Kygo Director Sarah Bahbah Talks Getting Dylan Sprouse To Cry And 'Sexy Dance' Onscreen

"Everybody appears to be crying," says Sarah Bahbah over the phone, just hours right following the initial music video she's ever directed — for Kygo's "Think About You" — was released. The tears are a good thing, though. "This is the ideal feeling ever," she says, laughing. "I feel like an asshole because their pain gives me joy, nevertheless it means I did my job well."


Bahbah is a Palestinian-born, Australian-raised artist whose work you've probably seen on Instagram before — she's known for pairing retro-style photography with witty subtitles exploring themes of love and sex. Her work, she explains, pulls people in because of its distinct point of view: "I try and practice transparency of the human inner dialogue, and in doing so, it really captivates a raw emotion." She's dabbled in lyric videos, however had never expanded her reach to music videos up until Kygo's manager came to her with the Norwegian DJ's first single of 2019: the shimmering, nostalgic "Think About You."


"I laid on the carpet in my living room, closed my eyes, and thought, 'OK, where does this take me?'" Bahbah recalled about hearing the song for the initial time. "The lyrics are about past lovers and reminiscing and attempting to avoid their phone calls. My mind went to the opening time I was in love, and I wanted to essentially capture that relationship. The video is my expression of it."


The visual opens on Dylan Sprouse — here playing a sharply dressed man named Jax — as he violently chops a tree out of frame. A movie usher aids in averting him and convinces him to confront his heartbreak head-on, and we watch and also him as he revisits a past relationship that started like a pastel-filtered dream before crumbling under his feet. The drama plays out like a fashionable Italian movie, captioned with poetic dialogue and coming to an emotional climax as soon as Jax bursts into tears.


"I was beyond the director's screen totally bawling my eyes out, and I didn't want anyone to be able to see Bahbah mentioned about filming the scene. "Dylan and I are really close companions, and seeing him cry... I just suddenly connected all these stories that he's shared with me about as soon as he was maybe going through something. I actually began to feel his pain, although he was acting, you know? It was so beautiful."


The video — which was shot over two days in L.A. In early February — wasn't all doom and gloom, though. Throughout Jax's happier moments with Ariel (played by model Khadijha Red Thunder), we visualize him carving their names into a tree, passionately making out with her at a party, and, most memorably, dancing shirtless around their bedroom.


"In the treatment I mentioned 'sexy dancing,' and the initial thing Dylan mentioned once he read it was, 'I can't do that, what does that even mean?!'" Bahbah recalled. "I was like, 'No no, just be yourself, be goofy.' That's all I mentioned to him, and he just took it away and killed it. Meanwhile, I'm crying with laughter in the background."


While the track's featured artist, Valerie Broussard, appears onstage in the video's party scene, Kygo unfortunately had to miss out on the action because of scheduling conflicts. Bahbah originally wrote him into script because the movie usher (Riverdale's Rob Raco ended up with the role) and as a partygoer who incited Jax's rage soon after hitting on Ariel. Those adjustments aside, although, the finished product was exactly how Bahbah envisioned it that night she listened to the song on her living room carpet. A PR blurb describes the vid as exploring "the progression and fragility of romantic love," although its actual meaning, the director mentioned, goes a lot deeper.


"I recently read this book called The Five Love Languages, and it's taught me a lot about the way we communicate together and how a lot of relationships don't just be working," she explained. "I realized any time Whenever I looked back at my past relationships, the reason why they didn't work out is because I have a very different love language [than] my partners. I guess I wanted to explore that in a more intense, dramatic way."


She continued, as soon as you're looking at the protagonist, Dylan, he's very giving. That's his way of showing love. Whereas Khadijha has an other way of showing love, and any time you're observing it, every time she's attempting to access her mind as well as a deeper segment of her, she responds with touch and she kisses him. So her love language is affection. His love language is the act of giving. You could visualize that eventually, after awhile, that dynamic isn't working."


Since the video's premiere on Friday (February 22), Bahbah's phone has been blowing up with glowing (and, yes, tearful) reactions from companions and strangers alike. It's enough to fuel the 27-year-old's objective of making more music videos, which she's very excited — however very specific — about. "There's three more artists I really aspire to work with this year: Billie Eilish next, then Dua Lipa, and then Rihanna." However only, she says, in that sort. "I aspire to be, like, so adjusted by the time I get to Rihanna, so trim have to be last."