Brad Pitt and Damien Chazelle on filming wild scenes in “Babylon”: “Lots of nudity”
BabylonDamien Chazelle’s exploration of corruption and excess in 1920s Hollywood has its world premiere in Los Angeles on Thursday alongside stars Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Diego Calva.
Chazelle first created the concept, which focuses on the era when Hollywood transitioned from silent films to talkies, 15 years ago when he first moved to Los Angeles.
“I became really interested in the origins of this, this whole madness, and I think what really made me believe there was a movie in there was that I would read things just out of curiosity and find myself constantly being shocked by them,” he tells Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet. “I was reading about partying, drug use, the way movies are shot these days — wild, unrestrained, unhinged — and I had my jaw on the floor the whole time.”
“I kind of felt like, ‘Well, if I could capture some semblance of that and put that on screen, not compromise it, not sanitize it’ — I just feel like so many movies about old Hollywood buy old Hollywood legend everything was clean and neat and it just wasn’t So, at least at this time,” the writer and director continued. So if I could do that, I felt like, ‘Well, this is a movie worth making. ”
Pitt plays silent fantasy star Jack Conrad in the film, with Robbie as aspiring actress Nellie LaRue and Calva as Mexican immigrant Manny Torres, who is looking for his big break. Pete was the first to sign on, Chazelle said of his three, “And I think there aren’t a lot of people out there who can play Brad on this one. The character is a movie star all the time, so you need a movie star all the time to play it; there isn’t A lot of those today. With Margot, I needed someone who was a movie star but also someone who had recently arrived on the scene. I wanted someone who kind of reflected her character’s journey a little bit and was also totally fearless.”
As for Calva, for whom the film is his first major English-language project after appearing in it Narcos: Mexico“It was kind of a Hollywood cliché about real discovery,” Chazelle said. “I had this dream that it was going to be someone in the role that we didn’t know, was a newcomer to people, but it’s really hard, finding someone really new who can hold their own against Margot and Brad.” And people like that. So I was lucky, it was my good fortune to be able to stumble upon Diego and find him and put him on screen. I think he’s a real movie star.”
One of the movie’s biggest talking points became the crazy and extravagant scenes, which included hundreds of extras, snakes, alligators, and an outrageous party scene that took nearly two weeks to shoot.
When it came to filming the party, Pete admitted, “The first day was a little bit of a shock, even to me. I said, ‘Wow, wow, we’re really doing this,’” “There was a lot of nudity, a lot of nudity. Then on the third day, it was like, “Yeah, a lot of nudity.” And two weeks after that, it was like another day at the office.”
The star also referred to another scene “where we’re racing to the light and there’s 700 extras behind us, and we try to get this shot and everyone panics to get it and rushes in and the crew goes crazy — that to me is filmmaking, that’s what it’s often like.”
Exploring the Hollywood era of the 1920s, Pitt added, “It’s a completely different style of acting. They indicated they were old, and it wasn’t until I began to study them that I could see the real magic and artistry in what they did.”
Apart from the main trio, Babylon It features an all-star cast including Jean Smart, Tobey Maguire, Olivia Wilde, Samara Weaving, Max Minghella, Flee, Lucas Haas, Eric Roberts, Jovan Adepo and Lee Jun Lee.
Minghella recalled his first reading of the “crazy” script, saying Chazelle had “a unique vision, it was really clear that he saw something that neither of us would ever get to see until we got there. When I sat down to watch that movie, I was kind of crying the whole time, Just the joy of seeing something this cinematic.”
She told me when I first watched it, “I remember holding my face so hard that I had my handprints all over my cheek after I came out. I also remember Jane Smart and I were on the same show and it came out and we were both saying to each other, ‘Whew, we forgot to breathe,’ because she It was a wild ride.”
It was perhaps the production team’s wildest ride, as producer Matt Bluff said when he first heard Chazelle’s idea 13 years ago, “I thought it was probably the most impossible movie I’ve ever been in. Honestly, I’m really grateful to be here because I thought for so long,” This movie probably never gets made.” There are very few places in the world that would make this movie, to be honest, and Paramount has stepped up and done something completely unheard of, to support a movie like this, made with such way.”
Plouffe added, “It really felt like every day everything could come apart, so it was like there was something spiritual looking out for us — maybe our Hollywood ancestors.”
Babylon Hits theaters December 23rd.
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