How The Idea of You Made Its Great (Fake) Boy Band

Alisha Wetherill/Courtesy Amazon MGM Studios

Even before the release of The Idea of You, which premiered on May 2 on Prime Video and stars Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, the hype surrounding August Moon was palpable. Internet users debated whether or not the band and its dashing British lead, Hayes (Galitzine), were fictionalized stand-ins for One Direction — and more pointedly, Harry Styles. That speculation was furthered by the fact that August Moon’s songs were penned by Savan Kotecha and Carl Falk, the songwriters and producers who were behind some of One Direction’s biggest hits including their 2011 debut single “What Makes You Beautiful.”

But August Moon’s origin story, according to the team behind them, doesn't begin and end with One Direction. (At least not entirely.)

For The Idea of You's director Michael Showalter, not only did August Moon need to have a “cool” aesthetic, but their singing and choreography had to be solid, too. “I wasn't interested in making fun of boy bands or laughing at them on any level,” he explains. Galitzine, on the other hand, had his own perspective on his boy band alter-ego. “I knew Hayes had to feel like someone who really enjoyed performing, but maybe didn’t feel like he’d realized his creative potential in the band,” he said.

In terms of cultivating August Moon’s aesthetic, Showalter focused largely on present-day pop stars instead of boy bands. That included Taylor Swift, Frank Ocean, Billie Eilish and Charli XCX, as well as — yes — Harry Styles and One Direction. “It's a composite of all sorts of people in our culture who are part of what makes Hayes a compelling character,” he says. “And Harry Styles is for sure one of those people.” But Showalter really wanted August Moon to capture the current moment in music where some of the most interesting artists happen to be the most mainstream. For him, August Moon was just that: a band making Top 40 music with contemporaries like Eilish.

Choreographer Dani Vitale, who has worked with Kelly Clarkson, Demi Lovato and Halsey, helped cast the boys “to try to keep the integrity alive in the room of what would a boy band be today.” Beyond Galitzine, that included August Moon members Adrian (Jaiden Anthony), Oliver (Raymond Cham Jr), Sam (Viktor White) and Rory (Dakota Adan). She helped build a backstory for each of the characters based on their personal characteristics. “It was like, ‘Okay, you're the heartthrob, you're the jock, you're the this, you're the that.’ But all of that came from their audition videos when I asked them questions,” she says.

It helped that she had Galitzine to work around, who she felt had “a Matt Healy essence to him” with the “nuanced groove of Joe Jonas. That Healy essence may have stemmed from Galitzine connecting with Hayes’ personal style. “Finding Hayes’ tattoos felt very grounding, and honestly just getting in my body more through the choreography and pre-records, you get a sense of musician routine which adds a level of comfort on stage,” he said.

But Galitzine was a much stronger musician than dancer (he could sing and play piano and guitar.) Music supervisor Frankie Pine recalled that they decided “to put him in boy band camp by himself just to get him a little bit more up to speed before we put him with these amazing professional dancers that were the actors behind him.” In boy band boot camp, Vitale taught Galitzine and his “bandmates’” dance moves, how to hold a microphone and how to perform on stage vs. in a music video. She ended up curating much of the boys’ stage presence from alt-rock bands instead of boy bands. “[I] basically treated them as if they were a real band to get them ready for the movie,” she says.

So when they weren’t shooting, Galitzine and his “bandmates” would be rehearsing their “Coachella” performance. By the time their set was filmed, August Moon really performed a concert. “It was pretty much just like a live concert film,” says Showalter. “We did multiple takes of it, but it wasn't a thing where we were stitching it all together.” At that point, they had also formed a real camaraderie. “When you see them performing at Coachella, you have that authenticity and believability that they are a cohesive unit,” Pine says. “And I think that was really important in creating this band, that they were able to come together, be friends and hang out, which they did all the time.”

The music was just as important. It was Kotecha— whose stacked resume includes The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face,” Ariana Grande’s “No Tears Left to Cry” and Britney Spears’ “I Wanna Go”— who shaped the soundtrack for The Idea of You. Alongside Falk, he used his experience working with boy bands to make August Moon feel “as authentic as possible.” That meant focusing on Galitzine’s voice — and making something that feels like a departure from the current music landscape.

“That's always been my theory with all boy groups and teen groups,” Kotecha says. “It should sound like nothing else that's happening right now.” So when the internet decided that the film’s lead single “Dance Before We Walk” must have been inspired by One Direction, he was surprised: “To be totally honest, it didn’t pop into my mind.”

Kotecha wanted August Moon to embody the growth of a real-life band. “They had to feel like they've earned the Coachella spot, but [not] feel like a fake pop group in a movie,” he says. In his mind, “I Got You” felt like their first single, while “Taste” was something more “rhythmic” that would appear on their second album. By their third album, they’d have more control. So “Guard Down” featured a lot more guitars and live drums. “That was how I mapped it out in my head,” Kotecha says.

Near the beginning of the movie, “I Got You” plays on the radio, but by Coachella, the band is performing their more recent tracks, including “Dance Before We Walk,” which Hayes notably “penned.” “I wanted something upbeat that [Hayes] could also do acoustically that tells the story of him coming to this revelation that he could leave the band and do his own thing,” Kotecha says of the track. By the time he appears on The Graham Norton Show in the film, he’s debuted a solo song with a new sound called “Go Rogue.” The titles aren’t meant to be subtle when it comes to Hayes’ narrative arc. “As with a lot of these musicians, they start out packaged, and they're getting pushed by the record label and they're being forced to work with other songwriters,” Showalter says. “And we see Hayes becoming his own person.”

But beyond Hayes’ career trajectory, the soundtrack captures the romance at the heart of the film, too. We wanted to make everybody feel like this was just a story about love that everybody wants to experience in their lives,” Pine says. “Through the music, we really showed that you can do that at any age.”

With the buzz surrounding The Idea of You and August Moon, the team behind the movie is aware of how much fans are holding out hope for real-life concerts. Kotecha, for one, has witnessed fans online — and at screenings — “begging” for them. Personally, he hopes it’s in the cards for “Moonheads.” “The whole goal is for August Moon to live a life of its own in a way online, and whether the actors want to participate, that's going to be up to them. I would think that would be super fun,” he says.

Pine has taken it one step further: She wants Galitzine to really become a pop star. “I think it would be phenomenal,” she says. “And I would be first in line to buy the record.”

Originally Appeared on GQ