My imagination is very comfortable with bluescreen.
And thats good, becauseValerianincludes 2,400 F/X shots.
(The Fifth Elementcontained only about 200.)
Credit: Daniel Smith
Like a cocktail where you dont even taste the alcohol, he says with an endearing Santa Claus laugh.
BessonsValerian and the City of a Thousand Planetsopens in theaters in July 2017.
On his jacket is a drawing of the comic book version of his two heroes.
Vikram Gounassegarin
Entertainment Weekly:From your Twitter account, it looks like youre about halfway through shooting onValerian.
How are things on the set in Paris?
Luc Besson:Tomorrow will be half of the film.
Vikram Gounassegarin
Our total is 98 days, but I saved two days already on the schedule.
I feel really, honestly, more than happy.
Usually Im always skeptical and I wait for the editing, but I have so much good stuff already.
Eric Gandois
The trick of the film was to be sure that Valerian and Laureline were working as a couple.
And if I have that, Im safe.
Since day one, they clicked.
Luc Besson
Dane is already a genius before he met me.
But Cara right now is like a bird whos taking off.
Shes really going to be such a huge star.
Is must be difficult for them to work with so much blue screen.
And for you too.
Honestly for me, no.
But when I open my windows I see cows, so believe me, that pushes your imagination.
Because you want to escape.
I start to readValerianwhen I was 10.
At the time there was no Internet; there wasnt even a TV at home.
So I read and just had my imagination.
So when I look at bluescreen, I see everything.
My imagination is very comfortable with bluescreen.
What enchanted you about the comic book originally?
Well, the system at the time was two pages a week.
As kids we were so excited.
Can you imagine today?
We cant even wait two seconds for the next thing.
I was sci-fi which was pretty rare in the early 70s.
And it was a guy and a girl, and there werent many female heroines at the time.
So the first girl I fall in love with, when I was 10, was Laureline.
Shes a tough cookie.
And she doesnt say Yes, yes, yes to Valerian all the time.
I loved that about her.
What took you so long to embark on a film version?
I can say this.
And I always answered, We cannot.
There are 10 or 12 human characters, and the others are all aliens.
So the technique is not there.
We had to wait forAvatar.
And so what happened when you sawAvatar?
I sawAvatarand threw my script forValerianin the garbage.
I was inspired by James Cameron.
He invited me on the set ofAvatar.
And I asked him questions and he was very open and very sweet.
He was sharing with other directors.
He helped other people like me to progress.
So what was different when you started writing it again?
I allowed myself much more freedom.
I centered the story to make it more real, more human.
If you dont like sci-fi, I want you to still likeValerian.
Lets have the imagination go to the limit.
You watch the thing, and its fluid and funny and wild.
Its not deep and complicated.
Its ultra sophisticated to do, but it looks easy.
Like a cocktail where you dont even taste the alcohol [laughs].
Whats going on there?
Its a part of the first mission.
Beginning of the film.
Like when you see James Bond, theres always that one mission first.
Its the James Bond-style pre-story mission.
They make a run at escape.
It,s pretty funny how they have to escape.
And who is this big black robot character?
His name is K-Tron.
Hes a police officer.
You cant even deal with him.
You dont argue with him.
Hes not really important in the film, but hes just like the the military police.
Believe me, I have hundreds of these characters like him.
How involved were you with the costume design?
That was one of the aspects that was so distinctive aboutThe Fifth Element.
We finished with 10.
Basically five of them worked for a year.
And many of the costumes come from them.
Half come from them, and half come from Olivier Beriot, who is the costume designer.
Its a long long process.
We started three years ago.
Youve got some great actors in the film, like John Goodman and Clive Owen and Ethan Hawke.
Its very exciting to see Rihanna in the cast is she playing the villain?
I cant tell you that.
They do films that are super well made, but this pattern bothered me a little bit.
So you dont know whos exactly bad until the end, because its an investigation.
Thats why I cant talk too much.
But its a real story.
Thats what I love about it.
How much will I know about the movie from reading the comic?
There are 29 Valerian and Laureline comic books.
There is flavor from the comic, for sure.
When you read a comic book, it takes you 20 minutes.
The film is two hours.
So I take the essentials, but I have to go to other worlds.
The characters are there and a big chunk of the story.
