How Music Helped Inspire the Not-Musical Stars of ‘The Bride!’

Despite what its trailers may have you think, The Bride! isn’t actually a musical. But it does have a lot of singing, though, and a playlist of singers that have helped shape its title character.

Said playlist comes courtesy of star Jessie Buckley, who told Entertainment Weekly music was a “massive part” of her various roles in the film—she plays the title character, Ida, both pre- and post-death, as well as Frankenstein creator Mary Shelley, and she “needed it all.” Both director-writer Maggie Gyllenhaal and co-lead Christian Bale helped her out, and the three made a group chat where they’d “just send each other different songs. Christian and Maggie are complete music nuts.”

Such songs ranged from “really dirty, naughty songs from the 1920s,” like Ma Rainey’s 1924 song “Shave ‘Em Dry,” to “Ladies and Gentleman” from the rock band Spiritualized. During the interview, Buckley also listed off “PJ Harvey, Sinead O’Connor, Björk, all these wild, incredible, punk-rock, 1920s tap music.” One specific song she listed off was Joni Mitchell’s “‘A Case of You,’” which she found representative of the love story between Ida and Frank.

Speaking of Frank, Buckley says Bale based his character on Sid Vicious. Early on in production, Gyllenhaal said Bale sent her a video of the rocker doing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” and that’s when it was decided, “Okay, our Frankenstein is punk in that classic sort of 1981 London way. That’s great.”

You can listen to some of the songs Buckley, Gyllenhaal, and Bale shared with each other in the “Bridezilla” playlist below. The Bride! sings (or not) its way into theaters on March 6.

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