Megalopolis star Giancarlo Esposito has defended the sharply divisive film taking risks, admitting that he struggled to understand everything about it himself.
Francis Ford Coppola’s self-funded $120,000,000 (£94.5m) comeback film – his first since 2011 – premiered to huge buzz on Thursday at Cannes Film Festival.
However, a large portion of it was far from positive about the controversial movie, which has struggled to find distribution.
Early reactions and reviews dubbed it everything from ‘bats**t’ to the worst film at Cannes 2024.
Esposito, who is best known for playing Gus Fring in Breaking Bad, plays conservative mayor of New Rome – Megalopolis’s version of New York – Franklyn Cicero in the movie.
He is the rival to genius architect Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver), who seeks to propel the struggling city into a utopian, idealistic future with his building plans.
Giving a passionate account of his experience working on the film at Friday’s press conference at Cannes Film Festival, he told Metro.co.uk and other press: ‘Film is supposed to inspire us – intellectually and also emotionally. It is also supposed to take risks, so then we don’t know what’s going to happen.’
Suggesting he may have seen some of the perplexed critical reaction to the film, he continued: ‘On set, I didn’t know what was going to happen because every day Francis allowed us to be free, but then gave us a directive. And I went, where is he going? Is there hope in this for me and my character?’
However, the 66-year-old actor shared he had had an epiphany while attending the film’s premiere the night before – his first time watching the movie.
‘Toward the end of the movie last night, I came to tears because all of a sudden, I got it. I’m not supposed to know everything. I’m not supposed to know all the answers – and neither is Francis!’
Esposito praised his legendary director Coppola for being ‘open enough to figure it out with all of us’.
He also shared his own difficulty comprehending the film – but saw it as a positive over a negative.
‘Isn’t that the genius, that when we don’t understand something, you’re watching the movie, and [going], “Oh, I don’t really quite understand that. But I’m still thinking about it.” It’s supposed to inspire us to a new way of thinking.’
He also told Coppola, who directed the Oscar-winning The Godfather, that he ‘[had] hope for our world because of you’.
For his part, Coppola said he felt ‘relief and joy’ when Megalopolis premiered to a seven-minute standing ovation at Cannes, over 40 years since he first started developing the project.
The film’s starry cast were there in support, including Esposito, Driver, Jon Voight, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf and Nathalie Emmanuel.
Tackling the issue of the film’s huge budget – funded by the sake of his well-regarded winery – Coppola also said he had no issue with the the risk he had taken.
‘I have no problems with the financial,’ he declared, good-naturedly.
‘My children, without exception, have wonderful careers without a fortune. We are fine. It doesn’t matter.
‘All of you here: The money doesn’t matter. What is important are the friends. Because a friend will never let you down. The money may evaporate.’
Coppola, who was accompanied by his 17-year-old granddaughter Romy Mars, had three children with his late wife Eleanor: Gian-Carlo, who died aged 22 in a speed boat accident in 1986; producer Roman Coppola, who worked on Megalopolis with his father as second unit director; and daughter Sofia, who is an Oscar-winning director in her own right.
Megalopolis is currently sitting at a rotten 51% on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
Megalopolis premiered at Cannes Film Festival on May 16. A UK release date is yet to be announced.
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