The Ballad of Wallis Island’s Carey Mulligan: ‘I forced my way into the inside jokes’

The Ballad of Wallis Island is the stealth hit-in-the-making British film that’s finally been released in UK cinemas after gathering word-of-mouth praise since its Sundance Film Festival premiere in January.

It’s written by comedy duo Tim Key and Tom Basden as a feature-length expansion of a Bafta-nominated 2007 short film.

The pair already enjoy a cult following thanks to over two decades working together across stage, screen and radio waves.

You’ll have heard or seen them, together or separately, across the likes of BBC Radio 4, Alan Partridge (Key is sidekick Simon), Plebs (Basden co-created it and played Aurelius), BBC sitcom Here We Go and Ricky Gervais’ After Life – plus Key is appearing in upcoming spin-off of the US version of The Office, The Paper.

There are also appearances in Inside No. 9, Peep Show, Taskmaster, Ghosts, The Armstrong & Miller Show… basically, Key and Basden’s involvement can be found in nearly every corner of the UK comedy scene.

The Ballad of Wallis Island is going to convert a whole new group of fans.

But to shepherd short The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island to its full-length film destiny after 18 years – for which they also worked again with original director, James Griffiths – the group sprinkled extra star power over proceedings with the addition of Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan.

In the film she plays alt-folk singer Nell Mortimer, one half of musical duo McGwyer-Mortimer with her ex, Herb McGwyer (Basden). Eccentric lottery winner Charles Heath (Key) invites them both to his remote island with the hopes of finally reuniting them for a private gig.

Mulligan, coming off the back of her third Academy Award nod for Maestro opposite Bradley Cooper, was easily swayed into an immediate yes by the ‘brilliant’ script and a reference of ‘what they were going for’ with the original short.

‘It was a really easy gut instinct thing, which I think is, ideally – I always want to operate [like that]. I loved it. I loved the whole script, I loved the story, I loved the part that I get to play in it, the idea of working with these guys,’ she tells Metro in a joint interview with her castmates and director.

‘You were very pregnant at the time as well, you probably weren’t thinking straight,’ chimes in Basden, to play off the compliments.

While Mulligan, 40, agreed being ‘hormonal’ could have helped their case – and the film ended up shooting in Wales to allow the star’s family to help with the mum-of-three’s baby during the shoot – there was another reason too.

‘My husband was big fan of these guys, so he was like, “You have to do it” even before I read it. And so I was sort of in – before I knew what was happening, I signed on!’ she added. Mulligan’s husband is of course Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons, who even ended up helping with his wife’s musical parts in the film.

It’s no surprise that Mulligan was easily wooed by The Ballad of Wallis Island’s script, given its deft balance of heart and humour and the relentless way it peppers you with puns and gags.

Key, 48, and Basden, 44, actually wrote the film in chunks, separately, covering all characters, thanks to their long and fruitful professional partnership.

‘Tim and I have known each other and worked together for a very long time, over 20 years, and we’ve written a lot of stuff for each other. In his radio show, he writes all my lines, and in TV shows that I’ve written, in which Tim has starred, I’ve written all his lines. We just understand each other’s rhythm and have a very similar sense of humour,’ Basden explains, simply, of the feat of Wallis Island’s brilliant character work.

‘It feels completely natural to write each other’s dialogue when we’re writing those bits of the film.’

Of course, given their backgrounds, while they do make sure they’ve shot the script ‘exactly’ as written there is always chance to play around ‘and see if we can find other rhythms and other jokes and unearth other things in the scene’.

Mulligan was an outsider coming into a long and successful relationship between Key, Basden and Griffiths on the film. She says she wasn’t intimidated as such, but keen to be included.

‘When you work with anyone who’s got a close partner, with people who’ve collaborated a lot, I think there’s a natural sense of trepidation that you might not kind of get the gags. I sort of forced myself into all the inside jokes,’ she shares, grinning.

‘I was like, “Explain them to me. Why do you call him that? And when did that start?” By about a week in, I was like, “I get it, I was there, we went to university together”. So it was fine – but yes, of course, at the beginning, you just want to be in the gang. But they were so nice and I pretty immediately was.’

‘Obviously from our point of view there’s huge trepidation working with a genuine Hollywood star, as opposed to with each other,’ points out Basden. ‘We know this water very well. And then Carey coming in, and us feeling like we actually need to do quite a good job here…’

For Key, finally getting to the night before shooting, so many years after the film first took shape, felt ‘kind of like Christmas Eve’.

‘[I was] excited about doing it, but then also petrified and [there was a] sort of a slight element of, should we be doing this? Probably a little element of we shouldn’t go back – but I think we were all so excited to be doing it by then that that wasn’t at the front of my mind.’

Basden was grateful to the team, including director Griffiths, always being on hand in the run-up to the shoot, allowing for ‘a forum where we really had a kind of battle plan with everything’.

He says they didn’t ‘allow’ themselves to feel emotional about the project until they got to Sundance and were experiencing other people watch it.

‘Then we were all just really full of emotion, thinking I just can’t believe we’ve done this!’ he laughs.

‘There was a moment I remember feeling very grateful to be there, that we’d got it together, and the people who supported us to get there, like Focus and Bankside and Baby Cow, had got us to that start line,’ shares Griffiths. ‘And then it’s just about focusing on what’s the first shot of the day – and how scary that is in its own right!’

Key picks out the first scene of the film as his fondest memory because it allowed him to ‘work out very quickly’ that they should, in fact, be making a feature version of their short film.

‘You’re back in the rhythm of working, talking to Tom in character, and Griff directing it, and a crew there – and you do sort of think this is a really great thing. I mean, a lot of pressure; you don’t want to ruin it over the next 18 days!’

The cast and crew all lived together in hillside cabins while on the tight shoot, which Griffiths describes as ‘pretty idyllic’.

‘I mean, it was hard work and there’s so much that the crew did to facilitate everything,’ he continues. ‘I remember those moments being pretty special where you’re seeing people lugging cases, and everyone grabbing a lens box and hiking up a hill to get the shots.’

Basden also loved all the shooting outside on location because ‘it just fills you with joy when you go to work and it looks like that, you know?’.

‘It’s weird, it was 18 days, and I only shot 10,’ remembers Mulligan. ‘But it feels like we were all there for longer. I had a memory of us being there for the summer, which we weren’t, but I think we really soaked up every minute of the loveliness of it all.’

And she finishes with perhaps the highest compliment an actor can pay to a film set.

‘There’s so few jobs where every single scene you’re like, “Oh, I love this!” There are days on most jobs where you’re a bit annoyed, or things aren’t going the way you wanted to or something isn’t working, but with this, every day was just so nice.’

The Ballad of Wallis Island is in cinemas now.

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