(Paris) Nine 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction… In the 1980s, Adrian Lyne had become the king of the “erotic thriller”. A kind of old fashion? He intends to prove the opposite with Deep Water (deep waters), available on Amazon Prime.
Posted at 11:04 a.m.
After featuring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction), Robert Redford and Demi Moore (Indecent Proposal), the British director, aged 81, returns after two decades of absence with a glamorous couple: Ben Affleck, 49, and Ana de Armas, 33 (the nurse of Knives Outalso seen in the latest James Bond).
“To choose them, I did a test at home in Los Angeles,” Adrian Lyne told AFP. “I didn’t know Ana well, but when I saw her work with Ben, I immediately understood that there was chemistry. It is not him or her, but them together”.
The challenge: to form a formidable couple on screen, the character played by Ana de Armas driving her companion mad with jealousy with his infidelities.
If Adrian Lyne’s film could very well come out of the 1980s, the working conditions have changed, noted Adrian Lyne, who notably discovered the role of “intimacy coordinators”, responsible for putting the actors more at ease. comfortable in sex scenes, to ensure that their consent is respected and to avoid abuse.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY 20 TH CENTURY STUDIOS
Adrian Lyne and Ben Affleck while filming Deep Water
“The notion itself appalled me,” admits the director. “What I don’t like is the idea that it implies that there is a lack of trust between the actors and the director. If you don’t have that, you have nothing. I could die for them, and they must be able to die for me”.
A director must also always fight to retain the disturbing elements of a film project, he underlines: “often the instinct of the studios is to flatten all the bumps of the script, but often these are the worst parts. more interesting”.
In the film, the couple does not correspond to Hollywood canons. The character played by Ana de Armas cheats on her husband openly, with a certain complicity from him. “This is not a conventional, happy marriage. There is a kind of malaise, ”he underlines.
The real theme of the film is jealousy, “which is such a complex emotion — incredibly destructive, but also has an erotic side to it.”
“I don’t know why I keep doing this all the time. It sounds hackneyed, but I like films in which you can put yourself in the shoes of an actor. I can appreciate Dunes Where Matrixbut I much prefer the smaller films, about you and me”, he adds.
If Adrian Lyne had not filmed for twenty years, it is not for any particular reason, but simply the reality of an industry where projects that have taken years to be financed can collapse at the last moment.
He won’t wait as long for the next one: “I can’t wait another twenty years—because then I’ll be a hundred!” he laughs.