SCANS
INTERVIEW
In Materialists, Dakota Johnson's matchmaker must choose between Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal.
We squeeze onto a sofa with the trio to discuss love and money.
Give anyone the task of naming the most influential, charming stars of today, and odds are Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal would make that list. Who better to bring them together in a thorny love triangle than film director Celine Song, who brings them together—directed by decades of unfulfilled desire.
Materialists is more than just a trope role-reversal. All three actors take up roles that tantalising all the same: Johnson plays Lucy, a calculating art market economist who’s working as a matchmaker. Chris Evans plays one of the men, bright, good looking and some of their shared history makes him more difficult to resist. Pedro Pascal plays the other. It’s a classic romantic triangle, given a fresh edge by Song’s deeply felt perspective on love and longing. (Which you may remember if you saw her breakout Past Lives.)
The trio sit down in a North London studio to discuss their chemistry on set, how the film reflects their relationships to money and love—and why the best scenes are the ones that sneak up on you. Johnson, who is also a producer on the film, says she’s proud of Love. And it is another worthy entry into the list of ambitious romantic comedies that explore whether it’s not enough to sustain a relationship.
Suitably, the trio are practically in each other’s laps when they flop down on a sofa in a London studio. Egged together by their collaboration to promote Materialists—hand-in-hand, they’re so comfortable with each other, it’s clear their professional collaboration has transformed into true friendship.
Let’s start from when you all read the script by Celine. To borrow from Lucy’s vernacular, what boxes did Materialists tick for you?
Dakota Johnson: The intelligence of the script and the plot. The way the story weaves through these three people and such a grown-up soul dilemma. It was less the kind of surface-level romantic movie.
Chris Evans: For me, certainly the director box, the cast box, the location. It just felt like a nice change of pace. I haven’t done a movie like this in a little bit. It just felt right.
Pedro Pascal: I also love how it honours and authentically gets your gut punching with issues we relate to. First of all just looking for love in modern times — and I am likely to over-analyse everything, so that can be very ventilated, but I also like it when my brain is fed.
This film really does feed your brain; it makes you think about relationships through a completely new perspective.
Johnson: I was watching the monitor and was like, “We are making the coolest thing ever.”
Evans: I was very envious of what the two of you got to explore in that scene. It was something I hadn’t seen on screen.
You were observing the romantic lead who you’ve just watched fall for the woman you’re in love with.
Evans: Exactly. You just want to let them go. There’s a real respect for what she needs to explore. She’s trying to figure out who she is. I also like those moments where you’re just letting someone know you love them. I’ve gotten to do some fun stuff — superhero movies — but those real things feel the most rewarding.
On the subject of romances: Pedro, you’re fresh off your swoony performance in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which had one of the greatest onscreen bromances of all time. Did that shift anything when you think about what makes something romantic?
Pascal: I think it is my favourite romantic comedy.
Johnson: There are definitely similarities. Walking down the street in a crowd full of people, I was very much like, “Wow, my mom did this when she was my age.” I have this energy for rom-coms, because I have a really different relationship with that movie.
Pascal: I think [Pascal’s Harry and Ford’s character, Jack Trainer] are very different characters, and tonally they’re different.
I had to try to move into Harry in Celine’s movie as a great excuse to be romantic, while being still. I think I was taught more by the spirit of being in a trinity with Chris and Dakota in New York City.
Lucy has a very pragmatic approach to romance. What did you all make of her as a character, and the effect she has on the others?
Johnson: To begin with, Lucy is very type A. And very focused on what she thinks will make her life feel amazing, aesthetically and materialistically. And then I think she rationalises into feeling okay through those little minor wins from working so hard. But rather than with her past male interests, I think now she embraces a connection. It was very brave. I loved the stuff where John is so enamoured when Lucy’s not into him. You know that moment? That scene when he’s like, “You’re so cute,” and she’s like, “Ugh.” You’re not gonna win this, and I don’t want it.”
And John’s like “Oh I know.” And he just sits with it. There’s a kind of honesty in that moment, a letting go.
