excited to get to sing on them. Marcus loved them. But Marcus was adamant that I should do this film before I’d read the script because he was such a big fan of the boys, so I think I was going to end up doing this whether I wanted to or not. [Chuckles.] The songs were a huge part. Some are sweet, others are quite devastating. It’s just that idea that you can hear a song and immediately be transported to a time of your life, whether that’s a good thing or not. A song can take you somewhere, and so many of the songs Tom had written had that quality. Marcus was around and very enthusiastically trying to insert himself, but he wasn’t really necessary because they were so good.
Tom, did you also take a stab at writing any of the pop collab songs mentioned in the film that your character is said to be currently focusing on?
Mulligan: We really need that album, actually.
Key: Yeah, I think so.
Basden: [Laughs.] I might need another 18 years to really master the kind of David Guetta–style pop collab music. Sadly, those songs don’t exist. You just have to imagine them, and whatever you’re imagining, that’s exactly what they sound like.
Carey, you’ve sung in films before and have also said you find it terrifying. How do you overcome that fear?
Mulligan: Singing in a live environment I can’t get my head around—that’s so scary to me. But singing in the background is forgiving because if you suddenly lose your way, you can just stop singing and it doesn’t really matter. So here I found it lovely, but I have in the past found it scary to sing on my own. It’s just so exposing. If your voice fails you or you go slightly out of tune, it’s weirdly embarrassing. If you’re acting and you hit a false note in your performance, you can brush past it or cover it up. With singing, it feels like an enormous failure to do it wrong.
This movie feels different from so much of what’s out there right now—a very funny, heartwarming, and wholesome film about adults. Why do you think this is the right time for this?
Key: Bearing in mind we started writing it 18 years ago, we wanted it to be uplifting and have that warmth. A lot of people have said the same thing: “I really needed this movie at this time.” It’s quite a tough time, and there’s a lot going on that’s difficult to cope with. So if you can make something where people find themselves laughing and crying about things in the movie, it means they’re not crying about the devastating things on the news.
Basden: Maybe people are responding to it because that kind of film is in short supply. There’s also something to be said for things being timeless and having a self-contained fairy-tale feel. It starts with someone arriving at an island and ends with that person leaving the island. Therefore, it can exist at any time.
If you could arrange for any musician to give you a private concert, who would it be and where?
Key: I’d have the Beatles on the beach.
Basden: Acoustic set?
Key: That’s something we’d have to negotiate. I’m sure we could organize generators. The tricky bit is getting them to the beach.
Basden: I’d like Maria Callas coming around at Christmas and just belting out some opera arias for me and my family. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? Might be a bit loud.
Mulligan: Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion belting it out at The Gorge in Washington.
Basden: The reverb, though.
Mulligan: Would be out of control. But I stand by it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
The Ballad of Wallis Island is now in select theaters, playing everywhere April 18.
