Carmen may mark Benjamin Millepied’s feature directorial debut, but you’ve probably seen his work before. He is one of the most renowned choreographers working today with credits in theater, major dance companies, and film, including Darren Aronofsky’s The Black Swan. Now he's at the helm of his very own feature, a cinematic experience with a story told largely through dance and movement.
Inspired by the iconic opera, Millepied’s Carmen stars Melissa Barrera in the title role, a young woman on the run from a dangerous cartel. While making the journey from Mexico to the United States, she crosses paths with Paul Mescal’s Aidan, a local veteran who unwillingly joins the border patrol. After everything goes wrong during that encounter, Carmen and Aidan find themselves fleeing to Los Angeles together.
In celebration of Carmen’s world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, Millepied and Barrera visited the Collider Supper Suite and Media Studio at Marbl to discuss how this one-of-a-kind adaptation came together.
While Millepied certainly knows what he’s doing as a choreographer and creator, making a first feature film is still a mighty challenging feat, especially when your film is packed with extensive dances, almost all of which are captured in long takes. What earned Millepied a green light and gave him the faith he could pull it off? Here’s what he said:
“It’s a lot of work and a lot of luck. I had been shooting dance films, little short films for a long time. This had been maturing in my head for some time as well. I think it’s how you explain the vision and I found a producer who believed in the idea and gave me the freedom to do it, Dimitri Rassam. I was very, very fortunate. It’s madness. Making a film is like building a company from scratch with people you’ve never met and so it’s an insane enterprise.”
A key part of that Carmen company? Melissa Barrera, of course. Barrera is exceptional in the final film, but after wrapping up her very first meeting with Millepied for the project, she was certain she wasn’t booking the role. She explained:
“Our first meeting was super interesting. I already knew of Benjamin’s work. I knew he had choreographed Black Swan and I had Googled him, and I knew his talent as a choreographer. And when I met him, we were sitting at a picnic table outside of [L.A. Dance Project] and we just talked about the script. He had sent me the script with some of the music and pictures and inspiration, a very complete package, and I was like, ‘This is incredible. I would be so lucky to be able to be a part of this.’ And so we met and we chatted about the script and I told him all the problems that I had with the script and I was like, ‘He hates me.’ I was like, ‘There’s no way that I’m getting this,’ because this was in 2018. I had done nothing except a season of Vida, so I was like, ‘I’m no one. Literally, I’m no one.’ I just got to LA and I just came and I told him all the issues that I have as a Mexican. A story about a Mexican immigrant, it is important that we do it right so I told him all my thoughts and then, he’s so serious. He’s French! So he was so serious. I was like, ‘He hates me. There’s no way I’m getting this.’ I left, I called my team, I was like, ‘He hates me. There’s no way.’ And then they called me, they were like, ‘He wants to see you dance.’ I was like, ‘Well, that’s gonna be a whole other thing because I’m not a dancer.’”
Barrera had done just one season of Vida when she had that first meeting with Millepied, but by the time Carmen went into production, Barrera’s star was starting to soar courtesy of the hype building for the release of In the Heights and Scream. What exactly inspired Barrera to stay committed to Carmen even as the project fell apart and came back together many times and as more and more opportunities came her way? Here’s what she said:
“So many things changed and the one constant was that I knew that I needed to be a part of this movie. You know, you just get this gut feeling? I knew that whatever Benjamin was gonna do was gonna be something incredible and magical, just because I had seen him work. I had already started working with him in dance and I was like, ‘I just can’t let this go.’ And, you know, there were a lot of ups and downs. The movie died many times and then it came back. It was a long journey to get it made, but I just knew that it was gonna be special, and it was. Every day on set in Sydney, and in Broken Hill, it felt like we were making art, and you don’t feel that a lot of times in movies.”
There are quite a few mesmerizing scenes that have that special spark in Carmen, but there’s one especially magical moment that truly took my breath away. It’s the very first scene Rossy de Palma filmed as Masilda, Carmen’s mother’s best friend. Millepied recalled:
“That was a magical moment. That was Rossy’s first scene on set. It’s seven minutes. You two are incredible, and so was the Steadicam operator because, frankly, I blocked the beginning of the scene and then I said, ‘Just …’ And I actually didn’t tell any of you I wasn’t gonna call cut. And it went on and it was just magic, and that’s the scene that ended up in the film. The first take.”
Barrera also took a moment to highlight a very important surprise addition to that scene:
“I’m dancing by myself. Carmen comes into the club and she’s dancing by herself and then Masilda starts clapping and she looks over and she’s like, ‘Oh my god, I didn’t see you.’ Well, Ben called in Marina [Tamayo] who plays my mom, who’s dead, calls her in and sits her beside Rossy so when I’m dancing and I turn around, I see both of them. I get goosebumps just thinking about that moment. That’s the kind of thing he did as a director, he liked to surprise us and that helped me a lot in that scene, because it was such a long scene that we did over and over again that it just refueled me, just seeing her. I’m dancing for my mom and then all of a sudden I turn around and she’s there like an apparition. It was such an incredible moment.”
Not only was it an incredible moment for Barrera personally, but that particular scene also left much of the crew in tears. Here’s how Barrera described it:
“We were in the club and everyone kind of went behind the scenes. There was no one in the club. The club was empty. It was Rossy and me and our Steadicam operator who was incredible. He learned to dance, basically. You taught him how to dance with the camera. And I remember we shot this scene, it was in Spanish, mind you. Ben doesn’t speak Spanish, so he trusted us a lot with the Spanish of it all. We do the scene in Spanish, he yells cut finally, everyone comes out and so many people are crying. And it was incredible because I was like, how are you all crying if you don’t even speak Spanish? None of you speak Spanish and everyone just kind of got it, and that was a very magical moment on set.”
Eager to hear more from Barrera and Millepied on their experience bringing Carmen to screen? Be sure to check out the full 20-minute conversation in the video interview at the top of this article!
Special thanks to our partners A-list Communications, Belvedere Vodka, Marbl Toronto, COVERGIRL Canada, Tres Amici Wines, Toronto Star, and Blue Moon Belgian White beer.