British film director Matthew Vaughn poses on the red carpet for the world premiere of the film Argylle in London, on Jan. 24.HENRY NICHOLLS/Getty Images
British filmmaker Matthew Vaughn has teased out a number of mysteries over the course of his blockbuster career. There was the international intrigue of his Kingsman films, the gangland twists of Layer Cake and the superhero secrets of Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class. But the director is holding his cards especially close to his chest with his new action-comedy, Argylle.
The film, which opens this weekend, has spent the past few years marketing a publishing-world puzzle: Just who is Elly Conway? That’s the name of the first-time author whose spy novel, also called Argylle, is said to serve as the source material for Vaughn’s new film. Yet while Conway’s book, which was published last month by Penguin Random House, is a straightforward espionage thriller about a 007-like secret agent, Vaughn’s film twists the concept around to tell the story of a novelist named also named Elly Conway (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) who finds herself pulled into a world of spies and secrets.
Add the fact that Elly Conway (the person, not the character) has never been photographed or granted an interview with press, and you have what’s either an epic enigma or a gutsy publicity stunt. Ahead of Argylle’s release, The Globe and Mail spoke with Vaughn about secrets, lies and, um, Taylor Swift.
How did Elly Conway come into your life?
Okay, so there’s a long and confusing answer to that one. But basically, there’s a screenplay by Jason Fuchs, there’s me rewatching Romancing the Stone, there’s a manuscript by Elly and the whole thing fell together in a way that I felt, hold on, we can do something interesting here. The book is doing fantastically, and hopefully the movie will do well enough so we can make more based on the other books. But there is an Elly Conway. She is not Taylor Swift, as some rumours have suggested. That was an astonishingly surreal moment in my life. The Elly Conway reveal will be happening soon.
By “reveal,” you mean we’ll get to see her, listen to her talk …?
I think so, yes. The weird thing is, I’m not allowed to say who it is, out of respect. Let’s put it this way: Even some of the world’s most famous authors, we don’t know who they are or what they look like. Some people don’t want attention. The Taylor Swift rumour made the noise deafening, but it wasn’t the plan to reveal anything. The publishers, they’re secretly loving it. But it’s going to happen very soon.
Okay, sorry, so in the beginning there was Jason’s script and Elly’s book. Did Jason’s script exist before Elly’s book came into either of your lives?
It was sort of a simultaneous development. Jason’s script had spies, but no one was called Agent Argylle. And there was no flip-flopping of the conceit, a real spy versus a fictional spy. That’s when I said, hey, can you imagine if we do this and that? I crashed through boundaries with Jason that he didn’t even think existed.
Bryce Dallas Howard as Elly Conway in Argylle.Universal Pictures, Apple Original Films, and Marv/Universal Pictures
I swear I’ll ask questions not related to Elly in a second, but: Why does she not have an on-screen credit at all? The movie is based at least partially on her book, but there’s no “adapted from” credit. She doesn’t have an executive producer credit. Nothing.
It may seem to be. Or maybe there is. That’s all I can say. You might be surprised.
Okay. The cryptic-ness is killing me.
At least it’s not a boring conversation!
True, nobody wants to have those. But the movie we’re watching, you’ve said, is based on Elly’s fourth and fifth books, which have yet to be published. There are hopes to make the Argylle movies a franchise, too. Will the sequels to this movie be based more on Elly’s books, or your and Jason’s meta-contextual take on them?
Fingers crossed and touch wood, if all goes well enough, we’d like to make one next involving the coda of the movie, a prequel, which is a scene straight from the book. We like the idea of doing a Bourne Identity/Mission: Impossible thing, but with young spies. And Jason has Argylle 2 planned out, which is very funny, but less meta. Because once you do meta, it’s hard to do meta again. You can go down the rabbit hole. But let’s see, hopefully people buy tickets. It’s a scary time for cinema, and we’re not really connected any more. But cinema, theatre, sports, live events – these are places where we come together and experience something.
Is that what drew you to working with Apple Studios, their commitment to making sure that their films get a robust theatrical run before hitting streaming?
With Apple it’s quite interesting because their commitment is right there in the name: Apple Original Films. They want to make original movies. Apple can put their hands in their back pocket today and buy Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, Universal and not even have to borrow any money to do so. They could have every franchise in the world tomorrow morning. But they’re not interested in that. They’re being brave. And they love cinema and feel that some movies are for theatres and some are to watch at home.
I’m curious about your decision to make Argylle in a more PG-rated manner than your previous films. There’s violence here, but not any blood.
Watching Romancing the Stone during lockdown with my daughters, they loved it and asked, “Dad, why is no one making movies like this?” It was a miserable time, bleak, and so I wanted to make a movie that’s more a ray of sunshine. And you’re better off there making it PG. It’s a movie you could take your family to, and it’s a great date movie as well. We’re not trying to win an Oscar with this, just trying to entertain.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Barry Hertz