Wolf stars George MacKay and Lily-Rose Depp in a unique love story. MacKay plays Jacob, a boy who believes he is a wolf trapped in a human body. Dismayed, his family sends him to a clinic for a cure, where he meets the mysterious Wildcat, played by Depp. Wolf is available in theaters on December 3.
MacKay and Depp spoke with Screen Rant about what drew them to the film, finding their characters, and learning how to move like animals.
Screen Rant: First of all, George that howl is a hell of a party trick. Is that all you? How does one discover this ability?
George MacKay: Yeah, that's all me. It was an integral part of the character and it was a mixture, as Jacob is. And finding out how to play Jacob. Figuring out, okay, well, what is the howl, regardless of whether it sounds accurate or not. What's he trying to say with it? And what does it mean for a wolf? And how do you make that sound with human lungs? And then what does it mean for him as a man and the amalgamation of the two, and then trying to find something that is akin to the real thing.
It's quite nice and very expressive. It feels good to have a howl. It's very healthy to howl now and again. It makes you [feel a] release.
When you read the script for the first time, was there a moment that made you go, "Oh, I'm in?" And if so, what was that moment?
Lily-Rose Depp: I mean, honestly, the whole thing. The synopsis made me be like, "Yeah, I'm pretty into this." And then once I read the script, I was like, "Oh, my God, I have to find a way to be a part of this in any capacity", because I just thought that it was so unique and special.
And that feeling was multiplied by 100 when I met [director Nathalie Biancheri]. She has such a magnetic personality, and you can just feel how creative she is. And I think when you're faced with somebody who is so ionate and speaks in the way that she does about a project that kind of feeling is infectious and it just made me be like, "This woman is a creative force like I've never seen, I need to be taken under her wing."
But honestly, the end, without giving anything away, the end really broke my heart. It really made me cry. I felt at the end, even though it's sad and hard to watch, I think it gives complexity and truthfulness to the story that is really important.
I when Cats was coming out, Taylor Swift had this really adorable interview where she was like, "I got to go to Cat school." And that was the most exciting thing. Did you have workshops on how to behave like animals?
George MacKay: Basically. I had a week with Nathalie and with our wonderful movement coach, Terry Notary before we started, and then actually there was going to be a two-week break, but in which the pandemic really sort of hit the UK and Ireland, and so that the shoot got pushed back. And in that first week, before we even got to crawling, we were trying to figure out what it was to be wild. And what it was to step away from the human parts of yourself and [we] decided that that meant letting go of thought, letting go of that little voice that is checking you about any sort of urge or instincts that you have, and controlling everything.
And so the first step was getting rid of that. And then once we found what that felt like and began to work on the physicality. Actually, the time that opened up really helped embed all of that, that kind of workshopping that we began to do.
Lily-Rose Depp: The animal workshop was so incredible for so many reasons. It was much more than just trying to perfect a technical movement. It was very, very emotional work. And it informed so much of both of our characters and so much of how our characters related to each other and our dynamic.
We did a lot of animal movement improv together which was so much fun getting to know each other in that animalistic way and it shows on screen because, in the end, it's a movie with not too much dialogue, which I think is very fitting. And so I think that getting to know each other in this kind of wordless way and finding that way of communicating without words for us was really important.
Wolf is available in theaters on December 3 from Focus Features.