Damien Chazelle is finally offering up some details about Babylon, the director’s highly-anticipated followup to 2018’s First Man. The star-studded film boasts Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie as its leads, with Tobey Maguire, Olivia Wilde, Jean Smart, Samara Weaving, and Spike Jonze also in the cast. Until now, little has been revealed in terms of plot, other than that Babylon will harken back to 1920s Hollywood during the transition from silent films to talkies. It will follow a mix of both historical and fictional characters.
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Chazelle is now allowing fans to know a little more, telling Vanity Fair to expect a film that dives into the nitty-gritty of Jazz Age Hollywood, the city of Los Angeles, and the people who arrived there “hoping to make it big.” He says Babylon will combine the nostalgic glamour of La La Land with Whiplash’s unforgiving portrait of ambition and its consequences. He also gets into some specifics around Pitt and Robbie’s characters, and both take inspiration from real-life stars of the era. Pitt is “über-movie star” Jack Conrad, while Robbie’s Nellie LaRoy is described as a “scrappy” aspiring actress who finds herself thrown into the spotlight. Check out what Chazelle had to say about Pitt, Robbie, and Babylon below:
“Part of what was magical about working with them in these roles is that each of them felt like they were really able to make the performance the most personal thing they had done. [Brad’s character] is reaching a point in his life and his career where he’s starting to look back and starting to wonder what’s ahead. Margot as a person has this—it’s a very Australian sort of thing—brash, bold, hungry kind of edge to her that she was really able to tap into and do a lot of really fun things with. It was really a wild West period for these people, this gallery of characters, as they rise and fall, rise, fall, rise again, fall again.”
The film also reunites Chazelle with cinematographer Linus Sandgren and composer Justin Herwitz, who both nabbed Oscars for their work on La La Land. Hearing Chazelle talk about how Babylon draws from the nostalgia and whimsy of that movie is extremely promising. Chazelle has already proven himself to be a master of the Hollywood love letter with La La Land. Hopefully, with Babylon, he'll be able to recapture that magic.