The Loved One: the making-of of the crazy opening scene between Javier Bardem and Vicky Luengo

Rodrigo Sorogoyen deciphers this long sequence which brilliantly sets up the entire dynamic of the film. A great number of actors and direction.

In the special Cannes issue of Firstwith Adèle Exarchopoulos on the cover for Madder (available on newsstands and on our online store), there is a file dedicated to the numerous films presented at the Festival and which are released simultaneously in theaters. Among them, the impressive The loved onecompeting for the Palme d’Or.

Its director, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, gave us an interview where he details in particular the preparation of the opening scene where the characters of Javier Bardem and Vikcy Luengo meet again in a restaurant after long years of estrangement. He is an internationally renowned director, she an actress playing in mediocre series. He asks her to star in his next film to finally reveal her talent.

To film this sequence, the director of El Reino And As Bestas has designed a very particular, and frankly brilliant, device:

“We shot this scene in a way that was new to me. Risky even, because we did it on the very first day of filming. I had forbidden Vicky and Javier from being in contact before. We didn’t do any rehearsals. I worked with each of them separately. I wanted us to feel their nervousness, their distrust, their apprehension. Can you imagine organizing this with two actors of this caliber? The scene was ten pages long, but it lasted twenty minutes at the end. We needed the ten pages of dialogue, so they are part of the scene, but they do not constitute it in its entirety. We filmed for an hour and twenty minutes, in one take, with five cameras, totally hidden…“

And the filmmaker chose a long focal length for a very specific reason:

“We obtain this visual effect of ultra close-up but where we feel the distance between them. In short, we organized a “full experience” for the two actors in this restaurant. Javier was installed there. Vicky arrived five minutes late. I don’t know if you realize, on set? We had been filming for five minutes, Javier was at the table, getting really impatient, more and more angry. And then she arrived at 1:05 p.m., spoke to the waiter, who accompanied her to the table, etc. She arrives, settles down, they greet each other, start talking, he tells her things she doesn’t know, and conversely, elements of the biography of their characters that we had worked on extensively in advance with each of them: the biography of one, their shared memories, the places where their memories diverged, so that they could “tell their lives” to each other in this scene. “What is becoming of you?” ”, all this for forty-five minutes, before they started playing the ten pages themselves. For me, as a director, it was incredible. I wasn’t doing anything. In such a case, you say action!, and then, you are like a football coach. You watch the match, without knowing anything about what’s happening… or knowing who will win. (Smile.)“

The loved one is currently in cinemas.