Sofia Boutella on the Spontaneity Behind Her Latest Performance
Photography by Christopher Sherman
Styling by Corey Ng
What do you get when you mix, both literally and figuratively, musical theater, a troupe of young dancers, elements of classical horror films, and a batch of sangria spiked with LSD in an abandoned high school? Enter Climax, the latest film from Gaspar Noé. It stars Sofia Boutella, who anchors the film with her epic yet tripped out performance, a role that she entered without time to prepare—it’s the Noé way.
“The day I showed up, I had no idea what I was going to shoot. The two of us had spoken about the concept and what my role was and how I wanted it to come to life, but that was basically it,” she says. “He leaves room for spontaneity to happen.” And that he did—much like how the two met. “He’s such an artist, and Iam a huge fan of his work. When he contacted me on Instagram, he said he saw a video of me dancing and he had something in mind for the two of us to work on. The rest is history.”
And what’s even crazier is to think that this whole thing began with a simple, yet very powerful, DM.
