“I don’t think the BAFTAs is the time to be meek, is it?” asks Sophie Ellis-Bextor days before she takes her “old friend,” the 2001 pop-disco ditty “Murder on the Dancefloor,” to the stage at London’s Royal Festival Hall for British film’s big night. “Now is the time to be larger than life.”
Telephoning Vogue from her sequin-saturated dressing room, which doubles up as one of her son’s bedrooms (how fabulous), Ellis-Bextor is plotting out a look befitting a “disco superhero.” An innate magpie, surrounding herself with “twinkly things” makes her happy and she spends all her spare time on tour stocking up on shimmering pieces from vintage stores that match her spirit. “The most amazing thing about clothes is they put you in the right mood,” she shares of her “quirky” stagewear. “You want things that move with you—and sequins dance a lot.”
She feels “fizzy” about the BAFTAs, like all her birthdays have come at once, because the glossy world of television is different from her usual rock circle (Sophie married British music producer Richard Jones in 2005). She’s also still on the “mad adventure” spawned by Saltburn*—*Emerald Fennell’s psychological Noughties romp, in which Barry Keoghan quite literally murders the dance floor naked. “It was dark and twisted and totally my thing,” enthuses Ellis-Bextor, who signed off her permission simply knowing that it would be “all of the song, and none of the clothes.”
Sophie feels nothing but “pure love” for the track, which has birthed queer club nights and even returned to the top 10 after 22 years following Saltburn’s release. “I’d happily sing it for another 20,” shares the 44-year-old mother-of-four, who will take her tunes to Sydney’s Mardi Gras following her fabulous turn in the aptly titled Sophie Couture on the BAFTAs stage. “Like all my songs, I did them because I like them, not because they were going to be a hit. When I made my first album, I played it to my girlfriends and ‘Murder’ was the one they loved—it’s something that’s always been communal.”
Could there be a “Groovejet” by Spiller—another 2000 banger featuring Sophie on vocals—resurgence next? “I’ve been spoiled already,” says the wonderfully modest performer, who did bring back a “Groovejet” look for her video “Lost in the Sunshine.” “My day job is having a lot of fun, so I always lean into it… Now it’s time to push it.” And with that, she’s off, out of the tinsel-strewn bedroom to give her Antonio Riva red-carpet look a spin. “I imagine he has some pretty cool dreams,” she muses of her son when he falls asleep amidst all the creative hubbub. Something tells us it’s not the glittering pieces, but his “disco superhero” mum who inspires her kids to dream.
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See every look from the BAFTAS 2024 red carpet:
