Luc Besson denies casting Kris Wu as box office bait
22 Aug - French director Luc Besson has dismissed the idea that he cast a Chinese star in his new movie, "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" just to please the Chinese market.
As reported on Tencent, the filmmaker who made a trip to mainland China to promote the said movie recently, laughed when asked why he chose pop star Kris Wu to star in the movie, saying, "I was in Norway last week, and the Norwegians also asked me why I choose a Norwegian actor to be in this movie."
Adding that he expected the question, Besson said that in most cases, studios do cast Chinese actors to gain more profit from the Chinese market. However, he believes that this is a wrong approach to casting an actor.
As for why he chose Kris, Besson said, "The story of "Valerian" is set in the 28th century. If there is no Chinese in the future world, that's just bad. When I shot "Joan of Arc", there was no Chinese actor involved for the sake of pleasing the Chinese market."
The director said that he auditioned several Chinese actors for the role, and thought that Kris was very professional and a good fit for the role, which is why he decided to cast the singer.
(Photo Source: ent.qq.com)
