Luc Besson Interview: Dracula: A Love Tale and Billie Eilish Inspired the Tone of the Film

how are you doing today sir very good tired tired to be honest yeah well that's what happens in the middle of a shoot what what day are you in production I don't know do you know when you rap uh at the end of next week I think and then we have another two weeks in November because I I wait for the Autumn what is that like for your actors when they have to pause filming and then sort of come back it's okay because the scene in Aon is in the 14th century anyway so so we finished the 19th century and he will go back to 14 so it's it's okay jumping into this uh a few generics that I want to ask you but um what was it about this story the Dracula story that said I I want to make this movie I think there's there there's some versions who were wonderful the CPAs ver I love at the time when I when I watch it the first time but there's one element that um always that I miss all the time that I feel in the book it's the it's the love it's the love story so for me it's the ultimate Love Story a man who will wait 400 years to see The Return of his wife and he has to wait for 400 years it's just the ultimate love story for me and uh that's for me more the angle so of course there is some uh blood sure and some monsters and things but the the main the main thing is the is the Love Is The Love Story so there's going to be people out there who actually are not familiar with the Dracula story good exactly what do you want to tell those people who have not read the book and don't know the story takes me two hours to say it in the in the movie no it's just about the devotion the devot of his man he he love his wife it's his only wife he loves her since day one and God took her and then he he wants to punish God so one of the things about that is the Dracula has been portrayed in movies number of times I'm curious for your version is it like a grounded realistic version is it a heighten version is it a fantasy type version I love when you are at the border of it like it it looks real and it's totally fake true I I love that I love to flirt with that like you you wondering is it is it coming from a true story or is it you know I love that I love to play with that so it's not totally fantasy uh no one flying with a cape for example but uh but it looks real you know the locations we shot in pal Royale and couple of nice place in Paris and the studio the the said designer make a great job and so you you believe in everything that's the magic for me one of the biggest moments of the movie is his transformation his making a deal with the devil if you will you know what I mean um how could you envision designing how he would sort of sell himself or you know what I mean he doesn't make a deal with the devil in fact he he banished God from his life and God give life but God can also give death or forbid you to die so that's his punishment say okay so you're not going to die that's his punishment and it's everybody wants to be Eternal but after 400 years you you you kind of like you want to die you want to live yeah I I I have often wondered what it would be like to live that long the pros and the cons probably boring I think after while but um what's interesting is he still have this hope and so many time during the story he think he's going to see The Reincarnation of his wife and he doesn't and then he has to wait again so he go by he goes by all the by The Hope by the desperation then he wants to finish he wants to kill himself but he cannot so we see the upside down all the time for four centuries and it it was so interesting to play with the 15 16 17 18th century you know like different costume different places different hair different everything so I think is there's not one Dracula in the film there's like 21 I think 21 where and that's where calb is is amazing for that he's a chameleon I'm curious about that the the movie is 2 hours long or give or take whatever the movie ends up being not 3 hours I promise of course but how much time do you spend in the 15th century and like you mentioned showing him going through time and then ultimately you end up in the 19th century I don't know exactly but it's kind of like a good eilber and most of the time it's um it's flashback and he tell a little bit of the story on the 15 and then we come back to to the 19 but basically it starts on 14 for I will say the First Act and then we go to 19 and back to back to the past all the time we are sitting in a an amazing set so for people that are watching what do you want to tell people about this set it's equipped in uh in Carpathian Mountains in Romania and uh it's actually the real painting from real Chapel in Romania that we uh we copy and it's pain paint by hand all the the golden hallow are paint by hand and it's a I try you shoot in Romania in a real uh but it's too hard it's too hard too difficult and it's it's really precious so I was scared to you know to damage to damage it so we we re redo it here do you spend a lot of time in the set in the movie in this one uh we spend a week in it so lots of things yeah we see it at the 14th century at the 19th century see so now now it's the 19th century version so it's a little uh wounded and greasy and lots of uh spiderwebs and talk a little bit about uh you cast Kristoff Waltz as the priest uh what can you tease people about his character is not a normal priest he's very uh sneaky in a way he has a little bit of Sherlock Holmes a little bit you know he knows how to to navigate between the rules of the the government the church the he's playing with the rules you know he's on the border because what happened to have this source of empirism somewhere in Europe uh almost no one believe it but he knows because his congregations are fighting them since 400 years so he's in charge of you know finding the source and he's actually never find a vampire alive so it's the goal in his life is to at least you know have one and uh so maybe he will find one and be able to talk with him and the talk between a vampire and him is very interesting well that's what I wanted to know um calb is such a good actor and Kristoff is such a