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Carly Rae Jepsen<\/a>\u2019s new music video for \u201cDon\u2019t Leave Me on the Dance Floor\u201d isn\u2019t a typical pop-girl clip. \u201cDance Floor\u201d is the third single off her upcoming album, Day and Night, out September 18, and to bring it to life, Jepsen tapped playwright Jeremy O. Harris as director. He made, essentially, a short film starring recent Tony winner Alden Ehrenreich<\/a>. Harris connected to the song immediately because of his own life. \u201cI had just been in it really deep with my partner that month, in the nitty-gritty of the complexities of being in love and wanting to stay in love,\u201d he says. \u201cI immediately felt attached to the song and the sentiment that you don\u2019t want to be left on the dance floor in the middle of the complexities of sharing a life with someone.\u201d<\/p>\n The video follows Ehrenreich as he tries to win back an already-gone girlfriend, played by Olivia Washington. It opens on him acknowledging his money troubles and trying to work things out with her over the phone. \u201cI know I haven\u2019t been able to provide the life I promised you, the life that I promised us,\u201d Ehrenreich tells her. \u201cBut I\u2019m asking you, I\u2019m begging you to just stick it out.\u201d A rejected Ehrenreich spends the rest of the video dancing it out in front of Jepsen, who is serenading an almost-empty dance hall. He ends the video crying and collapsing. \u201cWe talk a lot about male loneliness, so I wanted it to star a man stuck on a dance floor,\u201d Harris says. \u201cIt feels so obvious that Carly would be waiting on the dance floor. Something beautiful to see is a man trying and failing to woo a woman with a dance.\u201d<\/p>\n Casting Ehrenreich was natural. He and Harris have had a \u201cwork flirtationship,\u201d as Harris calls it, for a long time. \u201cI wanted a straight man who will be sad and hot at the same time, and I think Alden has a face that can do that really well,\u201d Harris says. \u201cI thought to myself, Is there any universe where he\u2019ll say \u2018yes\u2019?\u201d Harris sent him essentially a \u201cyou up?\u201d text. Ehrenreich, who\u2019d never been in a music video before, got the script and signed on immediately.<\/p>\n It was important for Harris to bring on downtown choreographer Marc Crousillat to create character-based movement for Ehrenreich. \u201cKnowing that Mark was such a nerd and I was such a nerd, we felt how much of a nerd Alden was come out,\u201d Harris says. They took inspiration from Denis Lavant in the final scene of Claire Denis\u2019s Beau Travail and from a Ralph Lemon\u2013choreographed performance where the performer Okwui Okpokwasili cries. \u201cI wanted the DNA of downtown dance, but I wanted it to still be a man who had never been to MoMA PS1 or NYLA,\u201d Harris says.<\/p>\n Harris spent a significant portion of the budget to shoot on film, and it paid off. \u201cWhen we did our first camera test with the 16 mm., my director of photography, Todd Banhazl, told me to make sure that we didn\u2019t put basically any makeup on him because his face dances with light so well,\u201d Harris remembers.<\/p>\n Photo: Krissy Rivard\n <\/p>\n Jepsen brought her husband, Cole M.G.N., to set, and he ended up appearing in the background of the dance-hall scenes. Between shots, she would check the monitors and hang out with her 6-month-old<\/a>. Harris describes her as being both an excited collaborator and remarkably egoless about not being at the center of the process. \u201cI can imagine if I were to tell a lot of pop stars, \u2018I\u2019m making this music video and you\u2019re a Lynchian ghost inside of it,\u2019 they\u2019d say, \u2018I need it to cut to me every five seconds,\u2019\u201d Harris says. \u201cThere was a version of the music video that was just going to be one shot, and she was so down.\u201d Harris and his editor, Pete Ohs, the filmmaker who made the acclaimed 2026 movie Erupcja, starring former Jepsen collaborator Charli XCX, ultimately decided against that technique because they wanted to avoid being too heady.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also another version of the video \u2014 which Harris calls the \u201clate-night cut,\u201d that he says will be released at some point. It\u2019s sultrier. \u201cWhen you see her with that red hair, it\u2019s Jessica Rabbit\u2013y or something, especially with the red dress,\u201d Harris says. \u201cI was like, Let\u2019s lean into that.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking back, Harris\u2019s only regret from the filming process was that he didn\u2019t make any TikToks with Ehrenreich, Jepsen, and Washington. \u201cSadly, when you\u2019re directing two music videos in a day,\u201d he explains, \u201cyou\u2019re required to focus on too many things to have time to do content farming.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign up for the Vulture Daily<\/p>\n An entertainment newsletter for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/883a1bc9469fdfdcb5e3cee5defcef9790-dance-floor-bts-2.rvertical.w570.jpg\")
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