My biggest surprise is probably the level of involvement of all the artists [in Valerian] who participated at every level.

You know, it's not my film [Valerian], it's really their film. It's very strange. And maybe because it's more when you comes to the Marvel films it's way much more organized and plan, you know, they planned. Okay, we have Thor here, we have this and then we do The Avengers, and then we group. You know, it's much more organized. So maybe there is a little less freedom at the end for the creative people. Where I did the entire opposite. I let them help me, you know. So that's also why maybe they were so involved.

If we wanted to make it the way I imagined I knew that we would have to wake up earlier and start very early. So we prep like crazy. And the competition you have is like Avatar, you have Star Wars, you have all the big Marvel stuff. So if you want to come in the race, you know, don't be pretentious.

Cara [Delevingne] I wanted to be sure that she would be involved. 'Cause she didn't do a lot of films before I met her, so I didn't know if she was serious and so I push her a bit.

Live your life, experience something, and then you're going to have a lot of things to say. But if you hang around in Hollywood, then you're going to say the same thing as everyone else - nothing.

I wanted to do something that was entertaining - but with a catch.

I wanted to prove that I could do something, so I made a short film. That was in fact my main concern, to be able to show that I could do one.