good actor when you put the two of them together in a movie you obviously need to have a scene at least one where them two going head to-head and verbally I'm sure that's going to be great what is it like writing that dialogue and making the audience root for sort of both sides by the way it's today are you shooting that today yeah the first time they met together right so in the Crypt uh that's very I obviously had no idea um but I I am curious what is it like writing that scene I think it's not taking a position I'm ruling for both of them and I I just want to basically to say to both of them you know guys I love you both good luck and they try to convince each other that that's why it's interesting you know the the priest try to make him understand that he's here to help and and Dracula is think that he's here to kill him you know so now they have to explain each other to understand each other is there a way for the two of them to work together or not at all no okay what are if you don't mind sharing there's always rules in a Dracula movie or a vampire movie about what can kill someone weaknesses strengths what can you say about your version um in terms of powers if you will no I try to respect few rules you know the common rules of Dracula he's sleeping in a coffin sure uh to kill him you have to put a you know take a hammer and a silver nail and and put him on his heart and cut his head so that's the that's the classical thing uh but for the rest I try to I try to not to play with it but to serve the storytelling so I'm I'm using only I'm using only what serve the purpose like for example on the book he transform as a bat or is uh walking on the wall or it can be a a green fog uh I don't want to use that too much because it makes it too Fant fantastic and then I I try to to stay uh focus on the love story and the it's the movie is very emotional in fact well that's what I was getting that earlier in the conversation with the fact that it could be the grounded version and it also could go more fantasy yeah I'm not going to Fantasy Pure Fantasy I'm not doing a version for for for kids PG-13 so they can take take popcorn quietly so um so I want them not to eat to the popcorn here I'm assuming this is an R-rated version not sure oh so it could go either way yeah I think we it's going to be at the limit there's a few scenes where it's a little you know it's a little it's little bloody but it's not the main thing it's not the main thing is it one of those things where you almost want to shoot it a certaint like you want to shoot it the way you're going to shoot it and then in the editing room you can figure out what what does the film need no I I'm going to edit the way I want and people will tell me oh this is rated R or oh that's okay we can do PG-13 and then if we not far we will choose but it's definitely not it's definitely not a a gory film uh you know sure redar with blood everywhere and no it's not talk a little bit about um I saw the photo of calb in the armor it looked fantastic talk a little bit about um how you wanted that armor to look and what were your Inspirations working with your costume designer which was interesting is uh um more than 20 years ago I did jonov AR and where we have like 200 armors everywhere and at the time I met this English guy he was 30 years old he was a young guy and he made an amazing job and then 25 years later I call back and say are you still there and they say yes so he's a little older now he has gray hair and he did the armor so we work again together and it's the same inspiration to look at the real armor from the time and to make it a little bit um a little bit different just at the limit of the fantasy sure you know for example Dracula in in Romanian dracul is a dragon so his helmet is is a head of a dragon and everybody Oto the Ottomans who fighting him uh at the 14th century they call him the dragon of corathon because they think that he can spray fire because of the helmet so there there's a couple of of good element we we try to play with that what is it like um calb is known for uh spending a lot of time to get ready to play a role what is it like directing calb um and how much do you know about like how he's going to do the voice and all that stuff before I steps on set how much is he telling you here's my voice or is it sort of a surprise when you first no we tried to find the voice together for a month so he has a a coach a Romanian coach to see how he can you know but he doesn't have the same voice in the 19th century then the 14 is different there's a moment where he's 400 years old so we have to find the voice and and little by little okay try deeper try deeper less accent more accent and then there's a moment where he find it and then we kept to we we try to you know to keep it at least when it's 400 years old and it's very very low and they do this little gymnastic before we say action you know like oh he tried to find the voice so he has to do that for like 20 second before we shoot all the time and um but what's interesting is he got the Romanian accent four months ago and you you must be aware that he's going to speak with a Romanian accent when he talk to you because he's he keep it all the time because he's scared to lose it in fact sure well what is it like when you have someone who is going like I don't want to say method but little method um how much is that impacting the shooting schedule and where you're shooting certain sequences or not at all no not at all we're friends also now so we we talk to each other a lot and what about this what do you think about this what about this and it's a real exchange uh we we're really building together and the more we go the more I can adapt so when we come to the shoot we know what to do we there's not so much discussion on set in fact we know everything before and then we went for rehearsal almost 3 weeks uh uh together plus Zoe the the the princess we went for 3 weeks far from everyone just about the text the situation all the questions were asked at the time so when we come boom we should what are you thinking about for music in the movie are you thinking about a contemporary score a old Orchestra to be