David Fincher’s long-awaited Mank dropped on Netflix at the weekend. The biographical drama tells the story of Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman), AKA Mank, the screenwriter of Citizen Kane. Amanda Seyfried plays Hollywood icon Marion Davies, the mistress of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) – the man that the titular Kane was based on. Davies was, in turn, the inspiration for Citizen Kane’s Susan Alexander.
Fincher is known for his perfectionism behind the camera, with many takes often being needed for one scene, and Seyfried has revealed which of her scenes took the longest to shoot. "I mean, they're all about the same," Seyfried joked in a recent interview with Collider.
“We ended up reshooting a scene so that's probably the one. Four days and four days, I think. So eight days?" she went on to explain. Seyfried later revealed she was talking about the scene where Mank visits Marion on set. The two chat and share a cigarette, before Marion introduces him to Hearst – a crucial moment in the movie that Fincher was determined to get right, hence the four days of shooting and a further four days of reshoots.
Seyfried also mentioned that she was grateful for the reshoots – she said she felt much more comfortable doing things the second time around, despite the fact that she was pregnant at the time.
“It’s like theatre in that you have the luxury of really nailing the tone and the emotion,” she told Total Film last month. “It does feel like Groundhog Day, in a way, but that’s how [Fincher] captures things that most people don’t.”
If you’ve already watched Mank, check out our list of the other best Netflix movies to watch on the streamer right now.
