While “The Perfect Couple” viewers have been enjoying the opening credits’ flashy dance sequence which sees Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber and Dakota Fanning breaking it down to Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals,” the scene was originally supposed to happen in the series itself.
“It was planned to be part of the show,” showrunner Jenna Lamia told TheWrap. “It was a dream sequence that opened one of the episodes. And oddly enough, it started off as this very dark imagery.”
In the dream, Lamia envisioned Amelia and Merritt would be chatting about Benji and Shooter before Merritt turned to Amelia and asked her, “Who do you think did this?” — which would confuse Amelia until she turned to see water gushing out of Merritt’s eyes and mouth, which marked her cue to wake up. Instead of this darker imagery, which Lamia noted was harder to shoot, the team came up with the idea of having a dance that’s planned by a couple and their friends at a wedding.
The dance sequence then turned into a teaser for an episode, but after seeing how well the cast picked up the choreography “in literally half a day,” Lamia had the idea to feature it more prominently.
“When Susanne [Bier] saw how smooth the cast’s moves were and how fun this was going to be, we realized that it would work incredibly well as the opening credits,” Lamia said.
With the Netflix series balancing what Lamia identifies as a “precarious tone,” the team decided that placing the dance sequence in the opening credits would signal to audiences right off the bat that “The Perfect Couple” is intended to be a good hang.
“It’s not a show that takes itself super seriously — it’s a roller coaster. You’ve got to wear your seat belt,” Lamia said. “Yes, there’s a murder, but you’re going to laugh, and hopefully you’re going to text your friends about whodunit. We took the swing, but we thought that version of the credits would cue people like, ‘Oh, this is a fun ride.’”
“The Perfect Couple” is now streaming on Netflix.
