A lottery winner reunites his favorite band in the new film The Ballad of Wallis Island.
Longtime collaborators Tim Key and Tom Basden star in the movie, which arrives in select theaters on Friday.
Key plays Charles, the world’s biggest fan of the fictional former folk-rock duo McGwyer Mortimer. Basden is Herb McGwyer, a musician who is surprised to find out he’s been brought out to a remote location to play a concert for an audience of one.
The feature is based on a short film Key and Basden made with this film’s director, James Griffiths, 18 years ago. Basden told ABC Audio “it was a lovely thing to revisit and to come back to and to play these characters again and to kind of rediscover that sort of dynamic between Charles and Herb.”
Both actors wrote this film’s script, which Basden said was “a very easy and organic thing.”
“The good thing about working with someone for such a long time as I have with Tim is that you kind of know exactly what the other person would do and what that character would say,” Basden said.
After agreeing with Basden, Key made sure to add, “Just as a slight caveat. It did take us 18 years to write it.”
The biggest change from the short film to this feature is the addition of the new character Nell Mortimer, who is played by Carey Mulligan.
“That kind of elevated our film and turned it into something very different,” Key said. “Both the character, what that added to the story, and then obviously [we were] very, very lucky to have Carey Mulligan.”
The Ballad of Wallis Island expands to even more theaters on April 18.
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