Jessie Ware on “huge honour” to have “lookalike” Gemma Arterton star in new video
Jessie Ware has spoken of recruiting her “lookalike” Gemma Arterton to star in the video for her latest single ‘Remember Where You Are’.
The song appears on the London singer-songwriter’s fourth studio album ‘What’s Your Pleasure?’, which came out last June.
Arriving last week (February 26), its accompanying short film – directed by Dominic Savage – finds actor Arterton (Quantum of Solace, Summerland) strolling through deserted central London streets on Valentine’s Day evening.
In a new interview with the BBC, Ware discussed the process of creating the “special and poignant” visuals with Arterton, who she has “generously been mistaken for” on multiple occasions (the actor appeared on Ware’s Table Manners podcast last year).
The singer said that the video gave ‘Remember Where You Are’ “a new lease of life”, explaining: “It’s how I feel when I listen to music in my own headphones. So for me it was a huge honour to have [Arterton] hum and sing.”
“As soon as I heard [the single] I thought, ‘Oh, this feels like an anthem for this moment that we were literally in that right now’,” Arterton said, referring to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I was walking around listening to it in the park, and I thought about how amazing is that in London, at the moment, there’s no-one around, especially at night-time, and how unique that is in the history of London.”
She continued: “It felt right. And to have it coming out this week, as we’re getting the news that we can kind of gradually come out of lockdown, I just thought, ‘Oh, this is the right feeling for this video’.”
Reflecting on the shoot, Ware said “it was just the most beautiful experience” to team up with Arterton, who also co-produced the video alongside Jessica Malik and Jessica Parker. You can watch the short film above.
Meanwhile, Jessie Ware is due to embark on a UK headline tour in December. Originally set to take place in April, the run of dates was postponed last month due to current COVID restrictions.
