Napoleon: Ridley Scott goes behind the scenes of his biopic (photos excluded)

The Life of the Emperor by Sir Ridley is on the cover of the new issue of Première, and the director of Gladiator tells us why “making a film about a genius of strategy and war was not enough for (him)”…

Scoop! Ridley Scott wasn’t that big of a fan of the Napoleonic period when he was little. He preferred medieval history. And yet, his first feature film, The Duelists (1977), recounted the absurd fight to the death between two of Napoleon’s officers… More than fifty years later, Ridley Scott attacks the life of Napoleon Bonaparte in earnest. With Joaquin Phoenix in the title role – the reunion a quarter of a century later Gladiator. But there is something missing from the Phoenix+Scott=Napo addition. “I believe that no one has made THE definitive film on Napoleon”analyzes producer Kevin Walsh, who produced Scott’s last three films: All the money in the world, The Last Duel, House of Gucciand who rode with him this Napoleon.

“Making a film simply about a genius of strategy and war was not enough for me,” affirms the director at the microphone of Première. “There had to be something else. After a while, the action gets boring. OK, he was a superhero, but not a badass superhero who was going to save the world, but sure “take hold of it. I wanted to find its vulnerable side.” In this case, Napoleon’s vulnerable side – and therefore the main angle of the film – is embodied by his wife, Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais.

“His fascination with this woman… that’s the point”, insists Scott, who gave the role to Vanessa Kirby after Jodie Comer (which he directed in The Last Duel) had to leave the project. And Napoleon by Scott becomes the story (obviously punctuated by major battles on a European scale) of the relationship between the conqueror and his wife, opportunistic but elusive – a story of conquest, in every sense of the word: this is what the director tells us in issue 544 of Première, on newsstands from September 27 and already available on our online store.

Order Première No. 544 on our online store

Napoleon hits theaters on November 22.