And I loved it. You don’t see that.
Evans: There’s such a temptation in a romantic movie to have one corner win. You can feel the construction of the movie work. You know which way it’s going.
But Materialists avoids that. I remember the director said to me: It can be about who you love the most. But it can also be about who you love best.
How did you come to understand John’s feelings for Lucy?
Evans: Playing John, Celine had the softest touch to pitch: “We can re-exam strict conventions.”
Also in the sense that we knew Celine wanted to blow the whole thing open.
She was very calm and happy, not gloomy, so you can feel that subtly in the directing. That’s what made the movie unique — that it had so much room for the human emotion, not just the structure.
The film is very romantic, but it’s also very practical in that there are all these barriers. The internet, the money, a barrier to love, and the economics—of dating are as big a factor in relationships as attraction.
Pascal: Lucy is the main reason I wanted to do the movie, more so than reading material in some abstract form.
I think it’s because of her focus on materialism and status, especially as it clashes in the environment of New York City. She’s shown without herself and we’re seeing everyone ask about very specific and wide things about love that maybe we’ve never thought to measure. Not materially about the location, but about the actual weight of the experience, the care we want to feel. The things which can’t be quantified, which can’t be measured by “he’s got a car and a watch.”
Johnson: The amount of times you hear women say they want a man who can provide.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
It’s just more complicated.
Chris, your character is working actor. Supporting himself with part-time jobs and doing theatre in small off-Broadway plays. Did that take you back to when you first moved to Los Angeles?
Evans: Absolutely. In your early twenties, that’s a point of pride, that fact that you don’t have water in your flat and you’ve got to pay the bills.
There’s something good to that part.
But there’s also the point where all that bootstrap feeling is a luxury. Because your family is not rich or in any way someone else. The people who do it are themselves a product of having some real stability. That was an eye-opener.
And he wants a lot of that too.
Because he is just the type who wants the peace. And he has no shame in that.
Pedro, did that resonate with your early career struggles?
Pascal: Absolutely. I was poorer than anyone I know in New York.
There was a point of pride.
Evans: (laughs)
Pascal: I remember, a friend asked, “Are you alright?” I said yes. Then they asked me a lot of money questions. “Do you have a line of credit?” “Do you have enough to pay rent?” I had to say no.
It was a wake up call. I’d like to say that I always had the grind but it was really only survival.
Harry is described as a “unicorn”, the perfect partner. Pedro, who did you base your performance on?
Pascal: (laughs) Celine had this line about Harry that made me laugh: “You’re not the unicorn, you’re the donkey.”
That was so helpful. And it reminded me of a teacher I had who said I was gonna say “I’m throbbing.” (laughs)
The script has these really sharp and perceptive truisms about love. A personal favourite was, “Dating is hard, love is easy.” Were there any lines that stayed with you?
Johnson: I liked the line, “You are not a catch because you are not a fraidy.”
Evans: The one that I really struggled with for a little while was, “I’m a bagel guy.”
But on the day, it just felt natural.
That line, the “bagel” line.
It had the opposite of being clever. It’s just so easy to know what that feeling of being like, “I want to help you, I want to help you, and I can’t tell you why, I can’t help it.” It’s such a vulnerable thing to admit.
What are your favourite memories from the shoot?
Pascal: When’s the last time you shot in New York?
Johnson: Before Materialists.
Pascal: I hadn’t been in a while.
Johnson: I hadn’t been in a while.
Evans: We were just watching Law & Order shoot outside and laughing all of us.
There was something about feeling all of us being silly again, like something we all forgot we could do.
I think it was just the vibe.
It really was like going to work with your friends.
In the scenes where you’re all together, it’s so clear you enjoy each other.
Johnson: We had each other’s backs.
Evans: It reminds me of a Celine’s play, Endlings.
Pascal: She writes from the inside out.
Do you remember the moment that felt most like the film was real?
Johnson: It was the final scene, we’re all in the car. We’re running lines between takes.
That scene felt like childhood.
Evans: You’ll know that gut anyway.
Scans | Transcription by Us.
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