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When Vladimir de Fontenay Knew Woody Norman Had to Join 'Sukkwan Island' | THR Studio at Park City
The Hollywood Reporter
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1/31/2025
'Sukkwan Island' director Vladimir de Fontenay and star Woody Norman stop by THR's studio in Park City and dish on their new film. Vladimir reveals the reason why he created this film and breaks down the moment he knew he had to cast Woody Norman.
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00:00
We were late to set once. We were in the car going to set and a Céline Dion song in French
00:05
started playing on the radio and he wouldn't leave until the song was over and it was like
00:08
a four-minute song. It's terrible things to hear as a director, like your cast is just
00:14
singing to Céline Dion in the car while you're waiting on set. Like QA? Yeah.
00:23
The tragedy of this family really just moved me a lot and there was something about
00:30
the way we try to constantly protect, bond with the family members and the idea that
00:40
once you've destroyed something in your family, do you have a second chance to rebuild it?
00:46
And that is something that I find very interesting and moving and also the idea of
00:53
having a project together and in that case it's like going very far away from what you are and
00:59
to try to sort of reconnect with something that's been broken is something that really moved me.
01:05
Woody, why did you say yes to this movie?
01:07
Just everything about Succo Island was amazing to me. The script, usually I'm like,
01:14
how many pages are left? Can I stop? But I didn't want to stop reading. It really drew me in. I
01:21
thought it was well balanced with the tragedy and the more lighthearted moments. I think it was
01:27
just an amazing experience as well.
01:29
It's funny, as I was writing the script, I just had this one belief which was like,
01:36
the kid in the movie has to go through such hard emotion that I wanted a young actor who had
01:46
a high level of experience, which isn't the case of young people so much. And I
01:56
accidentally went to the theater to see, well not accidentally, but it was during COVID,
02:00
and I went to see a screening in Paris of Come on, Come on by Mike Mills. And I was just blown
02:07
away by Woody's performance, to be honest. I just thought he was just so vulnerable and young,
02:12
but also just so mature. And I think at the time you were like 12?
02:15
Younger. I was nine.
02:16
He was nine. And then with Swan, he's also just, it is very hard not to have,
02:23
feel empathy for him. There's something where you forgive him almost everything. And so I thought,
02:28
because the part is so tough and the father is getting his son through such horrible things,
02:36
it'd be interesting to have Swan. Well, I knew his work. In France, he's very famous.
02:41
And then it just happened that I saw a screening of Anatomy of the Fall,
02:44
but as I was going to ask him to play the part, and then as he said, yes, and then we had to
02:50
push the shoot because he needed three months to get ready to prepare, to speak English language
02:58
and everything, and to prepare for the part. Suddenly the whole sexy lawyer thing happened,
03:03
and it was just really, really funny.
03:05
From Come on, Come on, was there anything that was really hard?
03:08
I think the hardest thing was working with Joaquin, because I respect him so much. I'm
03:12
such a big fan of it. But he made it as easy as he could. And he made it really,
03:18
really easy. But just sometimes it would be a bit threatening working with Joaquin Phoenix,
03:21
because he's like so amazing at what he does. And I hadn't really worked before. I was like
03:27
nine or 10. I've been working for like five years up to that point. I'd never really done
03:32
a film that big. So it was just a lot of learning as well.
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