Interesting and little-known facts about the film "The Fifth Element" (16 photos)

Photos from the filming and interesting facts about the beloved sci-fi action movie “The Fifth Element,” which was released back in 1997.





1. Milla Jovovich did not audition for the role of Lilu. Director Luc Besson said she was wearing too much makeup and didn't look like what he was looking for. But when he met her again in a different image, he realized that she should play Lila.



2. The singer Diva Plavalaguna was played by Luc Besson’s common-law wife Maiwen Le Besco, with whom the director began a relationship when she was only 15 years old, and he was already 32 years old. But during filming, Besson began an affair with Milla Jovovich, which caused the divorce of the director and the performer of the role of Diva.





3. By the way, initially Plavalaguna was supposed to be played by another actress, but in the end she left the set right before filming began. That's why Besson took his common-law wife for this role.



4. The actors, who were placed in Mondoshawan costumes, could not see anything, so they could not move. To solve this problem, we had to put cameras and monitors inside their suits.



5. We might not have seen this film, since the film with the footage fell out of the plane, after which a forklift drove over it. Fortunately, the materials themselves were not damaged.



6. The role of Ruby Rod was originally intended for the singer Prince, and in general the image of the presenter was initially based on the image of Prince and Michael Jackson. But the singer refused because his schedule was too busy, and also because he didn’t like the costumes. But Chris Tucker did an excellent job with this role.



7. Gary Oldman agreed to play Zorg without even reading the script. He was ready to star in any film by Luc Besson, since he helped him finance his film “Don’t Swallow” and even became a co-producer of this film.



8. For the first quarter of the film, Milla Jovovich dyed her hair red. But then she started having problems with her hair (it began to fall out), which is why it was decided to stop permanent dyeing and make do with a wig.



9. Luc Besson began working on the script for this film when he was only 16 years old. Moreover, according to his idea it was a trilogy. He managed to make a film based on his own script a little over 20 years later. Naturally, the script was reworked, but the idea and essence remained. But in the end, he decided not to make a trilogy out of the film, but to put everything together into one project.





10. The language Lilu speaks was invented by Luc Besson and Milla Jovovich himself, and consisted of approximately 450 words. Towards the end of the filming process, they even spoke to each other in it.



11. The name Plavalaguna for the singer was not invented by chance. This name is translated from Serbian as “Blue Lagoon” (which is why the singer has such a skin color). The choice of the name is due to the fact that the Blue Lagoon is Luc Besson’s favorite vacation spot. Moreover, in 1991 a film with the same name was released, where Milla Jovovich played the main role.



12. Luc Besson insisted that the film be bright and light, as he was fed up with the eternal darkness and darkness with dim lighting in science fiction films.



It is for this same reason that the director asked the French fashion designer to make the costumes for the film more colorful and interesting, so that they evoke a feeling of joy and good mood.

13. Many did not notice, but the film "The Fifth Element" became one of the few films where the main character and villain never met. Yes, indeed, Korben Dallas never met Sorg during the entire film.



14. The film's budget was very limited, so Luc Besson did not even expect that he would be able to get Bruce Willis to play the leading role. But during the meeting, Willis said that if he liked the script, he would agree to a reduced fee. And so it happened.