Alexandre Aja Talks The 9th Life of Louis Drax

Director Alexandre Aja discusses the making of his latest film The 9th Life of Louis Drax

Since helping to bring the French Extreme movement to American audiences with 2003’s High Tension, director Alexandre Aja has made a name for himself breathing new life and approaches into horror classics such as his 2006 Hills Have Eyes remake, 2010’s Piranha, 2013’s Horns and now The 9th life of Louis Drax, an adaption of the fantasy novel written by Liz Jensen and starring Jamie Dornan, Sarah Gadon and Aaron Paul. Always having a very keen eye for the visual aesthetics of a film, Louis Drax is no exception, giving its viewer a world half rooted in reality and the other half planted inside the mind of a young boy in a deep coma. Aja turns the mystery factor all the way up (thanks to a great screenplay written by Horns/The Social Network star Max Minghella), and offering one of the most unique film experiences you’ll see this year. We spoke to Aja about his approach, his style and what inspires him.

ComingSoon.net: The 9th Life of Louis Drax is such a unique film, how did you become involved in bringing this tale to the big screen? It’s quite the emotional story.

Alexandre Aja: Everything started when I was shooting “Horns.” While shooting that film, Max Minghella told me he was writing something based on a book Liz Jensen had written and that his late father was supposed to direct. He told me he was adapting this novel about a particular boy who fell or was pushed from a cliff and it began a whole mystery and point of view between the boy in the coma and this doctor trying to figure out what the truth was. That was a good starting point, I was interested in what Max was writing and I really responded to a lot of stuff in it, having a son of my own. I read it and I really wasn’t expecting, like you said, an emotional shock. It’s a beautiful story but it goes to really dark places. I felt myself being a lot like this boy in the story, falling from a cliff and really not knowing where I would land. It’s one of those stories where in order to get to the light, you have to go through the very dark.

CS: Your cast is just amazing. I personally think it’s one of the best roles Aaron Paul has played to date, and everybody else was equally impressive. You seem like you know what you want, all throughout the production of a film; did you have any of the actors in mind when agreeing to helm the film?

Aja: Usually I try to read and walk through the script without having any particular actors in mind, because I’ve found in the past, if I have someone in my head, then chances are they won’t do the film, so I like to try to approach it from scratch. I had wanted to work with Aaron Paul for a really long time; he’s such an amazing actor. We had talked about working together in the past and with this film, and to me, he was just the perfect person to play this violent father. At first, he’s portrayed as a violent figure that’s on the run with the police looking for him, but as it goes on and we begin to find pieces of the puzzle, we discover that it’s not just this violent side of the character, that there’s much more. So for me, Aaron Paul was always my first choice and then Max told me about Jamie (Dornan). I was a big fan of the TV show “The Fall,” where Jamie played the role of a serial killer, but played it in a very interesting and different way. He and I met in London and went over the script and he was also overwhelmed by the emotions of it all. That’s what is so unique about this film: that EVERY person involved joined the film because they were deeply moved by the script, which speaks well to not only Max’s screenplay, but the wonderful novel by Liz Jensen. For the character of Natalie, the mother, we had to really look hard, because the character is such a layered character, in a very Hitchcockian kind of way. It’s funny because I think I’ve seen every single movie that Sarah Gadon has made and in each film, she is a completely different person. She’s such a strong person, so to have the trio of Aaron, Jamie and Sarah, it was such a blessing. Even with such strong actors though, if our young narrator wasn’t great, the whole film would have fallen apart, so we were very lucky to find Aiden Longworth, he was like our anchor in the film.

CS: I’m curious about the rating of the film. I know that’s not your decision, but are you at all bothered by the fact that you were given an R rating in the U.S. for a film that quite honestly doesn’t warrant it?

Aja: I was really surprised and disappointed to get the R rating. The fact is, without spoiling the movie, it’s really about abuse and I wanted more of that to be the theme. Here is a film that really doesn’t have much blood, there’s no nudity and there’s almost no bad language in the entire film. It’s just not that kind of movie, and when it got to the MPAA, maybe because the abuse had to do with a child, they felt it warranted an R rating. I want to agree with you regarding the film not needing an R rating but I have to respect the authority of the U.S., though I do know that it won’t have that rating everywhere else in the world.

CS: You’ve done a good amount of adaptions at this point, and one of the things I’ve always loved about those films is how you’ll take an idea present in the original film or book that you’re adapting and completely make it your own. What attracts you to give these adaptions your stamp? They all feel very much your films.

Aja: First of all, thank you for what you just said, because that’s always my goal, to make each project my own. My relationship to a story, a book, a newspaper article or even an already produced movie, is one of reaction. I really have to react to whatever story it is and really love it. Sometimes these movies take a year, two years, sometimes five years to develop and make, so when you find yourself defending what you’re doing to those people who are criticizing it, you have to go back to what made you want to do it and say, “THIS is why I want to do this,” whether it’s the emotion you felt the first time you saw the movie or read the book for the first time.

CS: I love your genre work and always will, but I also like the fact that you chose to do a film so different than what people would expect with Louis Drax. Are there any type of films you want to do next, perhaps something you haven’t had the opportunity to do yet?

AJA: I love making scary movies and seeing the audiences screaming, I’ll never get tired of that. It’s a playful type of movie while also really invoking some kind of emotion that a lot of other kinds of films can’t, so I’m sure I’ll come back to that type of movie really soon. It is true though, that there are other types of movies I’d like to make, like a historical drama. I’m working on one now that takes place in the 17^th century. I think there’s a bridge in a lot of ways between horror movies and other types of films and I’d like to walk that bridge.