Good Luck To You, Leo Grande Trivia | 55 facts about the movie

«Good Luck to You, Leo Grande» is a 2022 sex comedy-drama film directed by Sophie Hyde. The film stars Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack.

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1. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a 2022 sex comedy-drama.
2. The film directed by Sophie Hyde.
3. It was written by Katy Brand.
4. The film stars Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack.
5. The story revolves around a woman who seeks a young sex worker to achieve an orgasm.
6. The film had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival on 22 January 2022.
7. It was released on 17 June 2022, theatrically in the United Kingdom by Lionsgate, and digitally in the United States by Searchlight Pictures as a Hulu original film.
8. The film was critically acclaimed with praise given to the films performances, specifically Thompson who received BAFTA Award, and Golden Globe Awards nominations for her performance
9. The movie was filmed in order, so the leading actors would progress with their characters.
10. Emma Thompson’s naked scene in this film was “probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” she said. “[Director] Sophie [Hyde], Daryl [McCormack], and I rehearsed totally nude and talked about our bodies, talked about our relationship with our bodies, drew them, talked over the things that we find difficult about, factors we like about them, described one particular another’s bodies,” Emma reported for the duration of a Cinema Café panel at the Sundance Film Festival, where the motion picture premiered.
11. Daryl McCormack and Emma Thompson did not require an intimacy coordinator to orchestrate their sex scenes.
12. The film was shot within 19 days, with an average of 12 pages per day.
13. Actor Daryl McCormack, who plays Leo Grande, was sent the script. “Before I’d even read the script or understood it was a two-hander, I was excited by the idea of working with Emma [Thompson],” explained McCormack. “Once I started reading, I couldn’t believe this was something I might be considered for. I fell in love with the character of Leo and what he represented, what seeing a young man like him on screen could mean and the chance to embody that. And then to see how these two people in one room can really change each other’s lives through intimacy.”
14. Director Sophie Hyde worked closely with the production designer Miren Maranon to create a hotel room that was “modern-ish and quite neutral, which meant something that wasn’t luxurious, and didn’t have heaps of colour.” One of the challenges of setting a film in a hotel room,” said Hyde, “is that it doesn’t have any revelation of character like you’d have in somebody’s home for instance.” To address this, Hyde and Maranon brought elements of “sensuality, I suppose, into the furnishings. S
15. o there’s lots of really tactile fabrics in there. For instance, we ended up with this beautiful blue carpet that’s really lush.” In the end, the goal was to balance keeping the room neutral, not too expensive or cheap looking, all while maintaining a visually entertaining space.”
16. On top of the construction of the set, the filmmakers had to be conscious of the difficulties in shooting on an incredibly intimate, small set during a full Covid pandemic lockdown. The nature of this, caused by the close proximity, increased the feeling of intimacy and focus of the production.
17. Daryl McCormack came in to audition and the filmmakers liked him immediately. “It was finding that energy we wanted Leo to have. That openness and charisma and a sort of gentleness, but also a naughty sense of humour. We thought Daryl could make Leo come to life,” said writer Katy Brand.
18. Writer Katy Brand was quick to share that for the role she had always pictured Emma Thompson, a friend with whom she had worked with before on Nanny McPhee Returns
19. “I wrote the script for Emma and with her tone of voice in mind,” Brand said. “I knew that she would have a certain cadence and a way of delivering lines, a way of being funny, but also true at the same time.” Brand sent the script to Thompson and she came back quickly. “I read it and I had a kind of visceral reaction to it and I wrote immediately saying it had to be made and that I really wanted to be in it,” explained Thompson. “It was like nothing I’d ever read before – it was so funny and so moving. I laughed so hard, I was in tears at the end, and then it quickly took off from there.”
20. The film’s two leads, actor Daryl McCormack and actress Emma Thompson, initially met to discuss the role and the story together, and she immediately wanted him to play Leo. He said: “I couldn’t believe it, I thought maybe she’d saved my number incorrectly or that they really wanted someone else.” But there was no confusion and in under a week McCormack had the role and rehearsals were set to begin.
21. Rehearsals were an important part of building a comfortable space for both the actors and filmmaking team. “I felt like Emma [Thompson], Daryl [McCormack] , and I stepped onto set knowing the level we wanted to go to and felt in control of that,” said director Sophie Hyde. “We worked up to the intimacy by talking a lot, about nudity, about sexual touch, and how we were going do that in the film. We did a lot of workshops, exercises, games, and I led them through a process of opening up to each other so they could feel comfortable.”
22. It was crucial for actor Daryl McCormack to depict the job of a male sex worker accurately. “Meeting with sex workers that [director] Sophie [Hyde] had been consulting with was massively important for me in preparing for the role,” explained McCormack. “I’m not representing all sex workers in the role because the work and workers are so diverse, it would be impossible to do. But it was important to speak to them about their profession, their experiences, and hear them as people to help us to understand Leo’s character.”
