I Interviewed Nicolas Winding Refn and I Think I Got Massively Trolled

The director of 'Drive' and 'The Neon Demon' does not have time for your bullsh*t.

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Interviewing Nicolas Winding Refn is a lot like watching one of his films. It’s confusing, intimidating, fascinating, sometimes abrasive, but a lot of fun and always interesting. And most like his films, you also come out  not really knowing what just happened. 

Straight up, I should say that I am a massive Winding Refn fanboy, and I love all of his movies. I’d interviewed him once before, but that was for a side project, a book of old movie posters he was releasing. But this was different. This was for a proper NWR joint, for his latest movie The Neon Demon. Danish-born Winding Refn is still most famous for directing Drive, the ultra-sleek neon-tinged Ryan Gosling-starring car chase movie from 2011, but as time passes it more and more seems like that was less a breakthrough and more just an anomaly. Since migrating into English language filmmaking, Winding Refn has perfected a style of cinema where images and atmosphere are far more important than plot logic, and there’s usually a lot of neon, violence and pounding synths. Along with Drive, his other recent movies — the Tom Hardy true crime biopic Bronson, Mads Mikkelson Viking movie Valhalla Rising and Ryan Gosling Thai kickboxing flick Only God Forgives — form a very singular cinematic vision.

And the new one, The Neon Demon, might be the most Winding Refn-est of all. It stars Elle Fanning as a young girl heading to LA to become a model. Soon enough she’s the hot new shit of the fashion world, but that only brings the scorn and wrath of the older (early 20s) models who she usurps. And because this is a Winding Refn movie, that wrath takes the form of beautiful, horrific, and occasionally hilarious violence. It kind of feels like a cross between a million dollar Chanel advert and the sort of weird Japanese or Italian horror film your weird stoner friend shows you at 1am. Most people will probably hate it, but it’s incredible. 

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There’s a specific strand of arthouse directors — David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch — that strike a look and persona in real life that fits their movies. Winding Refn is definitely one of those. In television interviews and on red carpets he is a composed figure, in well cut suits and thick rimmed glasses and controlled thick-accented speech pattern, that reflect his immaculately designed films. When I interview him in a London hotel, clearly tired from a long on-ongoing publicity trail, he was not like this. He was sprawled on the sofa, without glasses, wearing a tracksuit top unzipped a third of the way down. He yawned, and occasionally scratched his chest hair. He looked like an Eastern European henchmen in a Jason Bourne movie.

Winding Refn always says that the ideas behind his films start with a single image. So what image did The Neon Demon start with? “Death and beauty. The opening of Elle Fanning lying on the couch [covered in blood]. But looking very pristine. Even before I knew what I wanted to do, I knew I had to make a movie with this image.” Fanning was central to his vision. “There was only one option in my mind, and that was her. There was really no other possibilities. So the mission was get Elle Fanning. So luckily she wanted to work with me, so her mission was to get the part. It was a very easy marriage. I hadn’t seen her in a lot, [but] we saw a fashion shoot she had done, and you just knew she had that thing.” Did she ever get cold feet about some of the really extreme stuff that happens in the film? “She’s a very brave person and she’s game. That’s what’s so unique. I shoot in chronological order, which she really liked, and it really gave us an opportunity to create this character together, and go on her journey.”

The biggest name in the film however, is Keanu Reeves, who has a small but very memorable part as the manager of the motel where Fanning is staying. “I’m a huge admirer of Keanu,” Winding Refn says. “I think he’s absolutely extraordinary. And I just rolled the dice, and offered him a role and he agreed. And it was just like ‘Oh my god, he’s in’. It was an absolutely incredible experience working with him.” He’s very keen to sing his praises. “He’s a complete professional. Courteous to his co-actors, interested in trying things, fearless in choices. He’s the real deal.” I ask if the part was written for Reeves, and I get a very Winding Refn-answer. “It mutated into him, of course. He was able to embrace it in a different way.”

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