ABC4 film critic Patrick Beatty sat down with Tim Key, Tom Basden, and Carey Mulligan to dive into the quirky heart of “The Ballad of Wallis Island”— a whimsical tale about a reclusive lottery winner and his mission to reunite his favorite musical duo. From rehearsing the music to unexpected laughs, the cast shares hilarious takes on the film’s eccentric charm.
Q: While watching the film, the question that came to my mind is one that I think many viewers are going to have. If you were on a beautiful, luscious island, and you had your favorite artist able to come and do a private show for you, who would it be and what do they mean to you as far as impact goes?
James Griffiths: “It’s a very difficult question. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. I was slightly obsessed with the Woodstock performance and the harmonies. Also, it was an album that I, let’s just say there was a kind of a love affair that took place listening to one of the early albums and so it’s very evocative to me.”
Carey Mulligan: “My favorite female voice in the world is Brandi Carlile right now. So if Brandi could just come and bring a guitar and sit down, and sing me songs, that would be heaven.”
Q: What was rehearsing, like for Carey & Tom, when it came to the songs, did you have a lot of prep time before? Was it more on the spot?
Tom Basden: “It was more on the spot. Yeah, we didn’t have a lot of prep time, but we had the time to sort of go through the songs a bit and play them together and sing them together. I think we sort of both were into the idea that we would try and create something that felt quite authentic in a way that felt like these two people genuinely hadn’t sung together for ten years, you know what I mean? … We didn’t want it to feel over-rehearsed.”
Q: Tim, I got to talk to you a little bit before the film at Sundance, and your character and your performance are so great in this. You’re absolutely the heart of the film. But in a lot of ways, your character can be insufferable. How do you toe that line between not necessarily jabbing the audience because you know, everybody’s sympathetic to Tom at that point. What was it like working on that character?
Tim Key: “Well, I think I was sort of born to play it. I just kind of, had a sense that I should just throw myself into that. I mean, that was the balancing act to create something that would be annoying to the other man on screen, but not annoying to the audience. That was the fine line. But in fairness, I didn’t need to judge it. I just threw everything at it, and then I could manage it slightly, and then in the edit, you can also decide when to pair it back a little bit. If it bled out into the audience that it’s tough to watch this guy, then we’ve done it wrong. But I think the balance is about right. When I watch, I kind of like the guy, but you wouldn’t want to be in close contact with Tom’s character.”
Tom Basden: “You got to understand why Herb finds you difficult to deal with.”Tim Key: Yeah, totally … It never occurred to me. I mean, having worked with you for a very, very long time, it never occurred to me that Charles would ever be sort of annoying or unbearable for an audience. Because I know exactly how good you are at judging how to work through this sort of character, and it’s so lovely. I find it genuinely very moving when I watch the film and watch Tim’s performance.”
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