23. “I had had the vision of the opening scene for quite a long time,” said screenwriter Katy Brand. “A woman of around 60 is waiting in a hotel room for a young man that she has booked to have sex with. A sex worker. I saw the image of this scene, this woman waiting, and the guy coming up and you’re just hearing this soft knock on the door and she opens the door and then we begin.”
24. Producer Debbie Gray has commented: “I loved the script from the first read, funny, relatable, relevant. It’s great to have a female-strong team with such a passion for the project”.
25. Actress Emma Thompson has said of her Nancy Stokes character in this film: “Nancy is a 60-ish retired religious education teacher who’s been widowed for 2 years and who makes this sort of fabulously bold and unusual decision to hire a younger sex worker. She is brave but also deeply flawed. So many of her beliefs are the opposite of woke which I love because that’s sort of 90% of the population. It’s not uncommon — her attitudes, her prejudices, her biases. She is just a wonderfully normal person who initiates this very strangely intimate, not-romantic relationship. Nancy obeyed the rules her whole life; she’s what you would describe as a pillar of society. She’s conducted herself incredibly well -she’s had a long, successful 31-year-old marriage. She’s got two successful, healthy children. She had a long career in religious education. Yet slowly, you see how this construction that looks so perfect is in fact far from it; that it contains an emptiness that has prevented her from really being fully a human being. We’re so conditioned. A lot of our societal constructions make it impossible for us to be present and I think that’s also what the film starts to address. If you weren’t following the rules, what would you want? How would you express it and how would you find it? Seeing Nancy go from being so tense that she can’t even cope with being touched, like that, to having a kind of a very beautiful attachment with this man, a deep and unromantic intimacy I’d never seen before.”
26. Scriptwriter Katy Brand kept writing and found that she loved the back and forth between Nancy and Leo. “I really started to enjoy hearing them talk to each other. What would actually happen in this situation, how would it play out? And so I wrote it quite freely, that first draft, but I was excited by it. I felt a thrill of writing that dialogue and hearing them talk.”
27. Cornerstone Films’ Alison Thompson and Mark Gooder have noted: “We loved the bold, fresh and surprising take on female sexuality in Katy’s script and to have an actress of Emma’s caliber in the role of Nancy is a real gift”.
28. Director Sophie Hyde and screenwriter Katy Brand worked through several drafts of the story asking themselves questions about how to push the film into really interesting territory. “How can we ensure that the story feels authentic to the audience? How can we make sure that we’re consulting sex workers and that we’ve got the right material to tell that story, that’s not harmful, that’s perhaps empowering in some way?”. Hyde recollected: “Katy was very generous with allowing me to find things as well, and those became part of the story.”
29. The film shot in two locations in the country of England, UK: They were Norwich and London.
30. Of the theme of empowerment through intimacy in the film, director Sophie Hyde said: “I made this film as an important reminder that someone unlikely might free you from your own limitations in a small but significant way. And that the search for intimacy and connection can be powerful and necessary.” She continued: “I would like audiences to go out feeling so released, so much freer and braver, brave enough to say, finally, you know, What do you want, really? How do you experience pleasure? Do you allow yourself to experience pleasure, and if you don’t then why not? Where do you carry your shame and why are you ashamed? Why are pain and pleasure and shame so inextricably linked?”. Actress Emma Thompson added: “These are conversations that live with everyone, in all cultures, across all borders.’
31. As a director, Hyde was interested in showing a certain freedom that can be found in pleasure and connection. “It’s something that takes a while to open up for some of us but is really worth something.” She continued: “This film is simple – two actors in one room exploring intimacy, connection, sex, frustration, and shifting power dynamics – but in our currently divided world, these intimate stories about connection feel even more vital. Our bodies, our shame, our miscommunications, our sexual connections, and sexual frustrations are funny, touching, and often tragic, and I believe we are longing for stories that reflect us and challenge us and allow us to consider how we treat each other.” “I hope that they’ll have a laugh,” commented actor Daryl McCormack. “I hope that they really enjoy what we can bring to each other as humans, just humor and kindness and an endeavor to understand one another.” Nancy (Emma Thompson) and Leo ( Daryl McCormack) derive more from their relationship than sex, however. The ability to connect on a deeper level with each other, and how powerful that can be. “I think that you can make a connection with anyone anywhere, and it doesn’t mean it has to last a lifetime. Just be open to having little connections with people, even when you least expect it.” McCormack said he hopes that viewers come away understanding that it is possible to overcome what society has projected upon us about intimacy. “To get past that is a lot of freedom,” he concluded.
