Mad Max director, George Miller is back with a fantasy romantic drama called Three Thousand Years of Longing. The movie had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in May and was released in US cinemas in August. Now, it's earning praises from critics, with New York Times describing it as "a visually sumptuous, grown-up fairy tale."
Led by former Marvel stars, Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, the film is about a literary scholar who falls for the latter's Djinn who only breaks out of the bottle his trapped in if he grants three wishes to any human who discovers him. With their chemistry onscreen, how close are the Doctor Strange alum and the Thor actor in real life?
Why George Miller Cast Tilda Swinton & Idris Elba Cast In 'Three Thousand Years Of Longing'
For Miller, "charisma" is the main reason he cast Swinton and Elba for the lead roles. "I don't want to embarrass them speaking about them indirectly [laughs]," he told Cinema Daily. "To both of you, apart from your skills and talents, in a single word, is your charisma. By charisma, whatever it is, there is that thing, in humans and any creature that we're intrigued by, is the mystery."
"Idris and Tilda both know this story," the director continued. "Until I actually met them in person, I knew them from the movies, television and the work that they've both done. I had no idea who they were outside of the characters I'd seen them play. I was lucky enough to meet them both, and Tilda, for a longer period, [since] we happened to be at the same dinner at one time and had a lovely chat."
Miller added that he couldn't see anyone else playing the main characters. "[I had met] Idris only for a few minutes in London at some event. I'll speak to [both] of you directly," he shared. "The moment I met both of you, I was struck by how vivid you were as people, their normal personas. Once that happened, I couldn't think of anybody else."
"We were still working on the screenplay," he recalled. "Lucky enough, sometime later, I sent the screenplay to Tilda first, and she was enthusiastic, and then, the same with Idris. There was no one else for me. The experience of making the film verified that enormously."
What Made Tilda Swinton & Idris Elba Join 'Three Thousand Years Of Longing'
Elba admitted that he didn't want to take on the role at first. "It's a character I had never attempted or wanted to even try doing. It was controversial in a sense, in the sense that the genie is one thing, Djinn is another thing all together," he explained.
"And to depict Djinn is like sayin' I'm going to play the devil versus an evil spirit. I'm going for that. As an actor, the challenge is to bring that into life with an entertaining spin but with a certain amount of authority."
For Swinton, the film had her at playing a human this time after a number of mystical roles in the past. "I can't escape acknowledging that I've had the fun in my life to work with a number of stories about immortals. I have tended to play the immortal," she said. "And the great opportunity here was to play the human, was to play the mortal in the face of the immortal. And that was definitely a fresh road for me."
Tilda Swinton & Idris Elba Friends Became Friends While Filming 'Three Thousand Years Of Longing'
Three Thousand Years of Longing is Swinton and Elba's first-ever collaboration. While filming, the two developed a genuine friendship, a "magical bond" even. When asked how they first met, the former told People that it was during a party thrown by their mutual friends.
"We first met at a party, which is a rare thing for me to say because I don't go to many parties in London, but I was at a party thrown by some friends," she recounted. "And Idris was there and we had a lovely little conversation and said in a slightly lame way: 'maybe we should do something together sometime.'"
"And I remember thinking, well it's a bit of a shame because I can't imagine that would ever happen," she continued, "because the field of my work tends to be you know — Marvel accepted at kind of a different, different world — but lo and behold, there's George Miller ringing us both up and it just felt, in terms of surprises, I would say no surprises at all. I knew this man was a phenomenon and I knew that I was likely to love him and I was right. He's everything you'd want him to be. He's incredibly intelligent and just a beautiful person to hang out with and to play with" adding that he's "a playmate and he's a friend."
Elba echoed the sentiments, saying that he wanted to work with her because he could imagine them "being fearless together." He added that "to be on a three-year journey where we're both sort of being vulnerable and learning off each other and sharing things that are super intimate for this film, that was like a huge surprise."
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