Exploring Babylon, Damien Chazelle’s star-studded new movie

The Oscar-winning director reveals the inspirations for his highly anticipated period drama featuring Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and more.

Damien Chazelle is a bit tired. When he calls EW in early October, he’s still hard at work putting the finishing touches on Babylon, his sweeping epic (out Dec. 23) about the rise and fall of a menagerie of characters played by Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Olivia Wilde, and newcomer Diego Calva. They’re all striving to survive amid a great upheaval in 1920s Hollywood as it transitions from silent films to talkies.

The film has been a massive undertaking, which surprised the youngest-ever Best Director Oscar winner (for 2016’s La La Land). “The whole process of making it has been longer than I expected,” Chazelle, 37, admits. “But at the same time I was pinching myself, because this project has been a dream for so long. So actually getting to make it, as taxing as it might have been, was a pretty blissful experience.”

Read more. Interesting read!