by Gill Pringle
Starring Chris Evans as unlucky-in-love farmer Cole and Ana de Armas as mysterious art curator Sadie, Ghosted may sound like a simple meet-cute romcom. After all, they enjoy an impossibly perfect first date together, sharing a genuine chemistry.
Unfortunately for Cole, the woman of his dreams “ghosts” him when he texts her for another date, pushing the film into a dramatic gear shift as it becomes something else – an action flick packed with mind-boggling stunts.
Helmed by Rocketman and Eddie the Eagle director Dexter Fletcher, he reckons that he knows exactly how it feels to be ghosted.
“I don’t think I’ve ever ghosted anyone, but I’m sure I’ve unceremoniously dumped someone and I’ve been dumped as well. That’s what it was like back in my days – it was called being dumped then. There were no phones involved or emails or anything like that to ignore. You had to go and see the person and say, ‘It’s not you. It’s me’, although that phrase has now gone. People haven’t even got the courage to say that to each other anymore.
“I think if someone’s ghosted you, it’s a pretty shitty thing to do. And so probably you’re better off without that person in your life,” says Fletcher who enjoyed a long career as an actor before switching to behind the camera.
Which leads him to the theory that all actors have experienced the pain of being ghosted – even if the world views them as glamorous movie stars.
“When you audition as an actor, if you don’t get the job, you never find out why. It’s like being ghosted. You go and read your scene and you meet the director and go, ‘Oh fantastic, great, see you again, lovely’, and you leave, and you never find out anything. If you get the job, great. But if you don’t, you phone your agent, and you say: ‘What happened?’ And they say, ‘Oh I don’t know, you didn’t get it’. And you never find out why, not even an explanation. If you say to me, ‘Oh, you were really bad at acting. We didn’t like you’, or you were too short or your eyes are the wrong colour or something to go on, that would be great. But they don’t. So, that’s the only thing I can imagine that it’s like. Actors have been suffering being ghosted for many, many years,” says Fletcher who was nine years old when Alan Parker cast him in crime caper Bugsy Malone in 1976.
That childhood break would lead him to roles in such iconic films as The Elephant Man and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Fortunately for Fletcher, he wasn’t ghosted when he reached out to Evans and de Armas to co-star in this hybrid romcom action flick with strong Romancing the Stone overtones.
He knew that they had already co-starred in The Gray Man and Knives Out and it wasn’t hard to see how they might sizzle on screen when cast as a couple.
Fortunately, they were game when Fletcher threw an unexpected curveball at them.
“When I asked them to jump in bed together and start kissing, that wasn’t even in the script to be quite honest!” he reveals. “That was something that I invented, that I thought we would want to see, so we know that these characters have more going than just a little twinkle in their eye for each other. Who doesn’t want to see these two incredibly hot people having a great moment? And I tried to shoot it tastefully but sexy and kind of fun.
“And they both came to me saying: ‘this scene that we’re shooting tomorrow? That’s not in the script, is it?’ I said, ‘No, no, but, you know, I just think it…’ And they were like, ‘No, yeah, yeah, great’. But then they just laughed, and I think for them they were like, ‘Oh, this is a new experience and a bit odd’. But they’re incredibly professional and they knew the story we’re trying to tell and they are great collaborators, and so it wasn’t an issue,” he says.
Peppering the film with A-list cameos was an unexpected addition to the Ghosted set-up – and possibly one of the most difficult aspects of the shoot. “Getting a lot of people together at the same point of time is complicated. But the great thing about actors – and movie stars are no different because you’re not born a movie star; you have to start in very small roles and then you work up and build up to becoming a movie star – that I think all actors generally know what it’s like to not be famous.
“So, they enjoy being part of a company because somewhere along the life as an actor, you’re part of a theatre company or a TV company and there’s something really good about that feeling – it’s kind of unique to the acting profession because you go out on stage every night or you present yourself in something every day.
“I think you just have to exploit their vulnerability and their good nature! And then you can get them to do things – against their will and their own better judgment!” he laughs.
Together with Evans, the two men hit their phones.
“You phone them up and you try your luck, and you ask. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. You never know,” says Fletcher who also directed Sunshine on Leith, episodes of The Offer, as well as coming in for last minute edits on Bohemian Rhapsody.
If Evans and Fletcher were both very familiar with de Armas’ work on 2021 Bond movie, No Time to Die, then they were unprepared for the skills that she would bring to the Ghosted set.
“It’s one thing to start the action sequence and then let your stunt man do everything else, but Ana – on the first week of filming – was leading me through these underground caves where she has to beat up four or five people right in a row, and it wasn’t easy action stuff,” says Chris Evans.
“This was like: someone’s on your back; you have to flip them and roll them and kick them and drop to the ground and pop up – real physical moves where you will get bumps and bruises and you are going to feel it. And she wasn’t just doing it – she wanted to do it again. And again. And again. And if she watched playback and it wasn’t quite right, she kept going. She really had an expectation of what she wanted us to look like, so it was that commitment that was pretty surprising.”
For Fletcher, the combination of Chris McKenna and Rhett Reese’s script and Evans’ involvement, which made the project irresistible. “I really love Chris and his work,” Fletcher says. “He was excited and passionate about the project. And I enjoyed the ride these characters went on. It has world travel, great visual elements on a huge scale and tons of daring action. But the beating heart of this movie is always the relationship between two very different people trying to figure out how to get along.”
Fletcher’s first action film, Ghosted was actually a dream come true for the filmmaker. “I have always wanted to do an action film. Growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, I loved disaster movies like The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure. The experience of making one of my own has been eye-opening and exhilarating. So many things had to be meticulously worked out in advance. There were lots of drawings and storyboards. It’s a much more detailed way of working than what I’ve done before. But I came into production with a clear and defined blueprint that still allowed me the room to invent on set,” says Fletcher who is attached to direct Sherlock Holmes 3.
De Armas first met Fletcher via a Zoom call when he convinced her that Ghosted had to be the next step forward in her already white-hot career. “I knew that I was going to work with Dexter as soon as I heard his ideas about the script. It was a very fast decision,” says the actress who will display more kick-ass moves next year in action thriller Ballerina.
Delighted to be reunited with Evans for a third time, she says, “I have never seen Chris playing a part like this. Watching Captain America falling and fumbling around is very funny to watch. Whereas this is my character’s world, and she is always in control.”
Ghosted premieres globally on Apple TV+ on Friday, 21 April, 2023
