Space oddities
Dane DeHaan and the two leads of L epic ‘Valerian’ tell dream film
Cara Delevingne and Dane DeHaan suit up for director Luc Besson’s ambitious space epic, ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’, out today in the UAE
To her legions of fans, comprised mostly of stuckout-tongue Instagrammers who often express themselves via emojis, Cara Delevingne is the real deal. She’s beautiful, she’s outspoken and she’s funny. And, aside from owning a pair of the most famous eye brows in the world, she is one of the highest-paid models in the world.
So it wasn’t surprising that, during a recent interview in Paris for her
latest film, Valerian and the City of a Thousand
Planets, the 24-year-old admitted she feels more Valerian — the male character played by co-star Dane DeHaan — in real life than her Laureline.
“I go into things with blind ambition. I kind of do before I think sometimes,” she laughs. “Dane plans things out a bit more.”
The pair play space agents in Fifth Element director Luc Besson’s ambitious $150 million (Dh550.8 million) epic, partly funded by Dubai’s Novo Pictures. DeHaan’s Valerian is a smoothtalking, reckless but indispensable operative who follows orders while Delevingne’s Laureline, his partner, is more measured. Despite matching steps with him, she often ends up coming to his rescue.
Laureline is the epitome of womanhood, says Delevingne.
“She’s a representation of what I think women are: They are strong, they
are multi-faceted and they have a voice. Luc has this amazing way of showing women as they are and Laureline is a woman that I aspire to be.”
Set in the 28th century, the story follows the two who are sent on a mission to investigate a dark force that is threatening the peace at Alpha, a growing city with a thousand planets, where different species have come together to share their knowledge and intelligence to build a metropolis. The film is an adaptation of French comic book Valerian and Laureline,
which has inspired many films, including the Star
Wars franchise. Both actors say bagging their roles was their wildest dream come true.
“I got a phone call and the next thing I know I was at a table [sitting across] Luc at breakfast and he said, ‘I’m making a movie I’ve been wanting to make my entire life and I want you to star in it.’ It was so mind-blowing, I couldn’t comprehend what was happening at the time. It was like winning the lottery,” recalls DeHaan.
The 31-year-old is known for his breakout role in the science-fiction thriller Chronicle (2012) as well as The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2015) and acclaimed indie films such as Kill Your Darlings (2013) and Life (2015).
Preparing for the role was physically challenging, he says.
“I’ve been in the best shape of my life doing this film. I was training three months before I started filming. Every morning, I would come to the studio early in the morning and go to the gym before heading to the set. We had to be in great shape,” says DeHaan.
He, along with Delevingne spent more than six months filming at Cite du Cinema (City of Cinema), the 62,000 square metre studio complex built by Besson at the SaintDenis suburb of Paris. Also the location of our interview.
Preparing for a bigbudget science fiction