Love knows no bounds -- even in space. If You Were the Last follows two sole-surviving astronauts, Adam (Anthony Mackie) and Jane (Zoe Chao), who are stranded on a spaceship. Navigation and communication systems are down. After three years adrift, NASA believes them to be dead. The duo dance, work out, watch movies, and talk to pass the time. Eventually, the dilemma becomes whether they should hook up despite being married to Earthbound partners. Besides verbal teasing and foreplay, Adam and Jane offer varying perspectives. Adam proposes that, since returning home seems unlikely, they should enjoy each other's company to the fullest. On the other hand, Jane argues that they are married and should remain faithful despite the circumstances.
Director Kristian Mercado recently spoke to CBR about the script's whimsy, casting, connection to Alien, and the power of love.
CBR: A rom-com in space isn't a common mashup. What was it about the script that jumped out at you?
Kristian Mercado: The script was beautiful. It was one of those things that, when I got it in my hands and gave it a read, I was drawn to the characters, the dialogue, the situation, and the whimsy of it. I feel the page had whimsy. I was also in a place where I was having a lot of fuss of my own about friendship and love and the intertwining relationship between the two. I remember the first time I read it. I had to read it possibly 100 times or so. In production, you have to constantly revisit a script. It takes on deeper meaning and somehow becomes part of you through that long process. I felt like it was a script that was making me feel like I was becoming a better person. That's my relationship to it. It made me think so much about the value of friendship.
Rom-coms can be hit or miss. What were some of the ingredients that made this one special?
I have to give credit to Angela Bourassa for writing the script. She wrote a script that was so familiar with the tropes of rom-coms that it actually does a great job of balancing them and re-interpreting but also subverting them. It makes it exciting and different. One of the things I hear people talk about when they talk to me about this film is, "Oh, what a surprising film. I didn't expect these things to happen. I usually predict this, but this happened." There's definitely a little bit of a deconstruction of some of the tropes of the rom-com in a way that it still serves as a rom-com, which I think is the coolest thing ever.
The movie contains a ton of heart, too.
Definitely. The heart is so present. I wanted to imbue it with a lot of heart -- a lot of the aesthetic choices, music, scoring, and performances. I was always tracking the emotional heartbeat of those characters. Where are they? What are they feeling? I wanted to convey that, as well.
How did you land Anthony Mackie and Zoe Chao as the leads? Was it a hard sell? What did that pitch sound like?
The first conversation I had with Anthony was cool. He was in the middle of building something. He was buying supplies and was on the phone. You could tell there was a workman quality. There was almost a man-of-the-woods thing going on. This character, Adam, there is something about him being a gardener. Mackie, at the time, literally was gardening, it seems, or building stuff for his backyard. He was doing a lot of rugged-dude stuff. I said, "This is interesting, the serendipity of that." It was such an earnest conversation, where he was telling me, in a candid sort of way, the things he was seeking out in film and the stories he wanted to tell more of. I was telling him why I liked the script so much and the vision I had for the film. It was cool because he is a dude from New Orleans, and I am a dude from Spanish Harlem and Puerto Rico. There was some instantly we related on. We were just two normal dudes in this bigger place, like Hollywood, but we are almost displaced because we are not quite of that. We are these two normal-ish dudes, I guess. It is also rare to find that people can be that grounded in entertainment.
And then, with Zoe, she was one of the first people that they had reached out to a long time ago, even before I came onto the project, but I didn't know that. In some roundabout way, it must have been destiny for her to do this film because she came back into the list we were talking to about the project. I noticed, mostly in the chemistry read between Mackie and Zoe, I was just like, "Oh, there's something there. It's really working." They felt like best buds.
Spaceships remain a staple in genre and science fiction. What was your inspiration for the aesthetic behind this one?
There is a long history of films set in space. We are very familiar with the language and the visual language of space in film. It's something we all have digested a lot of. It's almost a polished aesthetic we got to. I find it interesting. If you go back to the earlier versions of space, like people who did space earlier on in their careers, like George Lucas or Ridley Scott with Alien, there was a lot of adoration and love for the practical and miniatures. In an odd way, I brought it back to the craftsmanship of building miniatures and having practical objects, but then leaning into this thing of, "What if I just make it not look sterile and alien or cold, but rather warm and inviting and more of a projection of an emotion, or something full of nostalgia or joy." I really wanted to have space feel like its own thing.
You reference George Lucas and Ridley Scott. This movie has that 70s/80s vibe. In what ways did that work for you?
I love nostalgia. Nostalgia is like a love language. When you imbue fans with nostalgia, you instantly connect to it. Love can be nostalgia because you are pining for someone and trying to put together something from memories. I wanted the film to do some of that work for me by having nostalgic qualities, where you are like, "Oh wow, this cartridge, or blowing on a cartridge or listening to music on a tape recorder, or feeling a feeling of vinyl." The movie is really subtle, but if you listen to the opening credits, you hear the pop of a vinyl record. You put the needle on the vinyl, and it's how we start the whole journey -- having those organic-sounding sounds -- that was part of the sound design, too.
Ridley Scott's Alien and James Cameron's sequel, Aliens, get memorable nods in this movie. How much did you identify with that scene?
I identified a lot with it. I love the sharing of pop culture. Anytime you share pop culture with someone, it's such a special thing. The way you know I care about you as a person, the way you know I love you as a person, is if I gift you vinyl. It means I am really trying to make an effort to connect with you. That's what we do as humans. We experience pop culture, and we want to share pop culture with the ones that we love. When Zoe is sharing that movie with Mackie, that is something we have all experienced. There is a meta-quality to this movie. You might share this movie with someone, but you are watching people watch a movie. Even the framing of the shots creates this mirror because you don't see a screen. You are the screen. It's almost like they are looking at you, and you are looking at them. It's kind of surreal. I almost wanted to smell the buttered popcorn.
The characters also get their groove on more than once. What do you love about dance sequences in a movie?
This movie is not a musical, but I was looking at this idea of a musical and what a musical does and having dance sequences that feel a little bit bigger than a normal dance sequence. With just the dance sequences alone, they are like a storyline of where they are. You have a goofy Line dance, a friendship dance. You have Salsa, which is the most passionate of dances. Then, you have Interpretative dance. And, then, you have kind of a Waltz. They all tell you something about where they are at. I have a lot of spouses who have met their spouses in dance classes. It's so funny. I am Puerto Rican, so I think there is something innately, culturally speaking, unsaid, or unspoken that happens in dance. It's part of the fabric of our culture. It was something I wanted to share with people. I was obsessed with the dances.
At the end of the day, what does If You Were the Last say about love, romance, and outer space?
Being in love does feel like they are being in their own secluded world. Also, when you find love through the lens of friendship, which is always so difficult because you have someone you are really close friends with, you almost don't want to ruin the friendship by taking that risk and taking the next step. But you have to risk it to find that extra-special thing that might exist. We also live in a society that is more averse to feeling things. I feel like we are slowly alienating each other and ourselves constantly through all the things we are experiencing or the times. The movie wants you to remember that love is important, and friendship is important and worth fighting for.
If You Were the Last is available to stream on Peacock.