“One Night Only” director Will Gluck doesn’t want you to overthink it.
The filmmaker has been fielding a lot of inquiries about the premise, logic and loopholes of his new movie, a raucous romantic comedy about the one night a year where premarital sex is legal. (Think “The Purge,” but for banging instead of murder.) Monica Barbaro (“A Complete Unknown”) plays Allie, an aspiring singer who channels her talent through embarrassing jingles in drug commercials. Callum Turner (“Eternity”) portrays Owen, a pizza shop owner whose long-term girlfriend decides she wants to sleep with other people on this holy night. The two strangers keep running into each other during 12 hours of messy mayhem in New York City.
Gluck is aware the movie’s setup is sparking more questions — Why does the ban exist in the first place? What happens to people who break the law? How, exactly, is the government even tracking who’s getting it on? — than answers. But he maintains the particulars of this reality aren’t really the point.
“You can’t really describe this movie,” Gluck says. “[The cast] goes on talk shows and spends 80% of the time explaining the rules of the world, and that’s not what the movie is about. We have to just let people see it. That’s the best tool we have, especially for something that’s this crazy.”
Gluck, best known for directing 2010s teen classic “Easy A” with Emma Stone, knows all that matters is that people are talking about the film in the first place. Word-of-mouth fueled the success of his last rom-com, 2023’s box office sleeper hit “Anyone But You,” starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell.
“I learned from my last movie that people are going to discover this and say, ‘Wow, that’s not what I thought it was going to be,’” Gluck says. “You know how the acronym for word-of-mouth is WOM? I’m calling it a WOM-com.”
Ahead of opening weekend, the director spoke to Variety about why audiences have become prudish about on-screen sex, his love of putting “cringe” songs in his movies, and why the theatrical rom-com isn’t dead, after all.
How did you decide how much backstory to include to set up your premise?
I did a lot of thinking about it, a lot of world building. These characters are living this little alternative world that could easily happen. We have to talk about it. But I really wanted the world to live in the background. I didn’t want the movie to be about that. It’s more about how our characters navigate life.
What conversations did you have about the origin of the no-sex mandate?
Someone asked me “why don’t people just get divorced?” Well, there’s municipal signage very prominently in the movie that says you cannot get divorced unless you were married for one year, plus one day. It’s like when COVID [started], there were rules, and then people started to do other stuff, so then more rules came out, right? That’s what I imagine when this mandate was passed. They had to keep doing amendments to these rules because, yes, the obvious idea would be just get married and divorce.
Recent studies have found that Gen Z and Gen Alpha don’t want to see sex on screen. Was that a concern while making this movie?
The answer is 100% yes. I went through this on two movies. I have long pages of empirical data about it. The only thing is I don’t think it’s just Gen Z and Gen Alpha. I believe it’s been a societal shift from taking nudity in adult situations and putting them on your phones at home for everybody. Now it’s more of a private, intimate thing that people don’t want to see when they’re in a shared experience. Whenever people now see nudity or very adult situations in a big theater, they get uncomfortable.
How does that change your approach as a filmmaker?
Once I’ve learned that, which was all through the editing process for my last movie, I applied it to this movie. But even so, I didn’t apply it enough. I cut out so much. There was so much nudity in this movie that we shot on the streets. I felt we needed to show the world that way. As we started to show it to audiences, we felt it takes you out of the movie. You’re engaged in the characters and what’s going on, and then you pan over and there’s two naked people having sex, and you watch the audience … it’s a physical thing. They turn to who they’re with and … the benefits do not nearly outweigh the negatives of it. So we just kept editing it out until we got a balance, and those comments went away.
Did you use an intimacy coordinator? So many scenes had extras having sex in the background.
Yes, we had an incredible intimacy coordinator. And we cast real-life couples in various stages of relationships. It was never like we met an extra and were like, “you guys are kissing.” It was fun because there were married couples, people who broke up during the movie and people who became couples so they could do that.
