After The Batman, Zoe Kravitz wanted the ‘Steven Soderbergh experience’; Kimi director liked the fact she ‘just can do it all’ in the tech thriller
- Fresh from a year-long superhero film shoot, Kravitz knew Soderbergh works fast, but even so, making Kimi with the director was ‘a whole experience … a trip’
- He loved her commitment and the ideas she brought to the role of an agoraphobic tech analyst whose digital assistant device records a murder
Steven Soderbergh loves a good thriller – most people do, he knows. But he’s always conscious of making sure that whatever it is, it isn’t just “single use plastic”.
“It’s got some aspect to it percolating underneath that keeps it from being completely disposable after you’ve watched it,” the American film director says.
Needless to say, he was especially happy that the timing worked out for Kimi, a classic, edge-of-your-seat thriller about a home assistant device that records what may have been a murder and the tech worker (Zoë Kravitz) who hears it.
Screenwriter David Koepp (Panic Room) had floated the idea years earlier after reading about the debates over whether Amazon Echo recordings could be used as evidence in crime cases.
The script, which he wrote early in the coronavirus pandemic, had shades of Rear Window, The Conversation and Blow Up, and was irresistible to Soderbergh.
“Thrillers allow you licence to do things stylistically that you can’t really get away with in a straight drama or a comedy,” he says. “It demands a sort of bravura visual approach because that enhances the story.”