32. Both the concept of the story and Emma Thompson’s involvement were exciting for director Sophie Hyde who said: “I got a message that this was Emma Thompson in a story in which she hired a sex worker, and it was all set in one space. And I just thought well, I want to do that, that sounds amazing; I just knew that it was going to be something really interesting, and there’s so much room in there to create something.”
33. Katy Brand, the film’s screenwriter, has said: “Sophie [Hyde]’s director’s notes and insights were the best I’ve had. I knew that she was going to create the atmosphere on set and create that intimacy and trust with the actors.” According to producer Debbie Gray, this is one of the qualities that made Hyde perfect for the project. “Sophie brought a strong point of view and a fearless ability to lean into the material,” said Gray. Actor Daryl McCormack explained: “Whilst I was reading through the script with Sophie, she was spotting everything that I was spotting and I just kind of instantly began to trust her so much because she was seeing the same film that I was seeing.” Actress Emma Thompson added: “She examined this forensically, and really, really took us through it – little piece by little tessellated piece.” She continued: “Without Sophie, it wouldn’t have become what it had the potential to be. It could have been generalized – but it’s funny and touching and unafraid.”
34. Given that the film largely takes place in one room, plenty of planning went into the design of the hotel room that would be Nancy and Leo’s meeting space. “We wanted the film to feel intimate but not claustrophobic and I think we achieved this with a clever use of design, camera movement, lighting, and a large translight which provided a physical view from our studio built set,” noted producer Debbie Gray.
35. Of the overall effect, Hyde says, “It’s a really brilliant thing to be making something where it’s just set in one room with two actors where you can really focus on performance. Performance is everything in a film like this so as a director that’s a really 8 beautiful thing to make.” Thompson adds, “It’s two humans, lighting, and a camera. It couldn’t be more pure, really.”
36. Star Emma Thompson noted a final takeaway on behalf of her younger co-star, actor Daryl McCormack: “I hope that lots of people will be talking about Mr. McCormack; it’s a massive great role. It’s a two-hander and you know I’m a war horse that’s done a lot of stuff, and Daryl’s done loads, but you know he’s still young and it’s a remarkable, remarkable performance, and I’m really excited to see people reacting to that.”
37. Director Sophie Hyde has commented on this film: “I’m thrilled to be working with the tremendously funny and heartbreakingly honest Emma Thompson to explore intimacy and desire, and to put on screen a relationship that feels unexpected and delightful. At a time when our need for each other is so vividly present, it will be a delight to create and show this connection between two people, which is funny, sexy and moving.”
38. Integral to the film was making sure that sex workers were consulted through every stage. “I did a lot of research with sex workers,” said director Sophie Hyde. “We had some wonderful consultants with lived experiences and their stories and insights were just brilliant. We wanted to make sure that what we were saying felt real to people that were engaged in this kind of deeply intimate work.”
39. Another crucial factor of the setting was lighting. Director Sophie Hyde and production designer Miren Maranon worked closely with cinematographer Bryan Mason to achieve the right lighting for each meeting, in order to make them distinct and different but with the same set. “To change the light, we decided to have a large window with a trans-light outside,” said Hyde of the view from the large window in the hotel room. The first meeting moved from day into night, another was during a sunny day, and another was when it was raining.
40. With director Sophie Hyde on board to direct and financing in place, it was important to find someone who could go toe to toe with Thompson. “Emma Thompson is a legend, and we were fortunate that she agreed to attach herself to the project very early on,” said producer Debbie Gray of Genesius Pictures. “It enabled Emma to develop her journey through the development phase and also assist in the casting of Leo Grande. The chemistry of the two lead characters was vital – it is a two-hander and it had to feel authentic.”
41. Director Sophie Hyde said of actor Daryl McCormack, who plays Leo Grande: “Daryl is empathetic and he relaxes everybody, it’s a really lovely quality and this teamed with his drive to present an interesting, specific, and rich character meant we really got to the heart of who Leo is and how good he is at what he does.”
