Moviefone recently had the pleasure of sitting down in-person with writer and director Damien Chazelle to talk about his work on ‘Babylon,’ what audiences can expect from the new movie, why he was interested in this point in Hollywood’s history, casting Pitt and Robbie, and the importance of music in his films.
‘Babylon’ writer and director Damien Chazelle.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews with Chazelle, as well as actors Jovan Adepo and Li Jun Li.
Moviefone: To begin with, what would you say to moviegoers getting ready to sit down and watch this film to prepare them for the experience they’re about to have?
Damien Chazelle: That’s a good question. I would say just to prepare yourself for a wild ride. It’s not the kind of movie about older Hollywood that I think anyone is expecting. It’s shocking, it’s wild, it’s crazy, it’s a roller coaster ride, it’s an adventure, and it’s a party. I would say to go in with that in mind.
But beyond that, I don’t know, I wouldn’t say much. I think ultimately I made this movie for audiences, for them to have an experience. I think whatever mindset you’re in when you sit down in the theater for this movie, it will sweep you up and it’s going to take you for a ride whether you want to or not.
MF: What was it about this era in Hollywood’s history, the period moving from silent films to talkies, that really fascinated you and what were some of the themes you wanted to explore with this movie?
DC: Well, a lot of it had to do with just how unhinged the society was at that time. I just hadn’t realized the extent to which people at that time partied, how hard they lived, how hard they worked, and how recklessly and transgressively they operated. It was this circus atmosphere that I think in many ways got lost once Hollywood became a little more sanitized and regulated, and became more of a corporate industry.
The Hollywood in this movie is right before that. It’s the last gasp of the wild West of early Hollywood when it was still unregulated. It was like people pitching a tent in the desert and making their movies, and doing them the way they wanted to. There was just this manic, hysterical atmosphere where anything went. That was key to try to capture that and take that as far as it went.
Brad Pitt plays Jack Conrad in ‘Babylon’ from Paramount Pictures.
MF: Can you talk about casting and working with Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie?
DC: It was amazing. As a director, it’s a dream come true. They’re such seasoned actors so, yes, on the one hand, you’re getting these larger-than-life movie stars, and they’re playing larger-than-life movie stars in the movie, so that’s kind of perfect. But they’re also just real thespians.
They deliver. They know how to craft performances that move you and make you laugh and cry and break your heart. They take you on a ride. I think they help ground this movie and make it human, so that even at its most excessive, larger-than-life, outrageous, shocking moments, you still feel a beating heart underneath. That’s thanks to them, I think, and the rest of the cast.
MF: Margot has a scene in the movie where her character has to cry on cue. Did she actually do that on set, or did you have to enhance it in post?
DC: That is Margot! Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to shoot it. You can’t CG that!
Margot Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy in ‘Babylon’ from Paramount Pictures.
MF: Finally, can you talk about Justin Hurwitz’s music for the film and the importance of music in all your movies?
DC: Music comes early on for me. I work with the same composer, Justin Hurwitz, for all my movies. We’ve worked together since college. We have a shorthand at this point. As soon as I have a script, I hand it to him, and he starts working on the music.
By the time I’m shooting, I’ve got a lot of the music already in place. We can play it on set and we can set the mood with it. We can have the actors dancing to it and thinking about it, and just letting it seep into their body. You get a sense of what the tone is right away. That’s really important to me, and especially with this movie. I knew I needed a very specific tone and a specific kind of energy and pulse, and that’s what the music provides.
Director Damien Chazelle on the set of ‘Babylon’ from Paramount Pictures.
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Even as backing organization the Hollywood Foreign Press Association continues to try to dig its way out of an avalanche of scandals about diversity, payments for members and exclusionary tactics, the Golden Globes are making something of comeback after the ceremony wasn’t broadcast this year.
Also doing well (somewhat expectedly given its nomination and win success so far) was ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, also appearing in Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, Best Actress, Musical or Comedy for Michelle Yeoh, Best Supporting actor (Ke Huy Quan) and Best supporting actress (Jamie Lee Curtis), while writer/directors Daniels––AKA Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert––were nominated for their script and direction.
