I actually met a producer of Stanley Kubrick's who told me that Kubrick had never even thought about doing Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer. He just read it and didn't want to do it - that's it. There's a myth around that he said it's not filmable. But he never wanted to film it.
Tom TykwerI love that contradiction between the ugly and the nice. It's shot in a very gourmet way in the Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer. But then Grenouille doesn't differentiate between what's commonly considered to be good smells and bad. He just takes it all, like a true collector does.
Tom TykwerI think ultimately one would say that the most difficult part of the Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer is the balancing of the main character. To get him being so ambivalent in his whole conception.
Tom TykwerI wanted to create a believable feeling for 18th Century reality in the Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer. I didn't want this typical film feel of strange people in strange costumes, not really knowing what to do or how to move. If you put an 18th Century costume on Alan Rickman, it looks like he's been wearing it forever because he inhabits the stuff. He is a character that can really travel in time as an actor and transform into this 18th Century person with seemingly no effort.
Tom TykwerI was lucky I guess. My main job was done when I finally found Ben Whishaw and knew that there was someone who could portray a character who was so ambiguous and multi-faceted. Ben is equally dark and innocent; potentially violent and yet at the same time kind of a boy. He got all that across and still makes audiences root for the guy even though they might be kind of disturbed by that fact.
Tom Tykwer