Osgood Perkins says Neon, not the director, shaped Longlegs’ unusual marketing campaign. His own request was that its materials preserve the film’s aspect ratios—a visual choice that became part of the movie’s public identity. In a July 8, 2024 interview with io9’s Cheryl Eddy, Perkins also discussed the film’s debt to The Silence of the Lambs, its 1990s setting, Nicolas Cage’s character design, and the way T. Rex entered the creative process. The interview came before the film’s U.S. theatrical opening on July 12, 2024, so Perkins’s comments describe his intentions, not later audience consensus. (Read the interview at io9.)
Who shaped Longlegs’ marketing campaign?
Perkins credited Neon with the campaign’s creative direction. He said he trusted the distributor’s enthusiasm for the footage and materials, adding, “None of it was my idea.” His one request was to keep the campaign materials in the aspect ratios used in the film.
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“The one thing I only ever asked them was to maintain the aspect ratios of the picture in the materials—and they have, and they sort of turned that square look into one of the sort of lead feelings of the movie,” he told Eddy. Perkins summed up his trust in the campaign this way: “I just trusted them inherently, and it really worked out.”
Which movies influenced Longlegs?
The Silence of the Lambs: a deliberate audience invitation
Perkins called The Silence of the Lambs a deliberate point of reference. His idea was to begin with a familiar crime-film framework that could draw viewers in, then take the story somewhere different. “It’s a deliberate one-for-one relationship,” he said—not a claim that the films are identical, but a description of the relationship he intended to establish with the audience.
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Se7en: a visual and tonal reference
Perkins also named Se7en as a reference for the film’s look. The films are not interchangeable; in Perkins’s account, The Silence of the Lambs informed the audience-facing invitation and Se7en helped shape the visual approach.
Gus Van Sant and My Own Private Idaho
Perkins cited Gus Van Sant, particularly My Own Private Idaho, as a more distant influence on his filmmaking sensibility. He described his broader creative method as noticing what enters his orbit and following it, rather than forcing every influence into a neat explanation: “You got to kind of hold the thing with a loose grip, otherwise you’re going to break it.”
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Why is Longlegs set in the 1990s and the Pacific Northwest?
Perkins said the 1990s setting was chosen partly to evoke The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en. Asked whether that was the reason, he answered, “It was very much that.” The story also draws on the Pacific Northwest’s history of serial killers, as Perkins described it in the interview.
The setting and the production location are distinct: the story is placed in the Pacific Northwest, while Perkins said the film was shot in Vancouver. The interview points to Oregon through details such as license plates, but it does not establish that every part of the story takes place there.
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How did Perkins approach Nicolas Cage and Maika Monroe?
Perkins said Cage and Monroe share only one scene. He expected the editing to balance their contrasting performance energies, with the characters’ separation through much of the story making their eventual meeting more charged. He described Cage as collaborative, but the interview presents this as Perkins’s directing perspective rather than a measured account of the actors’ performances.
Perkins said the film’s real character emerges in post-production: “It’s where what the movie really is, [where it] reveals itself—not until the editing room.” His comment underscores why he expected the contrast between the two performers to take shape in the cut.
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- Longlegs Maika Monroe (Actor), Nicolas Cage (Actor), Osgood Perkins (Director)
How did Nicolas Cage’s Longlegs look come together?
Perkins described the pale face and makeup as part of the character’s design, not simply an isolated cosmetic effect. He said the pale look drew from Bob Dylan in Rolling Thunder Revue. He also wrote unusual periods into the character’s dialogue to suggest uneasiness and shame, then gave the written material to Cage to interpret.
Why does Longlegs feature T. Rex and Marc Bolan?
Asked how the T. Rex and Marc Bolan obsession entered the film, Perkins said he had not known the band particularly well before it came into his creative orbit as the script and character took shape. He described paying attention to the ideas and references that appeared around him and recording them. He did not offer a single definitive symbolic explanation for the band’s presence, so it is more accurate to treat it as an influence that surfaced during the creative process than as a fully preplanned clue with a stated meaning.
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