Tom Cruise was surprisingly left out of the acting nominations, though perhaps not too shockingly since he gave back his previous globes in protest against the HFPA’s behavior. We’re more surprised to see Brendan Fraser nominated for ‘The Whale’, since he’s long been on record as criticizing the inappropriate behavior of a former HFPA president towards him from years ago.
The Globes continue to have a bad reputation for almost ignoring female creative talent on the several fronts outside of acting and a few craft categories, but at least ‘Turning Red’s Domee Shi notched up a Best Animated Motion Picture, becoming the first woman of color to have a movie she directed up for an award.
Here’s the full list of nominations on the film front…
Best Motion Picture – Drama
‘Avatar: The Way of Water’
‘Elvis’
‘The Fabelmans’
‘Tár’
‘Top Gun: Maverick’
Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama
Cate Blanchett, ‘Tár’
Olivia Colman, ‘Empire of Light’ Viola Davis, ‘The Woman King’
Ana de Armas, ‘Blonde’
Michelle Williams, ‘The Fabelmans’
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama
Austin Butler, ‘Elvis’
Brendan Fraser, ‘The Whale’
Hugh Jackman, ‘The Son’
Bill Nighy, ‘Living’ Jeremy Pope, ‘The Inspection’
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Diego Calva, ‘Babylon’ Daniel Craig, ‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’ Adam Driver, ‘White Noise’
Colin Farrell, ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ Ralph Fiennes, The Menu’’
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture
Brendan Gleeson, ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’
Barry Keoghan, ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’
Brad Pitt, ‘Babylon’
Ke Huy Quan, ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Eddie Redmayne, ‘The Good Nurse’
Best Director — Motion Picture James Cameron, ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Baz Luhrmann, ‘Elvis’
Martin McDonagh, ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’
Steven Spielberg, ‘The Fabelmans’
Best Screenplay – Motion Picture Todd Field, ‘Tár’
Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’
Martin McDonagh, ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ Sarah Polley, ‘Women Talking’
Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner, ‘The Fabelmans’
Best Original Score – Motion Picture Carter Burwell, ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ Alexandre Desplat, ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio’
Hildur Guðnadóttir, ‘Women Talking’ Justin Hurwitz, ‘Babylon’
John Williams, ‘The Fabelmans’
Best Original Song – Motion Picture
“Carolina,” Taylor Swift (‘Where the Crawdads Sing’)
“Ciao Papa,” Alexandre Desplat, Guillermo del Toro, Roeban Katz (‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio’)
“Hold My Hand,” Lady Gaga, BloodPop, Benjamin Rice (‘Top Gun: Maverick’)
“Lift Me Up,” Tems, Rihanna, Ryan Coogler, Ludwig Göransson (‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’)
“Naatu Naatu,” Kala Bhairava, M.M. Keeravani, Kala Bhairava, Rahul Sipligunj (‘RRR’)
Quinta Brunson on ABC’s ‘Abbott Elementary.’ Photo Courtesy of ABC’s YouTube Channel.
On the TV side, the nominations were dominated by some familiar titles––‘The Crown’, Better Call Saul’ and ‘Ozark’––while some new arrivals made their mark, including ‘Abbott Elementary’, ‘House of the Dragon’ and ‘Severance’, which have all popped up on other lists.
And there were the usual ‘hoping celebs attend’ listings, including ‘Alaska Daily’ and ‘Gaslit’.
