Fabrice du Welz Talks Alleluia and More
We recently had the opportunity to catch up with Belgian film director Fabrice du Welz just as his latest “mad-love gone wrong” thriller, Alleluia, gets ready to assault VOD services around the U.S. The film, based on the real-life exploits of The Honeymoon Killers back in the late 40’s, has already garnered some heavy praise and brings intense vibes towards the psychosexual sub-genre, so sit back and enjoy our little chat!
DC: For the people that might not be too familiar with the film, can you set up the premise for us?
FDW: Yes, well, it’s a very simple story – it’s based on the Honeymoon Killers from the 1940’s, and Lola Duenas plays a woman named Gloria who meets a man named Michel, played by Laurent Lucas, who is a womanizer, cheat, and a liar – they go off of each other’s inhibitions. It’s beautiful and crazy all at the same time.
DC: What was it like working with such a talented actress like Lola Duenas?
FDW: Lola was very unexpected for that part. The origin of that project was a French-Belgian actress that I really liked a lot, and I thought she’d be okay for the role, but when she read the script, for many reasons, she declined. So that was a big loss, and I needed a very special actress for that part because she’s the light and the dark of that movie. I shot a film a couple of years back called Colt 45, and I went through a nightmare with the production of that film in terms of some of the actors and how some French producers work on a movie, so I went through a very difficult time, and I was very depressed after that movie, and I thought that I had to find the right actress for this film. I spent a lot of time meeting different French actresses, mainly because that’s what my producer wanted, and finally a friend of mine mentioned Lola Duenas, and I knew her from some Almodovar movies, but I didn’t know her personally. That friend then sent me a copy of Lola in Me Too, and I was very impressed by her acting – I then met her a few days after that, and immediately I knew she was going to be great. When she read the script with Laurent, I knew I had a very special couple for the making of this movie, that I could push them a lot, and they’d give me everything they had. It was a very free and happy shooting, but there was a lot of stress upon us, but we experimented a lot and had fun – we all had a great time.
DC: When you get ready to shoot a film, who is that one person who inspires you?
FDW: People who know my movies know that I’m a cinefile – I watch a lot of movies, but I’m a little more experienced, so I try to be a little more free of my references, a little less under influences. For Alleluia, I was really obsessed with all of the producers and Andrezj Zulawski, a Polish-French director whose work I love very much. I was trying to tap into all of the senses of sexual-tension, chaos and mystery, along with a sense of theater, because I wanted to make a movie with a lot of contrast and different tones, and that was the biggest risk – so I was trying to push the actors in many different tones, from horror to thriller to sexploitation, and I was very close to the actors’ energy, and thanks to all parties being very comfortable with each other, and that’s all the inspiration I’ll need.
DC: Lastly, after the release of this film, what can we look forward to from you in the future?
FDW: Well, now I’m editing Message from the King while I’m in Los Angeles – it’s a revenge-thriller produced by Stephen Cornwell and David Lancaster, and I was a little nervous about making an American movie, mainly because my agents sometimes send me some terrible scripts, but this was quite good – it’s a little bit more mainstream, but why not? I’ve had a great chance working with the actors like Luke Evans, Chadwick Boseman, Alfred Molina, and Teresa Palmer – it was great – everyone seems happy so far, so we’ll see what’s going on. I just want to make more and more movies, and even though I didn’t write the script for this movie, it’s still very personal to me, but we’ll see what happens after this.
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