Photo: VALERIE MACON/AFP
Benjamin Millepied, a world-renowned dancer, comes to his first feature-length directing gig,Carmen, more than a decade after choreographingDarren Aronofsky’s 2010 movieBlack Swan.
While working on that movie, Millepied met and fell in love with its starNatalie Portman, and the pair walked away with an Oscar for Portman’s performance, as well as a marriage that’s lasted over 10 years.
“Yeah, of course. Of course,” Millepied, 45, tells PEOPLE when asked whether Portman gave him advice on making his directorial debut withCarmen. “I think also being on set and hearing what ignites her creativity, [as] a director, was something that I had heard.”
“It informed a lot of things for me, for sure,” he adds of Portman, 41, with whom he shares son Aleph and daughter Amalia. Millepied adds that he and his wife “tend to” share similar tastes in film.
Millepied filmedCarmen, which starsMelissa BarreraandPaul Mescal, in Australia back in 2021. Barrera, 32, recently told PEOPLE at a screening of the movie in New York City that shespent significant downtime with the director and Portmanduring production, calling the pair “the nicest people ever.”
Unique Nicole/Getty
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
“So many. Every moment,” Millepied tells PEOPLE of which moment he was most excited to put on the big screen. “I found the whole thing really exhilarating to make; this choice of camera and creating and finding the right frame and finding the right image was thrilling.”
The actor’s first feature-length film comes after he choreographed a number of movies afterBlack Swan— including 2018’sVox Lux, which also starred Portman — and directed a series of short films through the 2010s.
Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Millepied says he hopes audiences “feel the emotional journey” of Barrera and Mescal’s characters inCarmen, which premiered at theToronto International Film Festivalin September.
“[Carmen’s] desire for freedom or freedom as an individual, his journey as a marine who’s a ghost, what it’s like for these men to come back with so much trauma that their life is forever changed,” the director says of what he wants audiences to take away. “And the fact that two people from completely different backgrounds completely fall in love and leave something special where they come from and who they are. [They] find the beauty and the sincerity of their love.”
Carmenis now in select theaters in New York City and Los Angeles.
source: people.com