The list of TV nominees is below:
Best Television Series – Drama
‘Better Call Saul’
‘The Crown’
‘House of the Dragon’
‘Ozark’
‘Severance’
Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy Quinta Brunson, ‘Abbott Elementary’ Kaley Cuoco, ‘The Flight Attendant’ Selena Gomez, ‘Only Murders in the Building’ Jenna Ortega, ‘Wednesday’ Jean Smart, ‘Hacks’
Best Television Limited Series, Anthology Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
‘Black Bird’
‘Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story’
‘The Dropout’
‘Pam & Tommy’
‘The White Lotus’
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Limited Series, Anthology Series or Motion Picture Made for Television F. Murray Abraham, ‘The White Lotus’ Domhnall Gleeson, ‘The Patient’ Paul Walter Hauser, ‘Black Bird’ Richard Jenkins, ‘Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story’ Seth Rogen, ‘Pam & Tommy’
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical-Comedy or Drama Television Series Elizabeth Debicki, ‘The Crown’ Hannah Einbinder, ‘Hacks’
Julia Garner, ‘Ozark’ Janelle James, ‘Abbott Elementary’ Sheryl Lee Ralph, ‘Abbott Elementary’
But for ‘Babylon’, Chazelle is thinking even bigger. He’s got Hollywood on his mind, and more specifically the 1920s, a pivotal time for both the movie industry and the city most identified with it.
At this point, Los Angeles is expanding rapidly, an infusion of money and people arriving, the latter on the hunt for wealth and fame.
Movies, and the performers who star in them, are making the difficult transition from the silent era to talkies, with some careers on the rise and some on the wane. It’s an idea that Chazelle – who won the Best Director Oscar for ‘La La Land’, but saw Best Picture go instead to ‘Moonlight’ during one of the biggest Oscar night surprise moments back in 2017 – has been percolating in his head for at least 15 years, ever since he moved to Los Angeles with his own dreams of success.
“The basic idea was just to do a big, epic, multi-character movie, set in these early days of Los Angeles and Hollywood, when both of these things were coming into what we now think of them as,” he tells Vanity Fair. “I kept putting it off, because it was just a little too massive.”
But with the likes of ‘Whiplash’, ‘La La Land’ and ‘First Man’ under his belt, he finally felt ready to tackle the giant movie he’d been making in his brain for years.
Brad Pitt plays Jack Conrad in ‘Babylon’ from Paramount Pictures.
For the most part, the cast are playing fictional folk, albeit based on real movie stars of the time. Minghella is one of the exceptions, playing powerhouse producer Irving Thalberg.
Pitt’s hard-partying Jack Conrad, for example, has echoes of Clark Gable, and Douglas Fairbanks. “He’s reaching a point in his life in his career where he’s starting to look back and starting to wonder what’s ahead,” says Chazelle of the character.
Robbie, meanwhile, is Nellie LaRoy, burning with ambition and energy, who is the Clara Bow or Joan Crawford of the story. And Chazelle sees her as a good fit for the person playing her: “Margot as a person has this— it’s a very Australian sort of thing—brash, bold, hungry kind of edge to her that she was really able to tap into and do a lot of really fun things with.”
And then there’s Calva, playing Manny Torres, a Mexican immigrant who is a wide-eyed newcomer to the world and serves as the audience’s POV.
We’re promised wild, lavish parties, scandals and more when ‘Babylon’ opens in theaters on December 25th.
(L to R) Brad Pitt plays Jack Conrad and Diego Calva plays Manny Torres in ‘Babylon’ from Paramount Pictures.(L to R) Diego Calva plays Manny Torres and Jean Smart plays Elinor St. John in ‘Babylon’ from Paramount Pictures.Margot Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy in ‘Babylon’ from Paramount Pictures.Margot Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy in ‘Babylon’ from Paramount Pictures.Li Jun Li plays Lady Fay Zhu in ‘Babylon’ from Paramount Pictures.(L to R) Lukas Haas plays George Munn and Diego Calva plays Manny Torres in ‘Babylon’ from Paramount Pictures.Tobey Maguire plays James McKay in ‘Babylon’ from Paramount Pictures.Director Damien Chazelle on the set of ‘Babylon’ from Paramount Pictures.
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Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout,’ from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.
It might boast one of the biggest movie stars left in the world – also known as Mr. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in its stable -but Paramount’s CinemaCon presentation didn’t quite match the scale of some of the other studios preceding it on the schedule.
Still, Paramount did have some news to share, with Cruise sending a video from (because of course) a plane above South Africa where he’s busy filming the eighth ‘Mission: Impossible’ movie. Which is fitting, because the big announcement from Paramount is that the seventh ‘Mission’ movie is called ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’.
