Liev Schreiber didn’t protest The Perfect Couple dance like costars

Liev Schreiber was the only actor game to put on his dancing shoes for The Perfect Couple‘s musical opening credits.

A flashmob-style dance sequence, set to Meghan Trainor’s “Criminal,” opens Netflix’s newest star-studded murder mystery from director Susanne Bier. Well, Schreiber told Variety at the show’s Los Angeles premiere this week that all of his costars — comprised of Nicole Kidman, Dakota Fanning, Meghann Fahy, and Eve Hewson — “had a mutiny about this idea except for me.”

Fahy told the outlet that the cast started a WhatsApp group to protest the idea. Schreiber, though, was not part of that chain, he shared. “I was already in my trailer practicing the dance moves,” he said. “I just like dancing and I was kinda disappointed when it came out that I’m not in it more because I thought I did it really well.” (Release the Schreiber cut.)

Adapted from Elin Hilderbrand’s 2018 novel of the same name, The Perfect Couple stars Kidman and Schreiber as married couple Greer and Tag Winbury, who convene in Nantucket with their family for the wedding of their son Benji (Billy Howle) and soon-to-be daughter-in-law Amelia (Hewson). The ceremony ends in disaster before it even begins when a dead body is discovered hours before the nuptials, making everyone a suspect.

It’s a show about murder, yes, but showrunner Jenna Lamia recently told Netflix’s Tudum that the opening sequence perfectly captures the essence of the show. “Susanne had this really brilliant thought that if we were to use a dance like that as the opening credits, it would tell people right away that, yes, this is a murder mystery, and yes, it’s a thriller, but you’re also going to have so much fun, so sit back and enjoy the ride.”

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“It’s really important, I think, that people realize the tone of the show is not The Undoing, or something that Susanne has done before,” added Lamia. “This is a fun murder mystery. Sure, somebody’s going to be dead, but you’re also going to laugh.”  

Entertainment Weekly caught up with Kidman herself at the L.A. premiere, who said that the first thought that came to mind when she learned of the musical sequence was a resounding “no.” “And then the director was like, ‘You have to do it.’ So then I was like, ‘OK, well, I’ll do it as Greer.’ So I hope you noticed that I danced as Greer,” Kidman said.

“We were like, ‘No way are we doing this dance,'” Sam Nivola, who plays Will, one of the Winbury sons, similarly told EW on the red carpet. “‘We gotta call our agents! We gotta put a stop to this!” But Bier was able to convince the cast, who have since all conceded that it was a blast to film. “We were all a little bit nervous about it, and then we ended up having so much fun,” Fahy told Tudum.

The Perfect Couple is now streaming on Netflix.