Pop-Culturalist.com

Get ready to fall head over heels for Louise Linton and Ed Westwick. The pair are making headlines with their sexy and stylish new comedy-thriller, Me You Madness.

Written and directed by Louise Linton, Me You Madness tells the story of Catherine Black (Louise Linton), a beautiful, ruthlessly ambitious businesswoman who has no need for a man…except to satisfy her natural serial killer instinct. When Tyler (Ed Westwick), a petty thief, answers her ad for a roommate, he thinks he’s struck gold, but he has no idea what Catherine has planned for him.

Pop Culturalist caught up with Louise and Ed to chat about Me You Madness, their collaboration on the film, and the femme fatales that inspired the film.

PC: Could you each introduce us to your characters in the film?
Louise: Catherine is a diabolical megalomanic, very intentionally. She’s somewhat inspired by all the other femme fatales that I’ve loved in cinematic history, whether it’s Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven or Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard or Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity.

Last night, I re-watched Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Catherine’s a homage to all those fabulously diabolical femme fatales, but she’s a parody. She’s a satire. She’s a caricature. She’s meant to make you laugh.

Ed: My character, Tyler, is a small-time thief and con man, but he’s the nicest guy in the world if you excuse those parts. He comes across Catherine. He’s lured there, basically. He’s looking for a room to rent, and he’s swept away by this incredible, fantastic, and absolutely terrifying knockout of a woman, and love and romance ensue.

PC: Louise, you wrote this back in 2018. What was the inspiration behind the film? How did it finally come to fruition?
Louise: I really wanted to write this shamelessly uninhibited character, and I was also inspired by American Psycho. Bret Easton Ellis is one of the most genius writers out there; I’ve always been passionate about all of his books and his film work. I like the specificity of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. I thought, “Why not do this as a woman?” I wanted to do a gender switch, where usually, the Wall Street types are highfalutin, high-powered men. I wanted a woman who was a boss that had fought her way tooth-and-nail to financial success and to be able to run a company that was made of very unlikely types.

Usually, in these Wall Street firms, you see a lot of white men. I wanted deliberately for her office environment to be extremely estrogen-heavy, female, and diverse. I also love comedy so much—I think my favorite movie is Airplane with Leslie Nielsen. I love really wacky, farcical, anti-plot type movies. That’s why I wrote it.

PC: Ed, you’ve done it all in your career. What was it about this particular project and script that stood out to you?
Ed: It was exactly that—it was the script and the character. I thought it sounded very brave, full of imagination, full of color, and it was something that I hadn’t done. It’s a comedy. Everything about it felt to me like I was going to be doing something for the first time. Then, when I met Louise and she shared her vision for the film, it was captivating. It felt like it was the right step for me at the time. I’d do it all over again. I had an absolute blast.

Louise: What people are going to see, which they maybe haven’t seen before is how much of a comic talent Ed is. He’s so fricking funny and so much fun to act opposite of. We had so much banter and so much fun, both on screen and off. He’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.

PC: Over the course of the film, we see the impact that your characters have on each other. How did you guys prepare to tackle that journey and what was that collaboration like?
Ed: It was a lot of rehearsal and a lot of ripping through the dialogue, ripping through the script, and really understanding the twists, the turns, the energy, and the beat. It’s like a song basically; it’s a song and dance throughout. Once we felt like we had a really good understanding of it, we went for it. Then, of course, we saw some surprises happen along the way. There were beautiful accidents, beautiful hiccups, and stuff like that. That’s what I felt finally got us through. We were doing this freestyle dance throughout the whole thing.

Louise: It really came down to the chemistry and the energy. We’re good friends in real life. We get along really well, but I learned a lot from Ed about acting, because he’s obviously had so much more experience than me on camera. He’s been so helpful to me, and very helpful to me as a first-time director as well. I mean, in many ways, Ed was a best friend and a co-pilot. We really rehearsed, rehearsed, and rehearsed because what was important to me was the witty dialogue back and forth between the characters.

One of my other favorite movies is His Girl Friday, where the double-talk, quick-speak is so engaging and entertaining—I love that. That’s what I wanted to bring into this film. Ed has the comic chops to pull that off.

PC: Louise, not only are you starring in the film, but you also wrote, directed, and produced it. At what point in the process did you realize you wanted to wear all of those different hats? How challenging was that?
Louise: Writing it was the easiest part. I was having so much fun writing it, and I just sat down for two weeks straight and knocked the script out. My producing partner, Kristen, said, “You need to direct this.” I said, “What? I don’t know the first thing about directing. I don’t know how to direct a movie.” She was like, “You’ll be fine.” Let’s say there was a really steep learning curve. I learned a lot along the way. I made plenty of mistakes, but I learned so much and ended up having so much fun.

I was very involved, mostly in the lighting and cinematography. The look of the film was extremely important to me. I wanted it to feel like Tron. I wanted it to feel like a homage to the ’80s—the blues, the pinks, the reds, the whites, the yellows, all of these colors, and the level of saturation on screen was very, very important to me. I wanted the costumes to be wild and fun.

PC: What was the biggest lesson you learned being a part of this project that you’ll apply to future work?
Ed: That’s a really good question.

Louise: For me as a director, I know that shot lists and storyboarding are the most important aspects of filmmaking as well as having as much preparation as possible. You also need to have a very close relationship with your crew and make sure that you’re working hand-in-hand with each department—whether it’s props, lighting, costumes—you’ve got to have great communication and a great relationship.

Ed: I feel like I learned so much from the overall experience. I was happy with the way I got through certain things, like the physicality, the quick banter, staying concentrated—all those things. It was a real obstacle course…

Louise: …physicality and mentally.

PC: With the film out now, what do you hope audiences take away?
Louise: I hope that they take away that this is a fun movie. It doesn’t take itself too seriously; I don’t take myself too seriously. At the end of the movie, I hope they feel warmth and love. I hope they go away smiling.

Ed: It’s like going to a party—that’s what I feel like it is. It’s like going to a party, letting loose, dancing, and having a good time.

Make sure to follow Louise (Twitter/Instagram) and Ed (Twitter/Instagram). Watch Me You Madness today.