Luc Besson Quotes

It's always the small people who change things. It's never the politicians or the big guys. I mean, who pulled down the Berlin wall? It was all the people in the streets. The specialists didn't have a clue the day before.

Cinema never saved anyone's life, it is not a medicine that will save anyone's life. It is only an aspirin.

Live your life, experience something, and then you're going to have a lot of things to say. But if you hang around in Hollywood, then you're going to say the same thing as everyone else - nothing.

You know, money will never save anyone. Compassion can save someone, love can save someone, money will never save anyone. And as long as the entire society will put money first... Money should be like third or fourth or fifth, I'm not saying lets get rid of money, but how can we put money as number one? As the only value, like if you are rich, you're famous you go VIP, why? It's just insane, the way we've transformed the society.

What a director is looking for is someone who will follow you and no matter what. And if you ask for blue, he's gonna try blue. And if you say, give me a piece of red with it, and they try. And you don't mind so much if it's difficult to get the blue and the red together. As long as they try. And as long as they give everything they can to give you what you want. That's what I'm looking for.

I'm always attracted by people who are lost in their time. I think it helps us.

I think we have the wrong notion of commercial and intellectual or artistic film. Because all films are commercial.

I never think about franchises, to be honest. I always just do the film.

I wanted to do something that was entertaining - but with a catch.

I think it's the society that drains us out, and we are in a society where we are driven by money.

I won't be able to do a film just for bad reasons, for money or for - I just can't. If I have one more where I feel I can bring you something, I will do it.

You know sometimes you're in a position of risk and you feel that you can turn good or bad.

My concern 99% is about the storytelling, the emotion and all this. I never think about the format of anything until way far in the process and when we arrive to the fabrication of the thing then we start to say, "Okay right, what is the best thing we can do." I choose the car before to choose the color.

You know, it's not my film [Valerian], it's really their film. It's very strange. And maybe because it's more when you comes to the Marvel films it's way much more organized and plan, you know, they planned. Okay, we have Thor here, we have this and then we do The Avengers, and then we group. You know, it's much more organized. So maybe there is a little less freedom at the end for the creative people. Where I did the entire opposite. I let them help me, you know. So that's also why maybe they were so involved.

I don't want to show kids that I am smoking.

Sometimes I see people finish a film and they go, "Yeah, that was good. Where are we going to eat?"

I'm a big Star Wars fan.

I would rather stop [making movies] too soon than too late.

We were so ready [with Valerian] that we were early, which is unheard of in the history of the sci-fi film.

Loving a film is like falling in love with a woman or with a man like you never expect it. It it's not the one you think you will be in love with, you know. You think always that he will be with a beard, and black, and big and finally he's Chinese and you know it's the same thing. There's something very organic about the film and if you forgot it, if you don't have this seed in it...this organic flavor in it the film doesn't work it's wrong.

I try to follow my instinct as a moviegoer and I do the thing I would love to see it at a movie. I'm like everyone, almost, I go to a movie once a week. I like every kind of film if it’s well made. I’m fine. I’m not a specialist fighting for a genre of film. You just have to follow your instinct.

I wanted to prove that I could do something, so I made a short film. That was in fact my main concern, to be able to show that I could do one.

That's the storyboard that we have in the beginning [of Valerian]. It's an easy shot. It's just a spaceship coming in. That's the first layout. On the first layout, we see the timing of the shot and the speed. It starts to get some shadows, and we see that everything is moving in the back.

We talked a lot with the musician. And for now there are few options, and I give him few weeks to come and surprise me with something. I don't want to start and say, okay here is what I want. Because maybe he has an idea that is better than mine.

That's a KORTAN DAHUK. That's the first alien we see in the film [Valerian]. That's another artist. The first one was Chinese, the one with the space station. This one is American. Personally, that's my favorite alien. I love him. I love his profile and his face. There is such a sweetness and almost a sadness in his face.