“Robert Pattinson told me that he was not too young, even if I thought that”, Claire Denis on #HighLife

 

Nick Chen from DAZED recently spoke to Claire Denis about her current films. This is what Claire had to say about #HighLife:

So will High Life still be recognisably a “Claire Denis film”, even though it’s English-language, in space, and with special effects?

“I don’t know,” she says. “It’s maybe a weird film. It’s not finished, so it’s maybe also a very bad movie. Who knows? We’re doing the special effects now. There’s not so much in the film, actually. I’ve had this story in my mind for a long time. It’s in English because I thought, in space, you have to speak English or Russian – maybe soon, Chinese. So I thought, ‘Let’s do it in English.’ And it’s Robert Pattinson, so it was obligatory to be in English.”

High Life has been in the works long enough that Denis, at various points, considered Gallo and Philip Seymour Hoffman for the lead. “I wanted someone much older. But very miraculously, Robert Pattinson told me that he was not too young, even if I thought that. I believed him, because I realised he was such a mysterious, deep young man. I was not going to say no.”

It will be André 3000’s first movie since his Jimi Hendrix biopic in 2013. What made her decide he’d fit her aesthetic? “Just my admiration for him, for his music, for the man he is, for the actor also, as Jimi. André Benjamin is one of my heroes.” Is she an Outkast fan? “Yeah, of course. But he’s recording new music now. Outkast is a long time ago.”

That new music, she adds, won’t be for High Life. Instead, the soundtrack was recorded, of course, by Tindersticks, the indie rockers who have scored, either together or as solo artists, nine of Denis’s movies since 1996’s Nenette et Boni. “That’s today. Maybe we’ll add someone else.”Denis continues, “The film was supposed to have been made with Patricia Arquette, but the film was delayed and delayed for four years. When we were ready to start, Robert could do it, but Patricia was shooting already. Me and Juliette had just finished Un beau soleil intérieur (the French title for Let the Sunshine In), and she said, ‘I’m here. I’m ready.’”

Click on the link to read the full interview.