Summary
Billy Magnussen and Peter Sarsgaard find themselves on opposing sides of a brewing war between classes inCoup!. Magnussen has enjoyed a steady rise to stardom over the past few years, starring in everything from Disney’s live-actionAladdinremake, with a spinoff focused on his character Prince Anders in the works, as well asThe SopranosprequelThe Many Saints of Newark, Daniel Craig’s final James Bond outingNo Time to Dieand the Jake Gyllenhaal-ledRoad Houseremake. Sarsgaard is a Golden Globe-nominated star known for everything fromOrphantoThe Magnificent Seven, The Batman, DopesickandPresumed Innocent.
InCoup!, Magnussen stars as Jay “J.C.” Horton, a rich muckraker journalist who, with his family, travels to their isolated seaside estate during the 1918 influenza epidemic to avoid getting sick. When mysterious grifter, Floyd Monk (Sarsgaard), arrives claiming to be their new private cook, things begin taking a sinister turn as the plague arrives on the island and the cook begins riling up the other employees to claim more power for themselves.
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Alongside Magnussen and Sarsgaard, the ensembleCoup!cast includesTrue Detectivealum Sarah Gadon, Skye P. Marshall,The Old Man’s Faran Tahir, Kristine Nielsen, Fisher Stevens, Callum Vinson and Willa Dunn. Co-written and co-directed by creative duo Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman, the movie is a timely and satirical approach to the class warfare story in the same vein asthe 2022 hitThe Menu, proving to be simultaneously hysterical and tense.
In honor of the movie’s release,Screen Rantinterviewed Billy Magnussen and Peter Sarsgaard to discussCoup!, the joy of collaborating with Stark and Schuman, tapping into the timely themes of the film’s story, and the emasculation dynamic of their characters.
Stark & Schuman Are Both “Real Playful” & “Intellectual”
In reflecting on what sparked their interest in starring in the film, both Magnussen and Sarsgaard pointed towardsCoup!’s unique tonal mix of comedy and suspense, with the latter, in particular, recalling his initial thought being “What genre does this belong to?”. The duo also go on to praise working with Stark and Schuman, who have been friends since kindergarten and found a unique way to meld their “intellectual aspects” with a “playful, silly aspect”:
Peter Sarsgaard: For me, it was really the tone of the thing. I read it, and I was like, “What genre does this belong to?” And I really dig things when they’re like that, when somebody’s trying something different. And I like the way that the two of them work together, they went to high school together.
Billy Magnussen: Kindergarten!
Peter Sarsgaard: Kindergarten! Jesus, that’s right, they’ve known each other their entire lives. And they’re not at all the same person. There’s real intellectual aspects, and a real playful, silly aspect to both of them. I was just interested in the world, and then I also really, really dig the idea that it’s not an attack, but it’s a critique of this idea of something that I’m a part of.
I’m Billy’s character in real life. I’m the wealthy, liberal guy who, I pontificate about all the terrible things that are happening in the world from afar, and I’m not really involved enough in the actual deep troubles of the world to comment on them in a way that is informed. And I get my information from other people, like Billy’s character. It’s a pretty obvious thing in the movie, but I thought that was something worth exploring.
Billy Magnussen: I think, for me, there’s so many layers and depths in it. One is, to jump off what Peter was saying, the hypocrisy of what people say and what they do. Having a satire set in 1918 during the Spanish Influenza, like, we have Instagram today, these social media outlets, journalists now, again, saying, like, “Look at actually what’s happening, what I’m doing.” And then, you pull the camera away, and you’re like, “You’re actually doing nothing, you’re not actually helping.” Throwing that image up on screen, I think, is kind of powerful in a weird way, and exploring that hypocrisy of characters like that.
