Everything the Cast ofThe Perfect CoupleHas Said About That Opening Dance Scene: 'The Group Chat Was Exploding'

Mar. 15, 2025

Meghann Fahy, Liev Schrieber, Nicole Kidman in “The Perfect Couple” dancing scene.Photo:Netflix

Netflix

The Perfect Couplehas everybody talking — and the murder mystery at the center of the limited series is not, in fact, what’s on fans' minds.

The Netflix series, which premiered on Sept. 5 and isbased on Elin Hilderbrand’s 2018 book, begins each episode with a somewhat bizarre sequence that features the entire main cast — in character! — dancing toMeghan Trainor’s song “Criminals.”

It’s not only a choice that has fans wondering, it was also controversial amongst the cast itself after showrunner Susanne Bier delivered the news.

“The group chat was exploding with, ‘I’m never gonna do this, I’m not gonna do this, I don’t dance, I don’t do it.’ I, personally, was absolutely thrilled. I was like, ‘This is gonna be the best thing I’ve ever done.'”

Seacia Pavao/Netflix

“All of us were a little nervous about it. Maybe not Eve — Eve picked it up rather quickly,“Meghann Fahy, who plays Hewson’s onscreen BFF Merritt Monaco, said.

“And so I think it primes the audience that you’re gonna see something different than you might expect,” she said of the number.

Aside from fears regarding the principle of not wanting to dance, several of the stars wondered how the number would fit into the overall story they were telling.

Ishaan Khatter, who plays Benji’s best friend Scooter, toldVarietythat none of the stars “could make sense of doing this choreography in these characters. We’re like, ‘Wait, where does this fit into the scheme of things? This was not part of the assignment!’”

That’s where starNicole Kidman’s reluctance came in, too. “I didn’t feel like Greer would dance! I felt like Greer would watch,” the actress, who plays the cutthroat matriarch, toldVariety. “But I danced as Greer. I think it’s great and I’m so glad they got us all to do it. ‘Cause there’s some joy in it.”

She also told the outlet that the whole cast was in the group chat talking about their hesitance about the dance — everyone except forLiev Schrieber.

Liev Schreiber as Tag Winbury and Nicole Kidman as Greer Winbury in ‘The Perfect Couple’.Courtesy of Netflix

Courtesy of Netflix

Schrieber, 56, who plays patriarch Tag Winbury, knows he was the only one who was game for the number. “The entire cast had a mutiny about this idea except for me. I was already in my trailer practicing the dance moves,” he told the outlet.

In an appearance onSiriusXM’sThe Jess Cagle Show with Julia Cunningham, Schreiber shared more secrets about the dance scene, adding that it was not always in the script. He said the dance was filmed late in production and the younger cast members were “up in arms” in a WhatsApp chat after the director proposed it. Schreiber loved the idea though.

“I guess because I wasn’t on the WhatsApp squad, I was the only one who was really thrilled that we got to do a dance number,” Schreiber said. “My children don’t watch any of my work. They don’t watch much at all beyond, you know, TikTok videos and things like that, so I thought this was my chance to grab their attention. They had given me the choreography with enough advanced notice that I felt like I could nail it and I was very excited to do something they would see and appreciate.”

Jack Reynor joined the chorus of his castmates who expressed their initial opposition to the dance, as he told the UK’sRadio Times, “I was a big naysayer on that one.”

Liam Daniel/Netflix

Dancing aside,The Perfect Couplesees Amelia (Hewson) and the Winbury family — “one of the wealthiest families on Nantucket” — devolve into chaos after a body turns up on the beach on the morning of Amelia and Benji’s (Billy Howle) wedding.

“As secrets come to light, the stage is set for a real-life investigation that feels plucked from the pages of one of Greer’s novels,” per the official synopsis. “Suddenly, everyone is a suspect.”

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The Perfect Coupleis now streaming on Netflix.

source: people.com