Stars Bruce Willis, Chris Tucker, Milla Jovovich, and more look back for the film’s anniversary.
LUC BESSON (WRITER-DIRECTOR):At 16 I wrote three stories.
I wrote 200 pages, and it was bad.
Credit: Illustration by Robert Sammelin for EW
I wrote 200 more, it was still bad.
[Laughs]So I throw it away and I give it another spin.
So I’m very isolated.
Columbia Pictures
And basically you have three solutions.
IAIN SMITH (CO-PRODUCER): Initially, the idea was to make two films.
The cost for both, I think, came to something like $150 million.
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So after some discussion, Luc decided that he wanted to conflate the two scripts into one.
But we didn’t even have a go at go to Bruce Willis, because he was too expensive.
[laughs] and I tell him [about the money].
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He said this very sweet line: “If I like it, we will make an arrangement.”
BRUCE WILLIS (KORBEN DALLAS):He came out to our house in Malibu.
I just liked LucI liked the story, I liked the idea.
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I thought it would be fun to go to France and make a movie.
And then you know what?
She speaks a language no one understands!
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When you start that way, why not take all the risks?
MILLA JOVOVICH (LEELOO):I thought I did great!
I was really happy with the way the audition went.
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I was 18 and just thought I was the coolest thing in the world.
And I was so excited to meet Luc, because I was such a huge fan.
JOVOVICH:Of course I was like, “I need to change!”
But he didn’t want to give me the opportunity to put all my makeup back on.
[Laughs] So I went and saw him later, and he put me on tape again.
I didn’t understand any of it, but I was game.
BESSON:She was perfect.
I was so seduced by the test that she did.
And I understood what he meant by that.
CHRIS CARRERAS (FIRST ASSISTANT DIRECTOR):Luc took her under his wing and protected her from everything.
BESSON:That language, I wrote a dictionary with 500 words.
But we were the only two who spoke it on the set.
She had to learn it, and then we could talk to each other in it.
JOVOVICH:It was really interesting, the fact that there weren’t going to be subtitles.
CARRERAS:We liked that.
If you understood what she was saying, it would diminish her.
But it was a real language; it wasn’t just gobbledygook.
BESSON:For Ruby, I met Jamie Foxx and Chris [Tucker] the same day.
They were both adorable and so sweet, and I loved them both.
But the fact is that Jamie at the time already had lots of muscles.
So I chose him.
CHRIS TUCKER (RUBY RHOD): They were really protective of the script.
I’m this young kid, real scared.
Like, I don’t know if I can do this.
BESSON:Prince was actually supposed to do the part before Chris.
[Laughs] And sometimes he shows up when you don’t expect him.
you might’t grab him, you know?
He was free and he wants to stay free.
But when you think about Prince and then you watch the film, you feel there is a flavor.
“I was like, ‘What?!'”
SMITH:Chris came in for a lot of flack in America.
A lot of people couldn’t get the floating gender thing, the high-pitched voice.
But he really got the energythat very particular kind of gender-liberated, anything-goes thing that Prince did.
We needed that to carry the film through the middle parts, especially with the battle in Fhloston Paradise.
He had to do a lot of reacting at a very high level to make those scenes work.
I’m this young kid, really scared, like I don’t know if I can do this.
But all that stuff really helped me get into character.
CARRERAS:Gaultier would have to vet every single person, every single extra.
That’s how intense he was in the look of it.
So we came up with this bandages idea, and Gaultier just did such an amazing job interpreting that.
TUCKER:I didn’t even know anything about Gaultier, I was so young.
Then I found out later that he’s like the biggest designer in Europe, and just the coolest.
WILLIS:I liked the stuff that I wore, that Gaultier.
I thought it was pretty cool.
One of the things I remember is that Luc had for some reason dyed his hair blond.
And I said, “You know what?
I should dye my hair blond, have a little wig on my head.”
That was a contribution of mine, and he liked it.
CARRERAS:Luc was interesting.
Everything was done in French even though he spoke English.
[Laughs] That was rule number one.
And the pace was very quick, because he knew exactly what he wanted.
That’s the fun of it.
I ask, “Do you want to do Zorg?”
and he said yes, he was happy to do it.
It took some time to get the voice of the character, because he’s so extreme, Zorg.
So finally he proposed this sort of half-Texan accent and it was very funny.
Some nights we would watch the dailies of both movies together.
SMITH:Gary does those little moments so well, the humor.
“There are no stones!”
We wanted to be afraid of him, but we couldn’t make him trite, you know?
JOVOVICH:Luc was very secretive with Leeloo.
Luc shot it with two cameras so you could really get that first reaction.