42. Sophie Hyde’s Official Director’s Statement reads: ”There is much to be said between two characters who meet to have good sex, and much that cannot be expressed in words. I love to work with desire, our wants and needs, the way our wants compete with each other and the way we try to reject them or embrace them. Nancy is a wonderful character, repressed but motivated to make a huge change. She is unflinchingly honest about her own discomfort around sex and determined to explore what it could be. She can be abrasive and seem uncaring, but over the film she grows to understand that she may have perpetuated values she didn’t believe in. She may have accepted and reinforced a status quo that is unhelpful to those around her and also to herself. This is as much of an awakening as her physical one. Emma is an actor who can switch from witty to heartbreaking instantly and it has been a total joy to work with her in this role. Leo is a refreshing character. A truly impassioned and emotionally healthy sex worker is a character we don’t see a lot of onscreen. Leo’s work is therapeutic, warm and emotionally liberating. It is sex positive, grounded and open. Leo’s deep wounds around his mother are also the thing that gives him great power to be good at what he does. His boundaries are clear, but he is also having a human connection which sometimes doesn’t follow the rules. He is able to decide how to respond to a boundary crossed. Daryl is an actor with a warmth and charm, who expanded Leo to have a really connected emotional capacity. It was such a delight to work with him. The two characters together allow us to be part of a conversation between two people we might not normally watch interact. In this film, what is sexy is intimacy; the thrill, touch, sensations, the way someone can take your breath away, and the reality of two human bodies together for real, not for show. We explore the specificity of these two people exploring the oddities of erotic response which can be funny and moving. Sex and the body are fundamental to the film and having been soaked in a culture that teaches us to be ashamed and want to control and change our bodies. It’s a joy to watch Nancy find pleasure in and gain an appreciation for hers and to see how Leo and his significant skills offer her a freedom to get there.”
43. The camerawork played into changing the feel of each meeting as well. “At the beginning there’s a kind of very composed, very symmetrical style and then by the end that gets a little bit messier. And there’s certain very particular scenes where Bryan’s suddenly got the camera handheld instead of being on the dolly, which is what we were doing most of the time.”
44. Having a crew that was sensitive to the material and incredibly capable also helped to set the environment and keep actress Emma Thompson and actor Daryl McCormack feeling safe. Ultimately, it was a trust and ability to communicate openly between Thompson, McCormack, director Sophie Hyde, and the crew that made the scenes possible. “The great thing about Emma and Daryl is that they created, not just in the rehearsal room, but between them a really comfortable space,” said Hyde. “They got to know each other very well and they chose how to create the film and the characters, and I feel that at all times they were in control of that. And I very much felt my job was to set up the potential for that and protect it.”
45. Actor Daryl McCormack has said of his Leo Grande character in this film: “Leo Grande is a modern young man who makes a living as a sex worker and meets Nancy after she books him for a session. I was really excited by him because he’s someone who navigates his own identity and pleasure so openly -it’s his superpower. He’s had his own experiences with sexual shame, and in response to that he empowered himself. He uses his expressiveness and his own sexual desires to help others discover theirs. Nancy is a woman who has been pretty much starved of healthy and beautiful sexual experience and Leo has found a vocation in helping to introduce that to his clients and help them see their own power through sexuality. Different generations don’t necessarily have the same understanding around sex and pleasure, which is also something we explore. It’s a topic that has affected Leo personally and he’s able to take those experiences and use it as momentum for himself to find his own identity. It also helps him with Nancy, and working with her to understand these parts of herself for the first time. Leo has a full life and a past that he doesn’t share with his clients and that shape who he is, but he also creates lines for himself within his work like you should in any professional setting. His job is intimacy, and it’s really interesting to explore the different kinds of intimacies that can develop between two people.”
46. A character in Sophie Hyde’s previous film Animals (2019) was called Leo (and was played by Jamael Westman). The next feature film of the movie’s director Sophie Hyde then was Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022). Leo Grande in this flick is played by Daryl McCormack.
47. International feature film debut of Australian film director Sophie Hyde.
48. The picture is a British production – her first non-Australian film.
49. Her previous movie, Animals (2019), was an Irish-Australian co-production.
50. In a script that approaches intimacy and sex in a sometimes comedic way, vulnerability and openness were vital. “To get to the place that I think we got to, Emma [Thompson] and Daryl [McCormack] had to be really willing to go somewhere,” explained director Sophie Hyde. “They were both ready for this film in a certain way, and they were willing to put themselves physically on the line, to reveal themselves.”
51. With Emma Thompson committed to the role of Nancy, producer Debbie Gray of Genesius Pictures found early partners in production house Cornerstone who fell in love with an early outline of the script. Having recently worked with Sophie Hyde on Animals (2019), the Cornerstone team instantly thought of her, believing her visual style, emotional intelligence and raw honesty would be a great match for the material.
52. Screenwriter Katy Brand passed the script along to producer Debbie Gray of Genesius Pictures, who responded to it instantly. “It was an immediate yes, it was very funny and original. Beneath the humour, Katy was dealing with sexuality, intimacy, and the connection between strangers. Power and intimacy and the interplay – I loved it.”
53. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 221 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website’s critics consensus reads, “Sexual awakening stories aren’t in short supply, but Good Luck to You, Leo Grande proves you can still tell one with a refreshing – and very funny – spin.”
54. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 78 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews”.
55. A review in The New York Times by Lisa Kennedy described the film as “a tart and tender probe into sex and intimacy, power dynamics and human connection.”