Michael Showalter’s “The Idea of You,” based on the novel by Robinne Lee, has an impossible fever dream-level premise: Divorced mother Solene (Anne Hathaway) is dragooned into taking her daughter (Ella Rubin) to Coachella to see boy band August Moon. At Coachella, Solene has a chance meeting with Augst Moon’s lead singer, Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), and the pair embark on a surprising romance.
Despite the fantasy premise, one thing had to feel steeped in realism: August Moon itself. Lee has discussed reading Harry Styles fan fiction while writing “The Idea of You,” but the band couldn’t merely just be a One Direction rip-off. Showalter wanted to take it completely seriously. “What I felt was this is not going to be a parody, this isn’t a movie where we’re making fun of boy bands. Their music is good, and it’s pop music. We wanted this band to be cool, to be contemporary, to be interesting, and all those things,” he told Indiewire.
To make a boy band that actually felt like a legitimate boy band, Showalter brought in choreographer Dani Vitale, who has worked with artists like BTS and The Jonas Brothers and on projects like “Daisy Jones and the Six” and the upcoming “Mother Mary.” Vitale described it as a unique experience because she was on the ground floor of creating August Moon. “I’m like, if you want a real boy band in this movie, I’m going to put the movie to the side for a second and develop this band as I would in my live choreography world,” she told IndieWire. “Nick was cast as Hayes. So that is our spine. That is our nucleus of August Moon. They wanted to hire actors, and I was like, no, we have to hire professional dancers that can act.”
At first, Galitzine couldn’t dance, but Vitale knew he would crack it with practice. So she reached out to her dance world contacts to work in tandem with the casting director to cast the band around Galitzine. And when they finally found the right guys for the band, something immediately clicked once Vitale got them all in the same room. “They just turned into instant best friends. We were in Atlanta for two months in the same hotel, and it turned into Nerf gun war fights in the hallway. You can’t plan or choreograph the essence of the beauty of them.”
Vitale describes their beginnings in Atlanta as a boy band boot camp where they began mapping out what type of band August Moon was, what they’d move like, and what their stage presence would be like. Vitale notes inspirations like The 1975 and Panic from The Disco. But the intense environment was one of creativity and safety where they were able to mesh as a band. Jaiden Anthony, who plays Adrian, told Indiewire, “It was so focused on getting to know each other and just starting to build this camaraderie that we need for this band. There was a lot of choreo we learned. We did a lot of different situations where we would have two boys going and two boys watching, so that way we can give each other notes. It was super interesting because we come from a strong dance background, and Nick doesn’t have that. He’s amazing. It worked hand in hand because sometimes with dancers, it can be so big, so much, and when you are singing on stage, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that. I’d be doing it full out, and Nick would be doing it super chill, and then we’d find a way to meet in the middle.”
While Vitale got August Moon into boy band shape, they reached out to songwriter and producer Savan Kotecha, who has written songs for Ariana Grande, Usher, Demi Lovato, and yes, One Direction. Kotecha was the executive music producer on “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” and had enjoyed the experience so much he asked his manager to let him know if other movies came up. After speaking with producer Cathy Schulman and Showalter, Kotecha shared similar ideas for August Moon and Hayes and signed on.
Kotecha harnessed his experience in the music industry to imagine what the arc of August Moon would look like. “We had this conversation about when they’re at Coachella, you have to believe they’re a big band. So it’s like, if we’re going to do that, we have to figure out a way where we hear some of their songs before, which I knew Michael wanted. What was their first single, what was their really young teeny bopper single, what would be the first single for their second album? I approached it that way with one of my main collaborators and really close friend of mine, Carl Falk, who I’ve done everything from One Direction with to Ariana [Grande.]”
“I Got You” became August Moon’s young teeny bopper song, while “Closer” was a sexier song from a second album. “Then ‘Guard Down’ comes in, and now they have a little bit more power and say, and they want guitars and sort of edgier sound, and it has a bit of a The Police vibe and more substance to the lyrics,” Kotecha said. Kotecha didn’t go in with any specific sonic inspiration, instead using Galitzine’s casting as the driving force. Since they knew what Hayes would look and sound like, that guided the decision to make August Moon straight-up pop while evolving Hayes throughout the film in terms of both the band and his relationship with Solene.
When Vitale got the music, she started making vision boards and backstories to further find references for their stage presence. There’s one moment that still gives Vitale chills when they were rehearsing in Atlanta, where her assistant Scott helped with Galitzine’s dancing lessons. “I’ll never forget the first day in Atlanta when we all got together to rehearse together, it was like [Galitzine] was a whole different person, and he felt the joy and the energy of performing with other people and the way they supported him movement wise, he at the end of the day was like, ‘I get it now. This is so amazing.’”
Once they got August Moon into boy band shape, tackling a Coachella performance was another enormous undertaking for Vitale. She got to help Showalter and DP Jim Frohna figure out what the August Moon Coachella set would look like and recreate the vibe of the Indio, California, music festival. When it came to the choreography for Coachella, she didn’t want to dull down the chemistry that August Moon now had or for each individual band member’s tics. “I really wanted it to feel like we really jumped into Coachella, and if it was too choreographed or too rigid or too clean, it just would’ve come off cheesy,” she said. “I constructed it super perfect, and then we were just tearing it apart. So it just felt more loose like they’ve been doing this for years and years and years.”
Vitale called filming the Coachella performance surreal. “I feel like I’m doing tech rehearsals for Coachella. It really was crazy that we literally had the exact stage set up, the lighting rig, the content sound, everything.” For the guys, it felt like they were actually performing, too. “We were finally able to perform with a live audience,” Anthony said. “We did have some extra fans watching, and that just always brings a different level of energy and a confidence boost.”
The guys were able to bring their personalities out in their performance, creating small moments. “One of my favorite parts of our Coachella set was when Vik [White, who plays Simon] and I are sitting on the steps, and we do this heart, and then we break,” said Raymond Cham Jr., who plays Oliver. “That wasn’t something that we choreographed. It was just a silly thing that came from our chemistry and just leaning on each other to create something interesting and funny and truthful.”
Even with all her tremendous work on “The Idea of You,” Vitale pointed out that you can’t train chemistry. “The chemistry between them off camera is still, to this day, they are just this little unit. You can’t hire that. It was just magic. And Michael makes a set like that, too. So everyone just wanted to have fun and go to work, and it just permeates through every department.”
With additional reporting by Kate Erbland.