There are a lot of fun and funny posters and advertisements about “the mandate” and “one night” all around the city. Were those actual props, or were they edited in later?
This is all practical. That was the fun part of the world building. We had a huge document with every scene, not only what signage was there, but what graffiti was there and who would be in the background kissing. And the funny thing about the products, I’ve gotta stop reading the internet, but everyone says, “It’s a product placement fiasco. How much money did they make on that?” It was the opposite. We had to beg products to allow us to take them and twist it to the “one night.” Because, as you can imagine, not every corporate America consumer product was into this idea. So when I read stuff, like, “How much money did they get from Dunkin or Durex?” I’m like “Nothing!”
So you had to get permission to make the fake ads?
Of course. You can photograph anything that’s in the real world, but you can’t take something like Coke ad and say “there’s dirt in it.” We had a big list and it was “no, no, no, no.” And then we were surprised — well, the condom companies didn’t surprise us that they said yes — but Duolingo sure did. That was a shock. I was like, “Really?” So that’s why you have products like Duolingo, Red Bull, Dunkin and Equinox. Every time they would say “yes,” I’m like, “They did?” And then they would have to approve our take on it.
What are some of the challenges of filming in New York City?
Many times, we had actors in a car, half naked, and you’d have people just walking and staring. We’d say, “Hey, do you mind moving on?” A couple of people said, “No, we’re not going to move.” We were like, “Well, if this really did happen in real life, people would be staring.” So there are a couple scenes where people are looking in the windows.
How much of Monica’s character was built around her actually being able to sing?
I always rewrite the script completely once I have the actors. Once I cast Monica, I was like, “She has to be a singer.” We talked for a long time, and she does have some stage fright, which is crazy, because she has the best voice. So I just wrote that for her. And I’ve always been obsessed with drug commercials, so it was this great confluence.
Did Callum actually learn how to make pizza?
Yes, he spent five days at that pizza place being taught how to make pizza. He was really good at it. The one bummer about pizza is it doesn’t look great on film. It’s impossible because pizza gets cold so quickly. During that scene, we were constantly putting out a new fresh pizza. That’s a lesson for me. From now on, I’ll choose a different food that does not congeal that quickly.
How quickly did everyone get sick of pizza?
You can tell during that scene but Monica and Callum, they ate. They didn’t chew and spit. Because I don’t cut. I just keep rolling. They were both at the end like, “Oh my god.”
Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, your stars from “Anyone But You,” don’t exactly have cameos, but they pop up in funny, unexpected ways. Did you get their permission to include them in the movie?
Yes, I did. They were both trying to do cameos, but their schedules didn’t work out. So this was great.
Music plays a big part in many of your films. I can’t hear “Pocket Full of Sunshine” without thinking of “Easy A,” and “Unwritten” went viral on TikTok after the release of “Anyone But You.” How do you choose which songs to feature?
For the drug commercials, I have a pretty good take on songs that were really popular that people think they hate, but they can’t stop singing. I’m kind of obsessed with those songs, and a lot of my movies have them in it. You’ve mentioned some of them, and I think it’s because people don’t want to admit they like popular music, so they call it cringe or lame. But they’re bangers. After my last movie, if you ever go to any bar or club all over the world, when “Unwritten” comes on, it’s like the biggest banger in the world. It always was, but now for some reason, it’s now OK to be a banger. I love those songs.
People often say the theatrical rom-com is dead. What were your takeaways from the box office success of “Anyone But You”?
If you’re not a superhero movie or gigantic IP, it’s really hard to cut through. The only way you really can cut through, if at all, is letting the audience do it. No matter how much you market it or tell people what it is, you have to let them see it and tell their friends and family about it, which is scary. If you’re spending all this money on something, you can’t just hope people talk about it. But the key is telling people it’s going to be in theaters for a while. And I think this one is going to be in theaters for a while.