We do know that the two movies are supposed to be connected, and the title gives ominous feelings as to what could be happening to heroic agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise). Still, this is a man who has cheated death many times over, so don’t count him out just yet.
“Let’s all try to have a great summer. See you at the movies!” Cruise exclaimed before his plane plummeted into a canyon (it was all part of a bit, he’s fine as usual). He introduced the first look at a teaser for ‘Dead Reckoning Part One’ and the entirety of his latest movie, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’. While no direct mention was made, there’s a good chance the ‘Mission’ trailer will be attached to ‘Maverick’ when the long-awaited ‘Top Gun’ sequel touches down on May 27th.
‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’ arrives in theaters on July 14th next year, followed by the eighth film on June 28th, 2024.
(L to R) Knuckles (Idris Elba) and Sonic (Ben Schwartz) in ‘Sonic The Hedgehog 2’ from Paramount Pictures and Sega.
Paramount has been having a good year in terms of box office so far – with movies including ‘Sonic The Hedgehog 2’ ‘Jackass Forever’ and ‘Scream’ topping the charts upon release and making money.
“When I started this job six months ago, I was asked what do I think the business will be in a post-pandemic world?” studio chief Brian Robbins told the crowd. “What I responded was pretty much exactly what Paramount looked like so far this year. All four of our releases this year have opened to No. 1 at the box office and with ‘Top Gun’ we think we have a really good shot at making it five for five. None of this would have been possible if we had not doubled down in our faith in our release dates.”
In lieu of bringing up separate filmmakers and actors to introduce its upcoming batch of releases (probably because screening ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ ate up much of the time), the studio showed a sizzle reel.
‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ will open in theaters on March 3rd, 2023.
Also shown? Footage from ‘La La Land’ director Damien Chazelle’s new jazz-era old-Hollywood drama. Margot Robbie stars as an anxious actress, demanding her close-up, intoning, “You don’t become a star, you either are one or you ain’t.”
And the new ‘Mission’ wasn’t the only title announced by Paramount: we now know that the ‘A Quiet Place’ spin-off, to be directed by ‘Pig’s Michael Sarnoski, will be called ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’, and, as the name suggests, is a prequel.
It’ll explore a family other than the usual Abbots of the first two main ‘Quiet Place’ movies trying to survive on the day the aliens first arrive – which was briefly show in the dramatic opening to ‘A Quiet Place Part II’.
‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ will be in theaters on September 23rd next year. ‘Quiet Place’ overseer John Krasinski is also developing a third main movie, though no details were offered.
(L-R) Noah Jupe and director John Krasinski and on the set of Paramount Pictures’ “A Quiet Place Part II.”
The story takes place in early Hollywood, and it will reportedly incorporate real industry figures as well as fictional characters. That’s similar to “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Pitt’s latest film, which is due out on July 26. However, the latter is set in late 1960s Hollywood, decades after “Babylon” would take place.
There’s no word yet on what character Pitt would play. Little is known about the plot, but it is said to take place as the movie industry moved from silent films to “talkies.” Stone is reportedly being considered to play Clara Bow, a film star in both the silent and sound eras.
Multiple studios are vying for “Babylon,” per Deadline’s sources, even without Pitt or Stone having signed on. Of course, Chazelle is a draw in his own right; he wrote the script and will direct, as he did with his Oscar-winning “La La Land.” The film will be produced by Olivia Hamilton, Marc Platt, Matt Plouffe, and Tobey Maguire.
Chazelle has written and will likely direct “Babylon,” a period piece set in the 1920s. The story takes place during the movie industry’s transition from silent films to talkies.
A key character is Clara Bow, the early sex symbol and box office star, who was Hollywood’s first “It Girl.” Chazelle’s “La La Land” Best Actress winner Emma Stone is reportedly being eyed for the role.
The project is making the rounds to studios and streaming companies, though Deadline reports the frontrunner is Lionsgate (which released “La La Land”).
Chazelle most recently directed last year’s Neil Armstrong biopic “First Man,” which reunited him with “La La Land” star Ryan Gosling.
“La La Land” was nominated for 14 Oscars and won six, including one for Chazelle, who became the youngest Best Director winner.
