'Chevalier' Featurette

Kelvin Harrison Jr., Samara Weaving, Lucy Boynton and Minnie Driver star in "Chevalier."

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

STEPHEN WILLIAMS: Joseph is a confident young man.

[APPLAUSE]

Word of his existence in society circles in Paris spread.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

He was a very desired companion.

LUCY BOYTON: Marie Antoinette is friends with Joseph Bologne. He is her music tutor and then they become very close.

MARIE ANTIONETTE: Joseph.

LUCY BOYTON: She was 14 when she entered the French Court. She's been so heavily judged because of her behavior without the context of her age. And so I really wanted to bring that context into play.

MARIE ANTIONETTE: Someone get him I'm a shiny sash or something. Let's make this festive.

[APPLAUSE]

- Party drama, take two. Family.

MINNIE DRIVER: La Guimard, she's an artist. She has an enormous amount of power with the Queen and with the public.

JOSEPH BOLOGNE: There's no finer voice in opera.

LA GUIMARD: You're right.

MINNIE DRIVER: Guimard recognizes what an extraordinary talent Joseph is and she wants to be part of that.

LA GUIMARD: I think it's time we collaborated.

MINNIE DRIVER: But she's a product of her time and a function to show how, as a man of color in the French court, it doesn't matter how talented he is.

LA GUIMARD: Because you don't belong here.

MINNIE DRIVER: She doesn't like him.

MARIE-JOSEPHINE: It turns out I quite despise being spoken for.

SAMARA WEAVING: Marie-Josephine, she's been sort of sold off by her father and didn't have any say in it. Her only real escape is through music. She is an opera singer and she wants to sing in Chevalier's Opera.

- She was captivating, is she not, my cousin?

JOSEPH BOLOGNE: [SCOFFS]

SAMARA WEAVING: Their love of music and understanding of each other's pain develops into love.

RONKE ADEKOLUEJO: Manon is Joseph's mother. And once they're separated there is a loss that Manon experiences that consumes her. All those years that she's been separate from him is a real chasm, but then she gets to Paris and it's, like, it's strained and she has to relearn her son. She has to relearn herself. She needs him.

STEPHEN WILLIAMS: I want it to feel contemporary even though it's happening in the 1700s, from set design, costumes, hair and makeup.

[CHATTER]

KAREN MURPHY: When we're in the aristocratic spaces there's a lot of gold and a lot of pastel. It shows a level of opulence.

ROO MAURICE: I wanted it to look like artwork. Keeping it authentic to the period, but with a definite contemporary twist using the placement of the colors. Getting that old school Hollywood glamour.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[APPLAUSE]