SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers about “The Life of Chuck,” now playing in theaters via Neon.
Choreographer Mandy Moore is one of Hollywood’s most in-demand dance experts, developing routines for the Oscars, Emmys, “So You Think You Can Dance,” Taylor Swift’s Eras tour and countless other high-profile projects. Yet some of her most joyous moments are spent teaching actors and other people whose primary expertise isn’t movement how to dance. This is the case in “The Life of Chuck,” a movie about dance led by Tom Hiddleston.
“I really love teaching people where dance isn’t their first thing,” Moore says. “I like this idea of teaching them to love dance first. I started doing this on ‘La La Land,’ where there’s a version of this as a choreographer. You could just go in and teach the steps and say, ‘These are the steps. This is how it goes. 5, 6, 7, 8. No, no, no. Yes, yes, yes.’ But I’ve found in that process, which is the way that I used to work as a younger choreographer, you never leave any space for the magic. Also, part of being a choreographer is to see people’s bodies and how they move, what their instincts are. Actors move from feeling and intention and instincts, and I feel like if I can teach them basics of movements and to love the journey of dance, they feel dance.”
Moore first heard of the project when director Mike Flanagan and producer Trevor Macy reached out to her about choreographing a Stephen King adaptation based on his novella “The Life of Chuck.”
“As soon as I heard it was a Stephen King story, I was like, ‘Wait, what this?’ And, Mike Flanagan, I love his work, but where does dance live in any of this?” she says. “As soon as I read the script, I was just so taken by all of it: The characters, the story and I love stories that involve dance in a way that is not performative, necessarily, or not just everybody spreading out and dancing because it’s a big number somewhere. I like trying to understand how characters move and why they move and the fact that this Chuck character …. dance was a really big part of him growing up. Then how that manifested in him as an adult and finding that moment of expression and joy and freedom I thought was fun.”
In the film, Chuck — who appears at various ages played by Tom Hiddleston, Jacob Tremblay, Benjamin Pajak and Cody Flanagan — is drawn to the world of dance by watching classic musicals as a boy, and it ends up as an essential creative outlet for him. The key scene in the film is an epic dance between Hiddleston and Annalise Basso, which is meant to be a moment of pure joy and release for Chuck. Moore was excited to develop this dance — despite one big obstacle most choreographers don’t face.
“The process is lo-fi and fancy at the same time,” she says. “In the beginning, I knew Tom was never going to be with me. He was in London, and I knew a big part of this was making sure he had a support system out there. I know he’s someone who loves to prep. I know he’s a great mover, but he needed to be able to partner with Annalise through this very complicated dance. That’s not something he can prep for on his own.”
Moore’s London-based associate Stephanie Powell would work with Hiddleston, while Moore would develop different elements of the dance to put together.
“I would start to make phrases of movement,” she says. “‘This could be a cha-cha phrase. This could be a salsa phrase. This could be a swing phrase. This could be an MGM-Gene Kelly phrase. This could be an “I’m just releasing freedom” phrase.’ I would create all these different sections of things, record them and send them to Tom and Steph. Steph would learn them, teach them to Tom and train him, and then they’d video themselves and send it back. The same thing was happening with Annalise in LA.”
A secret weapon of getting the whole dance together was inviting drummer Taylor Gordon, who plays a busker in the movie that creates the beat to this fantastical scene, to develop the soundtrack.
“By the end, it’s this explosion of different styles and movements and rhythms,” Moore says. “But a big part was bringing Taylor into the rehearsal room really quickly. The actual music track grew through that process, and I would send Mike videos of not only Tom and Annalise through the rehearsal process, but also ideas of, ‘This is a salsa feel that I liked.’ I’d send him videos, because I think one of the hardest parts of being a choreographer is trying to understand what everybody thinks, how they see the dances in their brain.”
Mandy Moore working on dance moves with Benjamin Pajak while filming “The Life of Chuck.”
Dan Anderson
One of the throughlines Moore also enjoyed developing was echoing adult Chuck’s dance moves via the young Chucks.
“We were able to shoot Tom and Annalise’s scene first, so I knew where we were heading,” she says. “I knew what that thing needed to be, so then I could fracture and dissect it to get the school dance done.”
Ultimately, the film’s love of dance reflected Moore’s passion.
“Everyone can dance — I do feel that,” she says. “Maybe it’s just because I love dance so much and I like the idea of sharing it with people that thought they couldn’t dance. My favorite thing in the world is when people say, ‘I can’t dance, you’re never going to get me to dance,’ but I say, ‘Well, yeah, you can dance. You walk, you get up, you do you. That’s dancing. We’re all dancing through life.’”
Read the full article here
