The Oscar winner stars in the HBO series by French auteur Olivier Assayas, based on his 1996 film of the same name, about remaking an iconic work from the silent film era.
How does one remake a remake? The answer still confuses Alicia Vikander.
The actress is currently producing and starring in the new HBO series Irma Vep by director Olivier Assayas, who is recreating his 1996 French film of the same name which featured Maggie Cheung (In the Mood for Love, Hero) in the titular role. Both iterations follow an actress who is cast in a remake of the 1915 silent film serial Les Vampires to play villainess Irma Vep (an anagram for “vampire”), and finds the character rubbing off on her as she delves into the role—and slips into her famous black bodysuit.
Hollywood has churned out many movies about making movies. In fact, it loves them. (See: Mank, Singin’ in the Rain, Hail, Caesar!) But HBO’s Irma Vep takes that self-referential element to a mind-boggling degree. Vikander, an Oscar winner and Tomb Raider star, plays a successful actress, Mira, whose career somewhat mirrors her own. Meanwhile, Vincent Macaigne plays director René Vidal, an analogue for Assayas: René is filming an Irma Vep series with Mira, but has already made Irma Vep, the hit indie film, in the ’90s (referencing Assayas’s 1996 Irma Vep film) with the actress Jade Lee (who represents Cheung). And both of René’s Irma Vep projects are adapted from Louis Feuillade’s Les Vampires. Now read that again.
“I even got lost—still get lost—and it gets worse with every episode,” Vikander laughs on the phone, speaking from Paris, where she’s finalizing the last two Irma Vep episodes and meeting with Assayas and members of the crew. “I think that’s the beauty of it,” she adds.
In a time when the entertainment industry feels like one big reboot machine, Irma Vep is refreshing, with its cheeky self-awareness, and at times, self-mockery. It’s almost as if Assayas is saying, “I know how bizarre this all looks.” It doesn’t shy away from the issues with making reboots, either. René voices his insecurities about recreating an iconic work of cinema. Characters discuss whether the story of Irma Vep is fit for a series, whether it’s bingeable, whether it’s too niche for a mainstream audience. “It’s the kind of conversations that I think, especially for people in the film industry, if you’re doing that, that’s what you talk about,” Vikander says. She credits Assayas’s “brilliant mind” for writing a realistic-sounding script. “He writes like people talk.”
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