Reptile director Grant Singer wants to mislead and deceive you

Q18:59Grant Singer: Music videos, being drawn to deception, and his first feature film Reptile

In Grant Singer's neo-noir crime drama, Reptile, Benicio del Toro stars as a hardened detective investigating the brutal murder of a young real-estate broker. One of the main suspects in the case is her boyfriend, played by Justin Timberlake, but, of course, some unexpected twists and turns make the truth difficult to uncover — for both del Toro's character and the audience.

Reptile is the debut feature film from Singer, who's made a name for himself as a music video director for artists like Lorde, The Weeknd and Sam Smith. The film is currently the most-watched title on Netflix.

In an interview with Q's Tom Power, Singer says he knew he wanted to make a crime thriller for his first film. "There were a couple of things that I wanted this film to do, which was, one, I wanted to evoke this feeling of being deceived," he explains.

"I want to do something where we introduce the film with, you know, one or two characters — essentially a prologue — and then you pass the baton and change protagonists 10 or 15 minutes in the movie."

Drawing inspiration from classics like Rosemary's Baby, Vertigo and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation, Singer also wanted to explore the idea of the hunter becoming the hunted.

"That device, that deception, that sort of elegant card trick and storytelling was something that I really wanted to integrate within the filmmaking," he says. "It begins as an investigative thriller, and then something happens halfway through the film, and you experience the unraveling of a character's inner world and their life….

"In terms of storytelling, I love the feeling as a viewer, as an audience member, that the filmmaker or the filmmakers are misleading me. I think it's very enjoyable and fun and playful and engaging. And I think at the end of the day … you make a movie that you want to see. This was the movie that I wanted to see."

WATCH | Official trailer for Reptile:

The full interview with Grant Singer is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Grant Singer produced by Lise Hosein.