And then also, just these social justice warriors — well, there’s more kind of layered into the social justice warrior aspect, being like, “Hey, follow me. We’re all equal. Oh, wait, as long as we’re following my rules, we’re all equal, then that’s cool.” And then, I thought also, “What is the cost and degree of de-masculine dating someone, another man, and taking someone’s kingdom?” That always excited me, that Monk slowly stole and cut and chipped away at this man’s life, and saw all the holes and all the flaws in it, who actually is a more worldly-known character. Just being able to tear a man apart from the inside, that is drama. That’s tension to me. Like, if someone did that to me, I’d be like, “Oh, I’m done.”
Peter Sarsgaard: Emasculation always provides for good drama. [Laughs]
Billy Magnussen: It’s so funny, and we don’t explore it, I think, as much as we think we do. It’s usually a fight, and there’s not really fighting in this movie, except just slowly stealing.
Peter Sarsgaard: No, there’s a fight, it just lasts about 30 seconds. [Laughs]
Billy Magnussen: My character is a bit of a d–k. [Laughs]
Peter Sarsgaard: I wound you up. That’s what happens when you find a guy up and emasculate him.
The Duo Frequently Discussed How To “Ramp Up” Scenes (Even With The Short Shooting Schedule)
With its indie-level production, Magnussen and Sarsgaard found themselves putting the movie together in “20–23 days”, requiring a quick process of determining the various layers of their characters' dynamic as a socialite emasculated by a member of his staff. The duo found themselves captivated by the opportunity to capture this dynamic in such a quick fashion, with much of it being found in a “spontaneous” way:
Billy Magnussen: A piece of art is always malleable and transforming and growing. Austin and Joey wrote a beautiful script, but then, when you’re shooting it, what was great is it’s such a small film. We’re all producers on it, making this together, and we’re discovering, like, “How do we ramp up this moment? How do we make it more palpable? How do we feel each other?”, like Peter was saying earlier. It’s also sometimes unspoken how you act with such a veteran, legendary actor as Peter. How do you create these moments and get it caught on camera? It’s a puzzle piece. Peter, help me out here. [Chuckles]
Peter Sarsgaard: Veteran and legendary make me feel old. But that’s okay, I’m not old.
Billy Magnussen: I’m not saying you’re old, I’m just saying you’ve got more time in time kickin' a– than I do.
Peter Sarsgaard: Yeah, I remember there’s this famous great quote from Stanislavski when he first came to America, he was going to direct a show on Broadway, and they said, “Great, what do you need?” And he was like, “Alright, well, I’m gonna need six months of rehearsal.” And they’re like, “Oh, no, no, you don’t get six months of rehearsal.” And then he was like, “Oh, okay, then, like 10 days.” Because the truth is, either you want all the time in the world, like you do on these big movies sometimes, to really be able to work something out, or, the thing that we embraced, is we had, like, 20–23 days.
Embrace getting shot out of a cannon. It’ll be spontaneous. You’ll never be doing the same scene for four days, you’ll be doing the same scene for about an hour, and you just go and the “mistakes” become part of the movie, the happy accidents become part of the movie. It’s not even like we’re intentionally putting them in there all the time. We knew to just jump on this boat the way it was going. You’re not like, “I’m sorry, I’m gonna need to keep working on this scene to explore other things past lunch.” No, you have to get this thing done. [Laughs]
AboutCoup!
Isolated on a seaside estate during the 1918 Spanish Flu, an entitled journalist (Billy Magnussen) and his socialite wife (Sarah Gadon) take in a mysterious grifter as a private cook (Peter Sarsgaard). When the plague descends on the island, the wily cook rouses his fellow staff to rebel and take over the mansion. Their wealthy employer suspects the cook’s coup is part of a more sinister agenda, and mind games between master and servant escalate into boisterous class warfare.
Coup!
Cast
A cunning cook infiltrates an isolated seaside estate during the Spanish Flu pandemic, rallying the household staff to rebel against their wealthy employers. As the lines between servant and master blur, the film explores themes of class struggle, power dynamics, and the darkly comic consequences of an uprising.
