Damien Chazelle has a secret 2-hour cut of 'Babylon' — filmed on his iPhone (original) (raw)

He made the version in his backyard with wife Olivia Hamilton and star Diego Calva

Published on December 27, 2022 02:15PM EST

Damien Chazelle's original version of Babylon looked very different — and was way shorter.

The final cut of Chazelle's 1920s-set drama clocks in at a whopping three-plus hours, an extravagant, over-the-top ode to the excess of old Hollywood. But at a pre-release Q&A in Los Angeles in November, the director revealed that before filming began, he actually rehearsed and shot the entire film by himself — using just two actors in his own backyard.

Chazelle told the audience that he recruited his wife Olivia Hamilton (who plays director Ruth Adler) and star Diego Calva (who plays assistant-turned-producer Manny Torres) to help him rehearse an entire two-hour cut of Babylon. "It's a very tight, two-hour version of the entire movie, [filmed] on an iPhone in our backyard," the director explained.

"We rehearsed the whole movie in his backyard, only Olivia, Damien, and I," Calva added. "It was a very uncommon kind of situation."

Margot Robbie and Diego Calva in 'Babylon'. Scott Garfield/Paramount

The final version is decidedly more elaborate, following an ensemble cast as they navigate the ups and downs of Hollywood in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The film stretches across several years, chronicling the era's excessive party scene and the seismic, industry-wide shift from silent film to talkies. The cast includes Calva, Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Tobey Maguire, Li Jun Li, Jovan Adepo, and Jean Smart.

At the same Q&A, Robbie revealed that Chazelle himself makes a few brief cameos in the final cut. Or, at least his voice does: Chazelle can be heard briefly off screen, once as a camera guy and once as a man gossiping about Robbie's character Nellie LaRoy as she hides in a bathroom.

"Every time someone's laughing at a character, that's Damien's laugh," Calva added.

And even when Chazelle considered cutting his own appearances, his cast urged him to keep it in. "I actually fought to keep Damien outside the bathroom talking s--- about [Nellie]," explained Pitt, who also served as a producer on the film. "It's so spot on."

Babylon is in theaters now.

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