I think it's the society that drains us out, and we are in a society where we are driven by money.

If you're someone from the government and you meet people from other countries, you want to know who you're dealing with. It's the same for them [in Valerian].

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.

I would rather stop [making movies] too soon than too late.

That's the storyboard that we have in the beginning [of Valerian]. It's an easy shot. It's just a spaceship coming in. That's the first layout. On the first layout, we see the timing of the shot and the speed. It starts to get some shadows, and we see that everything is moving in the back.

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

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.