honest uh I will think about it in two weeks sure um no now for now it's it's not now for me to think about it there's some music that I have on on my on my phone and I'm listening that inspired me uh who are probably not good for the film but a good inspiration uh the the last album of Billy ish for example and I'm I'm just listening on Loop and it's exactly the mood that I need for for the movie so but does the songs will go in the movie no it will be strange but the mood her her and her brother are talented and have done a lot of uh music for movies maybe give them a call I would love I mean they they so big now I don't think they will take my call but I will try I actually don't know if that's true I will try yeah you might as well it can't hurt you know what I mean it's true it it what's the worst that happen and by the way the the last album I always love all the albums but the last one is is really amazing it's so I've been fortunate to talk to both of them they're incredibly nice people good you know they're just really really nice okay I promise I will try yeah why not um I'm curious about the look of the film and how you've worked with your cinematographer I apologize for not knowing the name off the top of my head but in designing what you wanted the film to look like the color scheme uh are certain sequences in the past different colors you know U talk a little bit about that uh it took lot of time lots of work I sent him and the chief electrician to the museum because I want to I want them to you know take in their in their mind the painting from the the the 15 the 15 16 the German the Holland painting just to get inspired because uh now when you see there's a lot of TV series now who goes pretty fast and I'm not saying they do a bad job it's a good job but it's not like art you know so let's go back to the source let's go we we're very lucky in in Paris we have so many Museum so we went to all of them and tried to get the food from there you know so I don't know how it it's going to be set up in the film but that's what we eat for weeks we eat paintings in museum so so I hope it will you know you you will see where or another I I don't know exactly I'm not saying I'm not taking a painting and say I want this light but just to see how the painter at the time construct their light you know that that's interesting because it's very hard to do on the movie one of the things about this is you're obviously I I heard you're going to be shooting a big action set piece uh later this year so talk a little bit about what the action set piece is and where it fits in the film uh in November it's uh the Ottomans who invade Europe in the 14th century and uh the Christians try to stop them and they asked The Count Dracula because he Prince of vacha and he has an army and so he tried to stop them which is in the book by the way so that's that's a big battle where he's going to kill in the name of God sure and uh and then the the the last the next two weeks it's the the the finale of the movie so it's in the castle and there's also a big fight what has surprised what do you think will surprise fans once they've seen the movie to like learn about the making of the movie is there anything unique about this shoot or are all films sort of very similar just unique problems on each one yeah I think it's all the movies now are so technical that it's they always complicate what I think what the hardest thing is to keep the The Wire of the the storytelling and the emotional journey of the character that's where it's the most difficult to remember okay at this time this is how he feel and this is where it need to go because there's so many shots and so many technical things to resolve that sometime you forgot I give you a stupid example the guy is running in the street and then he come the apartment and he's not breathing because it takes 3 months before you shoot outside and inside so you everyone forgot that the guy was running so he should be like this and they open the door hi so this kind of I give a stupid example but that's the most difficul is to keep it you know Lo emotionally logical or just like uh um I I don't think a lot of people realize the importance of a script supervisor and just trying to as you just said just keeping everything so um the audience never falls out of believing what they're watching yeah yeah that's that's very and that was very difficult for it's the second time I work with Caleb so this one he has 20 different characters on 400 years so it's very hard for him to keep the the emotional link so I have the feeling he trust much more me on this one you know because he say okay leave that to look because I'm get lost I get lost between the period so and and I'm very very focused on that I try to never let him down to be sure that I'm holding it and and it's the right thing to do or the right thing to to express one of the things I I think that really helps a movie is when there is a break in filming so it allows a director and a production to look at all the footage and when they go back to shoot like when you're shooting later this year you can see if you missed anything um can you sort of talk does that do you feel like this helps the movie no I mean I spent my weekend at the editing since three months all the time you you're obliged you're obliged to do that because of the period changes because the period change all the time so you really obliged to go to the editing and to be sure that you know you you have a shot like you go from one shot to one century and then you turn it's another Century so you need to be sure that it goes right to left right to left or you know and the the value of the shot is good the light is good so no I I have to I go to the editing and every night the the editor send me the pieces and then we can correct there's a two time where I say oh okay let's redo this shot it will fit better but it happens twice only so it's good on that note sir I really appreciate you letting me visit you while you're filming and I wish you nothing but the best thank you hopefully calb will not attack me while uh when he sits down put your hands here when when you make the interview w [Music]