Dracula Stars on Finding Vlad’s Unique Voice, Becoming a Princess, & More | Interview
ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to Dracula stars Caleb Landry Jones and Zoë Bleu about the new Gothic romance fantasy movie. Jones and Bleu discussed working with Luc Besson on the project, the process of getting into character as Dracula and Mina, and more.
“When a 15th-century prince (Caleb Landry Jones) witnesses the brutal murder of his wife (Zoe Bleu), he renounces God and damns heaven itself,” the official synopsis reads. “Cursed with eternal life, he is reborn as Dracula, an immortal warlord who defies fate in a blood-soaked crusade to wrench his lost love back from death, no matter the cost. On the verge of reuniting, Dracula is hunted by a relentless priest (Christoph Waltz), sworn to end his immortal reign.”
Dracula is now playing in United States theaters.
Brandon Schreur: Caleb, you’ve already worked with Luc Besson on Dogman, which is another movie that I love. When he came to you with this idea of playing Dracula, what was your first reaction, and what ultimately made you want to star in this movie?
Caleb Landry Jones: Uh, it wasn’t so much — it had nothing to do with Luc, it was more of fear of how many times this character had been seen before through television, film, B-movies, pornos. The amount of times this character has come up, I’m sure I don’t even know the half of it. I was just terrified of being one more person to give that a go. It always sticks with me, [Marlon] Brando’s saying of, ‘You’ve only got so many faces in your pocket’ or something like that.
The thing that didn’t make me nervous was knowing that Luc was making it. Once I read the script — I didn’t know that he was wanting to make the film until he had written the script. But it was obvious, also, what he was trying to say with the film, and what he was trying to do. I was very much a part of that, or I wanted to be a part of that. The experience on Dogman was so wonderful, special, and unusual in so many ways.
Zoë Bleu: It’s such a beautiful movie.
Jones: I know that I’ll never have an experience like Dogman ever again. Probably ever. Safe to say. I think this is what you get into when you make a Luc Besson picture. You’re getting into one of these kinds of experiences that will never come again.
Bleu: Something out of the ordinary.
Jones: Yeah. And if you’re willing to rise to the challenge!
Yeah, I think that’s fair to say about Luc Besson. None of his movies are the same.
Jones: And none of them are easy. He’s always — I don’t know how to explain it. I have a big love for him, of course, but I also have a great respect as a filmmaker, editor, producer, and writer.
Totally. Zoë, I’d love to know what brought you to this project, too. It’s your first time starring in a Luc Besson movie. What was it that made you want to join Dracula, and how did you react when you were reading the script for the first time and starting to get a sense of the character you’d be playing?
Bleu: God, I was so excited, and so nervous. Obviously, I was a big fan of the Francis Ford Coppola Dracula in high school, but that is a very different Dracula to ours. They are totally different beings. The myth of Dracula has always been really intriguing to me. When I got the script and I read it, I was so moved by how this interpretation of Dracula was so emotional and vulnerable. And so human. Less monster, creature-like — it was just so human. To see a character that we’ve all been obsessed with, the historical monster of Dracula…to see him have his innards exposed in such a way. And to see that he has a big, beating heart that longs and dreams of love. Like, whoa. So cool.
When I got the audition, I couldn’t believe it. I was so excited. I got on my knees and prayed. I was like, ‘Please God, I dream of being in this movie.’ And when I got the news that I did, I also fell to my knees, and I cried like, ‘Oh my god.’ I was not okay. When Luc called me, he was like, ‘Are you sitting down?’ And I fell.
To also hear that I’m going to be working with some of my favorite actors, let alone one of my favorite directors, like, oh my god. Just an all-star cast and crew of creatives coming together to build this dream of Luc’s.
Jones: And to turn you into a princess?
Bleu: And I got to be a princess! The little girl inside of me who wore a tiara 24/7, by the way, actually got to wear a big girl tiara. I’m not going to lie, I will carry this experience with me forever. I feel so grateful that Luc trusted me, gave me this opportunity, and saw something in me that maybe I didn’t even see in myself at the time. Yeah, I just feel really grateful.
Jones: But when you say that, also the amazing thing about working with someone like Luc is you might not see it as an actor, but he sees it. And it’s okay if you don’t. You just need to be willing to do the work and to try.
Bleu: And to trust.
Jones: And to trust, yeah. And then I think there’s the chance for something to really happen. For both of us — you speak about this tiara moment. Me seeing that armor. Little kid versions of ourselves, I think, we’re happier [than ever].
Bleu: That armor. That sword. That face mask.
Jones: And you feel that very much, you feel that little kid in Luc, that excitement, for what he’s doing. It’s very palpable. It’s very easy to take hold of yourself and also feel that. It’s a really wondrous thing about working with him on one of his projects.
Bleu: I also think it’s what made us all work together — you, me, and Luc as a trio, we all have such an alive inner-child imagination.
Jones: Yeah, playfulness.
Bleu: Playfulness and dream.
Jones: What’s under the rock?
Bleu: Yeah, what’s under the rock? I think that’s what made us all work together so well.
That makes total sense. Building off that, Caleb your performance in here, it’s so great, but it’s so physical and vocal. The way you do that one laugh in the beginning took me out; it was so unexpected and felt like it came out of nowhere.
Jones: I thought it was unexpected, too. I knew I’d do it for one of the takes, but which take? I don’t know when to try.
How did you go about building all of that, though? I mean, with his voice, and then especially with all the costumes and make-up, what was your process like for that?
Jones: Luc had an artist that he worked on with Dogman and other films who did mock-ups of what Luc had described, I think, to him. So that was the first thing I saw, a mock-up of Vlad, 400 years old. The Count. We spoke about this idea of him having more of a dragon or lizard kind of quality to the skin. He always wanted a lower voice, but he didn’t want it to be too slow. He always wanted this kind of breathing — a kind of trouble with the breathing.
So, already, he’s giving you things that are very specific, but then they become much bigger than just breathing. That turns into how you start to show pain. Breathing became a big part of how to show a lot of things in this movie. When I find her again, I take a breath. From such a simple note at the beginning, which was ‘you have a hard time breathing. You’re a smoker, Caleb, give me more of that.’
Even though they’re kind of small [notes] in a way, they’re not small at all. They’re very big. It’s hard for me to intellectualize things. The less we speak about things in that kind of way, the better. Sometimes, you just say, ‘No no no, it’s a dragon.’ Then what is that? But we don’t need to talk about the dragon too much. But when [Luc] brings up, ‘No, you are a dragon!’ Suddenly, in that tone, I know what he means.
Very early on, he had very specific ideas, just like Dogman, that there is a gentleness, there is a fluidity. Like with Douglas in Dogman. There were certain things we started already in that character, where some of it got brought into this character. And then other things were not that at all. But there’s a gentleness and a kind of lightness, sometimes, to this character and Douglas, I think. A softness, kind of.
Thanks to Caleb Landry Jones and Zoë Bleu for taking the time to discuss Dracula.
Source: Comingsoon.net