Nicolas Winding Refn has paid tribute to French musician Kavinsky, whose track "Nightcall" became inseparable from Refn's 2011 neo-noir film Drive. Kavinsky, real name Vincent Belorgey, died on 28 July at his Paris home aged 50, in a death authorities are investigating as a suspected stroke; Refn's remarks came after he had recently revisited the making of Drive on The Hollywood Reporter's podcast. The tribute underlines how deeply the song shaped the film's identity, and highlights Kavinsky's wider standing as a major figure in French pop music beyond his international recognition through Drive.

Refn recalled that "Nightcall" already existed when it was found during the film's edit, brought in while he and editor Matt Newman searched for a "European sound" inspired by New Order, Italian disco and synth-driven pop; laying it over the opening sequence, he said, immediately gave the film what it had been missing. He described the track as giving Drive its "soul", calling it "like whipped cream floating over steel" against the film's otherwise muscular imagery, and remembered Kavinsky personally as kind, gentle and unusually unassuming for someone so successful, with the two staying loosely in touch, including once discussing fatherhood together, in the years after the film's release.