WILLIS:Of course I remember that.
I never looked at it as a romantic moment, though.
I would have to swear you to secrecy, because the real romance was between Luc and Milla.
By the time I had gotten to Paris they were already kind of smitten with each other.
[Besson and Jovovich were married in 1997, and divorced in 1999.]
JOVOVICH:Chris [Tucker] and I, we were having fun.
We got along because both of us were from the West coastWest coast in the house!
Everybody was going out together and clubbing.
TUCKER:Milla was so sweet, so nice.
I was young and bored and homesick so I went out a lot.
WILLIS:There wasn’t much conversation between me and the other characters.
I was just trying to save the world.
TUCKER:I was a little afraid to talk to Bruce too much.
I was like, “Damn, it’s Bruce Willis!”
I didn’t want to mess up anything and get fired.
So whenever he said something, I just tried to answer real quick and then move on.
But he was really cool.
JOVOVICH:Demi was on set a lot, and she was rad.
I would babysit for them sometimes when I wasn’t working.
I was so young, I probably had more fun with his kids at that time.
Luc does a lot of takes.
But that’s part of the film business, and I didn’t have any problem with it.
SMITH:Luc got Bruce to give a very unusual performance.
Ridley Scott can handle it, Darren Arronofsky, George Miller.
But I’ve seen other directors just fold.
They cannot deal with the onslaught a major star brings.
And Gary was no slouch either, he was at Luc pushing too.
BESSON:Technology today is so easy that you’re free to do whatever you want.
At the time it was a nightmare.
But we used, I think, only two green-screen shots in all of it.
JOVOVICH:Even when it’s a green screen, the worlds were still being put into my head.
or “You see medieval Europe and cannonballs!”
Or “You see China!”
He wanted to see a real reaction and have me really visualize what was going on.
CARRERAS:It was great fun.
It was a bit likeStar Wars, but better.
[Laughs]
SMITH:A lot was done with model miniatures.
The New York set we built in Venice, in California.
Fhloston Paradise as well.
But they’re not small thingsthey’re big, big miniatures, if you follow me.
CARRERAS:The Fhloston explosion was one hell of a big bang.
Or as Milla would say, “Bada-bang.
or “This is Voldemort” or whatever.
This was a one-off.
The diva scene, we basically shot it like a concert.
The curtain came up, and that was it.
I’d not seen the outfit or the choreography [together].
And to witness it for the first time was absolute goosebumps.
DUDMAN:The diva was particularly difficult to make.
There were lots of worries.
But intercutting it with the Mangalore fight scene was just fantastic.
Then I get a call saying I should come to LAX.
That was the diva scenelike, one of the money shots.
It was the one thing you absolutely did not want to have happen.
But we managed to save the negative and cut it together get what Luc had wanted all along.
That never happened to me on another 45 films.
Shooting wrapped in June 1996, and the movie debuted the following May at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.
He didn’t want it to end.
He’s a very, very good jazz musician.
… Bruce has a reputation for being quite difficult.
He wasn’t difficult on this film.
JOVOVICH:Listen, this was still the ’90s.
That’s unheard of today, unless it’s like, a James Cameron film.
AMICARELLA:It was still a system that fostered creative values.
We have vastly different challenges today.
I had a smile on my face from day one.
BESSON:When the film opened in the U.S., it was pretty slow.
And little by little, it became a cult movie.
AMICARELLA:The movie was comic book, it was Salvador Dali, it was heavy metal.
It was this cacophony, this vibrant palette of complementary colors.
It was really different than, say, the originalBlade Runner, which was more monotone and dystopian.
SMITH:There’s always disappointment when the reviews were lukewarm.
We had exactly the same problem withMad Max: Fury Road.
BESSON:I respect the big machine, like Marvel and all this.
And they want to hear all the lines, yeah.
I get “Bzzzz!”
a lot… Could I wear those costumes again?
I don’t know if I could fit in one.
I’d have to work out a little bit.
[Laughs]
JOVOVICH:When I watch Leeloo, I don’t even see myself.
It’s a different person altogether.
And I tell you, after you grab kids it all changes.
WILLIS:I haven’t talked about the movie since we finished.
It’s not that it’s not something in my memoryit was a great cast and a great film.
I just don’t really dissect the work that we do on a day-to-day basis.
BESSON:Would I make a sequel?
For me there’s no point to go back to the same place.
No matter how much you love a film, the fun is to try something else.
And that’s not interesting.
SMITH:It’s a fascinating thing, to see how the film survives.
In fact, it becomes more loved by people as time goes on.
And in the end, the movie is about love.
Thatisthe Fifth Elementit’s love that saves the world.
