After MEMORY in 2023, DREAMS is your second film with Jessica Chastain as female lead and producer. Can you tell us more about your collaboration with her? Are you planning any future projects together?

Yes, we are talking about the next couple of movies. Memory was fairly traditional, she read the script, she was familiar with my work, she liked it and we just thought we'd give it a chance and work together. And we had such a good experience during the shooting. And during MEMORY on a lunch break, without realizing, I talked to her about the next movie. It really wasn’t pitching! I told her I had this idea for a film. At the time it had no dance, no ballet, in it. The other elements were pretty much in place. And she said yes, of course I'll do it, because we were both enjoying ourselves very much. We had no conflicts at all shooting MEMORY. I give actors a lot of space to work. I try to be respectful and to not overdirect, and many actors appreciate that. And with someone like Jessica - why would I micromanage such a good actress when I want her to expand herself. DREAMS was a different experience because we had lots of conversations before, during and after writing the script. We're just close friends, so it's a very different dynamic than what we had on MEMORY, even if we went for the same goals, I guess for the next movies we're discussing.

Most of your characters in your films are conflicted. How would you characterize Jennifer as a character? How did you discuss that with Jessica?

Jessica is a courageous actress, and she likes a challenge, and that's why she likes shooting with me. Because we're not making movies that show only the best side of the characters we're doing, often quite the opposite. To explore the dark side of people.  Jennifer, her character in DREAMS is a good person, or so she believes. But then it's easy to be good when you're wealthy and everything is fine and you have no real problems in life. So of course, you're a great person. But what happens when you have to face challenges? That's what normal people in the world have to do. Suddenly, Jennifer is troubled. And she doesn't react well. Jessica is a point in her career where she likes these challenges. With the forthcoming movies, she keeps pushing me more, telling me: “Don't be afraid. Let's go. Let's go into more risky territory.”

How much of the way Jessica portrays her character was determined by the script, and how much emerged during the shoot?

The script is pretty much the script, but how she talks, moves, dresses, that is all pure Jessica. We often discussed how to play a certain scene, and I trust her a big deal because she knows better than me how to represent her character. So why not take advantage of all that experience she has? Especially because she wasn't born into it. And that's exactly, I think, why she understands this role so well. This this privileged universe, the universe of privileged people. Jessica is not like that at all. But she knows that world inside out by now. Because, you know, she's a Hollywood star, a celebrity. She's done her bit of research, to say the least.

Let’s talk about Isaac Hernández. As a dancer, he is a huge star already. So how did you cast him as an actor?

I had the idea to make the film, the way I pitched it to Jessica, without the ballet, and then I happened to become friends with his sister. She invited me to see him, and I was sitting at an auditorium with 10,000 people. Isaac came on stage before the show in what was supposed to be an improvised way and takes the microphone and says to the audience:  “I don't know why I'm doing this. I just felt like it, but I wanted to thank you all for coming tonight. I'm very shy, so I don't know how I gathered the courage to take the microphone. Thank you for being here, and thank you for making ballet popular again.” And I look around and everyone's smiling and, you know, people are almost crying, and they're into the emotions already, before any dancer has danced. And I said to myself: “He's a terrific actor, and also, he's full of it, because I'm a film director, so I know when you're acting. I may not believe for a moment that this is all improvised, but all the same I'm deeply moved by what you said.” So even before I saw him dance that night, I thought this guy's going to be an actor of my movie. The charisma that he has when he dances really translate to the screen. He naturally communicates emotions and energy. He's likeable without making any effort. He's very, very clever, very special. So I also thought, why wouldn’t I give a young Mexican who hasn't acted in a feature before the opportunity to appear with Jessica Chastain?

Another challenge for the actors is the general physicality of DREAMS, and of course the explicit sex scenes between Jessica and Isaac. Why do you feel those scenes were necessary for your narrative? And how did you prepare together for these scenes?

When I had the initial conversations with Jessica, we both understood that these scenes are a central part of the film. And she was fascinated by how these things would tell a lot more than just an intimate moment. The story keeps moving forward because of them. There's a lot more going on than just love-making or however you want to describe what happens there, they are not voyeuristic, they are central for the understanding the characters and serve the story.

Getting to a level of comfort must take some time.

Shooting such scenes is always challenging. I trust the actors. I don't tell them exactly how to play this in the same way that I don't tell them how to play other stuff. But of course, there's some sort of choreography, and we, the three of us, discussed it until we were all very comfortable with it. And for me, it’s important to blindly rely on my team. I like working with the same set of people over time, and that helps enormously.  The cinematographer has a huge part in making this work, both aesthetically and atmospherically. Yves Cape has been in that role for my last seven movies already, so we understand each other blindly at this point. And that transmits to the actors, too.

You said that originally ballet wasn't part of the film. And yet the story of Swan Lake almost seems to comment on what happens in your film. How so?

One reason is that using a popular, canonical piece like Swan means people can connect with this subtext, even those who like me aren't experts on Ballet. Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet, which I also use in DREAMS, are instantly recognizable, and their general stories are widely known, so they provide some familiarity, some context. And as in most family dramas that don’t end well, there are structural similarities. Swan Lake plays with positive and negative forces in a very basic way. Swan Lake is a cruel story. And I like that that there's something like that in DREAMS, too. Of course, I also made every choice regarding ballet in the film with Isaac, or rather, Isaac made them for me. He is the expert in that realm, I am not. You know, everybody knows that he's the best dancer in the world. I just let him take over, honestly.

DREAMS also tackles the complicated issue of immigration. Did that feel like a daunting task?

I have always been very concerned about social disparity, economic injustice, and about how unjust the world is. I'm very sensitive to this because I'm Mexican, but because of that social disparity, there's also a large number of Mexicans that try to cross the border looking for a better life, contributing to the American economy and society and cultural life in many ways. And nevertheless, they're often portrayed as parasites or even criminals, people that are taking something away from the country, when the truth is the very opposite. These negative reactions are normally related to the lack of opportunities and to social disparities that ironically also exist in the U.S. Critics of immigration often point their fingers in the wrong direction and often look for someone to blame that has no connection at all with the problems that originate in

Do you see DREAMS as a criticism of the role of the mega-rich in today’s society? 

I think I speak on behalf of the vast majority, and we're all tired of how unbalanced the world is. Privileged people seem to be above the law. And they're also constantly preaching but not practicing. This small percentage of the world bringing more trouble than solutions and preaching what they are incapable of practicing themselves and getting in way beyond what they know when meddling in politics just because they can – because of their money, not individual merit.