I was kind of surprised that, about 99 percent of the people grabbed the thing [in Valerian].You know it's their thing. And I'm very impressed by that.

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.

After six, seven films, I started to get a little tired. Shooting takes a lot out of you.

We have [in Valerian] a bible that's 600 pages. There are five pages on each alien and where they come from. Even the address you can check on the map. On the star map. It's real numbers.

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

That's a KORTAN DAHUK. That's the first alien we see in the film [Valerian]. That's another artist. The first one was Chinese, the one with the space station. This one is American. Personally, that's my favorite alien. I love him. I love his profile and his face. There is such a sweetness and almost a sadness in his face.

We were so ready [with Valerian] that we were early, which is unheard of in the history of the sci-fi film.