To bring his "Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon" character to life, Ed Skrein had to stray from his native English accent. "[Fuzz is] written as street New Orleans, so we knew he was going to [sound like] Louisiana and New Orleans, [which is] in some ways a city like London," Skrein observed. "What is London as an accent? If you look at the intricacies and nuances, every accent is different [in] these international places with a lot of influence."
Thankfully, Ana Lily Amirpour found the perfect inspiration for Skrein in a New Orleans local who worked on the production. "Ana Lily had this street casting guy called Brett, and she said to me, 'You know what? There's this guy and I feel like his voice is Fuzz's voice.' I said, 'Yeah? Let me get a recording,'" Skrein recalled. "We got him to record some Charles Bukowski poems, and he sent over this stuff and I was in love with this voice. It's uncanny when I listened back to the recordings — we really did copy his voice ... I met up with him and it was the most surreal thing to be speaking to this guy who I've been studying his intonation and audio frequencies in such depth. He's not Fuzz, but his voice is Fuzz. It is really interesting."
Meanwhile, Amirpour and Skrein put their heads together to come up with Fuzz's singular look, a memory Skrein looks back at with great fondness. "In terms of the style and the look, that was a collaboration. [Amirpour] had ideas, but there was this whirlwind costume fitting that I did where I went in the first night and it was electric," Skrein shared. "We were trying everything on, putting on the candy ring. I'm like, 'Give me those chokers.' We're trying on all these glasses ... We had that amethyst earring hanging down. We really expressed ourselves through Fuzz in every way. We had a lot of fun. We love Fuzz, man. Me and Ana Lily, we're trying to be more like him."
"Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon" is available in theaters, on digital, and on demand.
