Taron Egerton calls everybody wants to F--- Me Dog co-star a ‘nightmare'

The director revealed that the dog repeatedly refused to do one simple things required during filming: sit still

Taron Egerton has revealed that his canine co-star in Everybody Wants to F--- Me was less than cooperative on set, with the actor and director Jonathan Schey jokingly describing the Jack Russell terrier as a “nightmare”.

Egerton and Schey discussed the upcoming comedy-horror film during its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday, September 11, where the pair opened up about the difficulties of working with the dog.

According to Schey, the rough-coated Jack Russell repeatedly refused to do one of the simplest things required of it during filming: sit still.

“Do you know how easy it is to sit there, as a dog? It’s easy!” Egerton joked during the discussion.

Schey recalled that the dog simply “would not sit” when the production needed it to remain in position for scenes. “It would move! All it needed to do was sit, and it wouldn’t sit,” the director said.

The filmmaker eventually gave the animal a rather unflattering review, calling it a “diva” and a “nightmare” to work with. Schey also noted that the dog had appeared in Bridgerton and another production, joking that it was “just swanning around”.

Despite the problems on set, audiences watching the finished film may never realise how difficult the dog's performance was. Schey credited the editing team with making the animal appear to deliver a much more polished performance.

Egerton then brought up Brad Pitt’s upcoming film Heart of the Beast, which also features a prominent canine performer, joking that whatever Pitt managed to accomplish with his dog co-star was certainly not what happened during their production.

The dog plays Lola, the beloved pet of Egerton’s character Adam in Everybody Wants to F--- Me. The film follows Adam, an art gallery assistant who carefully constructs a virtuous public persona while pursuing casual sexual relationships.

His carefully controlled life begins to unravel after he meets a mysterious woman, played by Jessica Henwick. What initially resembles a cheeky romantic comedy gradually takes a much darker turn, developing into a body-horror story as Adam undergoes an unsettling emotional and physical transformation.

For Egerton, the challenge of the role extended beyond dealing with a difficult animal co-star. The actor explained that Adam is someone who has not yet figured out who he really is and instead performs the person he believes he is expected to be.

“He was sort of challenging to play because he’s someone in a place of existential lostness,” Egerton said.

The actor added that Adam is essentially “performing who he thinks he should be” rather than discovering his true identity.

Schey similarly described the film as a rapid succession of increasingly disturbing events, promising an unusual mixture of comedy, romance and body horror.

While the film has now premiered at TIFF, Everybody Wants to F--- Me does not yet have a release date or a domestic distributor.

For now, however, it appears the film's production story has already provided one memorable behind-the-scenes character: the Jack Russell that apparently had no interest in following its director's most basic instruction.