'Wonka's Scrubbit and Bleacher are dastardly scene-stealers
"Wonka" director Paul King takes the saucy secrets of the Dahl-inspired villains in this interview.
Since the trailer hit last summer, we've been singing the praises of Timothée Chalamet's turn as Willy Wonka. But with the film finally in theaters, we can now celebrate Wonka's secret weapons: Scrubbit and Bleacher, a pair of villainous schemers played by Academy Award winner Olivia Colman and Paddington 2 standout Tom Davis.
Within the world of Wonka, Scrubbit is a manipulative landlady who uses devious fine print to lure unwitting guests at her boarding house into indentured servitude. Towering and intimidating, Bleacher is her muscle. But as Willy and his friends conspire to escape, they also play matchmaker for this gruesome twosome, creating a romance that we can't help but root for!
Wonka director Paul King adores coupled villains Scrubbit and Bleacher.
In an interview with Mashable, Wonka co-writer and director Paul King chirped of Scrubbit and Bleacher, "I love them!" He explained that the characters aren't directly pulled from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but that their dastardly ploy of trapping unwitting boarders came from "The Landlady," a Roald Dahl short story intended for adults.
Nonetheless, King said, "They feel to me the most Roald Dahl-y bit of [Wonka]. They're so irredeemably awful, and [Dahl] wrote such great ghastly couples throughout his career. [Co-writer Simon Farnaby and I] were just trying to channel that."
"I love the names. I love the performances," King continued with a smile. "Olivia is obviously incredible. And I think the world knows Olivia is incredible, but Tom Davis is not so well known outside the UK. And he's so great. He makes me laugh in every line he has — and he's so disturbing!"
King explained that Davis's size has a part to play in how the actor can come off as unnerving and hilarious. "He's enormous," the director began. "I mean, he doesn't just look big on screen. He's about six foot eight or nine. He's an absolute whopper, and I am no giant. So I always feel like I'm speaking to somebody from a Ray Harryhausen movie when we get together, and I'm about to be picked up and my head eaten off! But he's a very gentle soul and extremely funny."
Of their previous collaboration on the Paddington sequel, in which Davis appears as a grumbling prisoner named T-Bone, King said, "I loved him in Paddington 2, because he only had a few lines, but he made me laugh with every single one of them. And he did the same again. And I love his vulnerability. Like, what's so great in both of [these movies] is that you go, 'He's this brute, a great bruiser.' But you feel he just needs a cuddle."
In Paddington 2, T-Bone befriends the titular bear, which isn't too shabby. But Bleacher does get that cuddle in Wonka, and it all begins with a word from Willy himself: "She'll be thankful for an ankle. She'll be pleased to see your knees. But if you want to make her sigh, show some thigh!"
"It's great dating advice," King said of the rhyme.
Paul King on Wonka's seduction scene, special underwear, and an unexpected allusion.
In following that advice — and playing into Willy's eccentric mechanization for escape — Bleacher sports some very short lederhosen to catch the eye of Scrubbit. And it works. He struts into Scrubbit's lobby, thighs out and feeling flirty. And soon, this ruddy romantic is swooning. Still, a bit where Bleacher bends over to give his crush a peek at his derriere offered unexpected trouble for costuming.
"[Davis] was wearing very short underwear [beneath his costume]. And we had to send him back to wear shorter underwear because we could see the edges," King explained. "We could sort of see the modern kind of texture and [realized] it's gonna have to be the briefest of briefs [for Bleacher]. I'm perversely proud of the fact."
To be clear, as King pointed out, "It's a family movie," and nothing salacious can be seen in this seduction scene — just a lot of leg. "He's got great legs," the filmmaker noted of Davis. "Him and Julia Roberts."
In short, how could Scrubbit not fall for Bleacher? Not only is he a mountain of a man with a softer side begging for a cuddle, but also he's got sensational stems, and his wooing involves lederhosen and an allusion that might make grown-ups chuckle. For as he struts his stuff for Scrubbit, the camera's lens catches her reaction from beneath his saucily exposed thigh.
"That [is a] sort of Mrs. Robinson tribute," King said, calling it out, "which is a shot I'd always loved, but I'd never imagined doing with quite such a hairy leg in the foreground."
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