Exclusive: Benjamin Millepied Reinvents the Classic Opera Carmen

Acclaimed French dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied (Black Swan, Dune) has now stepped behind the camera for his feature film debut. He co-writes and directs Carmen, a modern interpretation of Bizet’s classic opera. Melissa Barrera stars as a young Mexican woman fleeing deadly violence who illegally crosses the border into the US and is met by a vigilante militia. Paul Mescal co-stars as Aiden, a traumatized war veteran who encounters her group. He saves her life by taking another. They find themselves as unlikely companions on the run. A smoldering attraction ignites into a fiery bond. They became inseparable lovers together against the world.

Carmen doesn’t adhere to a straightforward narrative. Millepied wanted the “freedom of telling a story with movement and less dialogue.” It’s a sensory experience with elaborate dancing, singing, and hallucinatory imagery best described as a fever dream. Millepied held a fond remembrance of the opera and its music as a child. He “reinvented the story” observing the plight of Mexican immigrants while living in Los Angeles.

Barrera and Mescal have skyrocketing Hollywood careers. She’s the new face of the Scream franchise; he stunned in Aftersun and was recently announced as the lead of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator sequel. Millepied searched extensively for his protagonists. Barrera was known from the Starz television series Vida and Mexico’s So You Think You Can Dance. He describes her as “bold and clear in the first meeting.” Mescal was Emmy-nominated for the British series Normal People. Millepied remarks that “everything about him felt strong” and inspired “confidence.” He knew they could deliver the “magical quality” he envisioned for Carmen.

Benjamin Millepied’s Auteur Experience

MW: Why take Carmen, Bizet’s classic French opera, to the Mexican desert and then Los Angeles? Talk about the origin of the story, and why you wanted to change settings.

Benjamin Millepied: It’s part of my childhood. Even in school, you learn the chorus. I saw the Carlos Saura version when I was a kid, so it was part of my life. I became more enamored with cinema and was dancing in New York. I started to make short films and always had a camera. I was always taking photos. I thought of Carmen as a potential story for my first film. It was just to kind of lean on, not knowing what the process of filmmaking would be.

Benjamin Millepied: As an artist, I have my experience as a dancer, how I put myself in my dances. How would that translate into film? That’s something I knew I wanted to do. There were a lot of components to filmmaking that really were exciting to me. They were so close to choreography, lighting, and staging people. I didn’t know what it meant to do the process of writing a story. I wanted to experience it like a real auteur, not just being a director for hire. I was dancing West Side Story in New York, the Jerome Robbins production for the New York City Ballet for years.

Benjamin Millepied: Carmen was on my mind. This is a movie that I want to make. I realized that I needed to completely reinvent the story. I was interested in the woman’s protagonist. Who is inhabited by this freedom and integrity, and fearlessness and larger than life magical quality. That led me to create this world of dreams and reality. The journey at the border came because I was living in Los Angeles for years. I connected to those issues. They spoke to me.

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MW: Carmen is an immersive experience like a fever dream. There’s a million miles between the script and final cut. Did the end product reflect your initial expectations?

Benjamin Millepied: Did I know that it was going to be like that? In many ways, yes. In some ways, no. That’s where there was a real learning experience with the process of screenwriting. I needed for the story to really have more qualities of how I make a dance on stage, meaning a kind of freedom, telling the story with movement and less dialogue, using dreams and symbols. Things that I do in my work that no one ever questions because that’s just part of putting it on stage. They see the finished product. You create images that people interpret in different ways. The narrative is what people take away from it for themselves.

Benjamin Millepied: There’s an element of that in Carmen. I don’t know… I think it would be bad if you knew exactly what you were going to end up with. There are movies like that. Movies where directors completely storyboard everything. I want my movies to always have a bit of a magical quality that can surprise you.

Carmen Is Magical

MW: Let me give you a specific example. The scene where they encounter the carnival on the road. I thought this had to be something created in post-production. Why the does the fire sound like that? It’s a wild sidetrack that leads to an amazing ensemble dance.

Benjamin Millepied: I wanted it to be more realistic. It was supposed to be filled with extras. Then we realized we don’t have money for extras. It was more interesting to make it like, did this happen? Who is this woman? What journey is she taking me on? There’s a sense that Carmen is magical. The fire at the house goes to Aiden’s feet. He knows something is calling him. Something happens at night. There’s a sense these people are being pushed by forces. Life is like that. I find life to be full of very questionable coincidences. That’s the beauty of it. I wanted those elements in the film.

MW: Talk about your casting. Paul Mescal and Melissa Barrera are on the verge of becoming stars. Did they have any difficulties with the dance choreography?

Benjamin Millepied: I needed her to dance, sing, act, and be Mexican. There was no way around that. I looked a lot. There was a lot of searching. I found her on So You Think You Can Dance in Mexico. She was on the first season of Vida on Starz. We met, and that was it. She was the right person. She was really bold and clear about who she was in the meeting. It just made sense. I knew she could dance.

Paul Mescal: A Real Man

MW: What about Paul? He’s Irish playing a Southwest American. He’s great in Normal People. Did you see that before?

Benjamin Millepied: Yes, I saw Normal People. He was a real man. He wasn’t mannered. Everything about him felt strong. That gave me the confidence that he would be great as a Marine. He was a physical person. I didn’t want somebody who could break into fluid, graceful ballet moves. That wasn’t the point. The point was to make a Marine dance. That comes with a certain amount of realism. He’s playing a character back from the war, who’s completely shattered, and lives like a ghost. He has trauma, hears sounds, and doesn’t know what he wants to do. These men are sent to war for this country and whose lives are very impaired after the fact.

Benjamin Millepied: We portray someone who’s deeply good. He has an opportunity to feel something and meet someone unlike anyone he’s ever met in his life. He’s supposed to be arresting her. This whole kind of mentality with immigration. He falls in love with her. He’s pushed towards her by the mother and her death.

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MW: Audiences know Paul is going to be in Gladiator 2, that Melissa is the next Scream queen. What styles are they dancing on screen?

Benjamin Millepied: It’s very much me. But it’s also for Carmen to have her own style. She wasn’t just a flamenco dancer like her mother. You have kids growing up with YouTube, TikTok, whatever. People have their own style. It had to be unique. The sequences had to be different one from the next. That was important.

Feel the Energy

MW: What’s the best day and worst day on the set of Carmen for you?

Benjamin Millepied: Every day was the best day. Every day that I put the camera in a way that I felt was right was like an exhilarating image to look at. It was exciting to place the camera, move the actors, and feel the energy in those scenes come to life. It’s great to do these interviews because it just reminds me of how much I can’t wait to get back on set.

Carmen, a Sony Pictures Classics release, is now open in select markets with national distribution through May.