People keep asking Edgar Wright when he’s going to direct a musical, and no wonder, given how he’s integrated music with action throughout his filmmaking career. Some of his most memorable scenes take their cues from his soundtracks, from the jukebox zombie fight in Shaun of the Dead (set to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”) to the musical battles in Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World to pretty much all of Baby Driver.

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But in his latest film, Last Night in Soho, one musical sequence underlines more than ever what a full Edgar Wright musical might look like, and it includes a startling dance scene that switches rapidly back and forth between two actors. It looks like a series of split-second digital effects, as former Doctor Who star Matt Smith dances with the movie’s co-lead, Anya Taylor-Joy, and she repeatedly body-swaps with the protagonist, played by Thomasin McKenzie. Wright explains to Polygon how the sequence worked — mostly as a single take, with only a single edit in the whole scene.

 In the film, shy fashion-school student Ellie (McKenzie) moves to London, where she starts having visions of the past. In a dreamlike state, she wakes up and wanders through 1960s London, experiencing it both as herself, and as Sandie (Taylor-Joy), an up-and-coming performer searching for a chance to get onstage. Wright moves back and forth between their perspectives — when Ellie first looks in a mirror in the 1960s, she sees Sandie. When Sandie stands near a reflective surface, she isn’t aware of Ellie’s presence, but Ellie is looking back out at her.

“You’re going into a fantastical perspective where Thomasin is sometimes a voyeur, and sometimes body-swapping with Anya,” Wright tells Polygon. “When Anya’s emotions run high, Thomasin is suddenly in the moment as well. That came from the types of dreams I have. I have lots of dreams where I know I’m me, but I’m in somebody else’s body. Or I’m looking at myself, I’m having an out-of-body experience, that thing of constantly changing perspectives.”

Most of the mirror scenes were accomplished without digital effects. “They’re actually standing next to each other, for the most part,” Wright says. “When they’re very close to each other, what you’re watching onscreen is actually what’s happening. The really important thing about that was that I knew it was going to be better for Thomasin to be in the scene with the other actors. It would have been not fun, not challenging, and ultimately probably boring for her to do all the scenes on her own, so we designed the shots so she could be in there. And what it creates, I hope, is a very strange mood.” 

The same principle of trying to do the effects practically applied to the big dance number. “We rehearsed with the choreographer, Jen White, fastidiously,” actor Matt Smith tells Polygon. “We worked very hard to get ourselves free and swaying in that ’60s-esque style. A lot of the visual tricks were done with us running around the back of the camera, and hiding, and jumping up — trying to run round and not be in the shot, and then come out again and make things work.”

Wright says there’s a single digital effect at the beginning of the sequence, when Smith first pulls Taylor-Joy past him and she turns into McKenzie. “The first swap was a repeated move where we did the shot with Anya and Matt, and then just did it again with Thomasin,” he says. “Even when we were doing it, I didn’t know we were going to be able to pull it off. And the reason it’s s