Delpy's Sunset reunion with Hawke

By Caroline Briggs
BBC News Online Entertainment staff

Delpy is an actress, writer and film director

Before Sunset, the sequel to 1995 film Before Sunrise, sees French actress Julie Delpy reunited with Hollywood star Ethan Hawke.

In the first film, American backpacker Jesse (Hawke) meets student Celine (Delpy) on a train and persuades her to spend an evening with him in Vienna.

The pair wander around the city's streets getting to know each other - and find themselves falling in love. They agree to meet in Vienna six months later, but it is nine years before their paths cross again, in Paris, in Before Sunset.

This time they have just 90 minutes together, before Hawke's character must leave for the airport to return to the US.

Jesse and Celine talk frankly and intimately about their lives during the interim years and must decide if the connection they felt almost a decade ago still binds them.

'Wonderful time'

Before Sunset, released in the UK on 23 July, has been well received by critics in the US, with some declaring it the film of the year so far.

"We had such a wonderful time writing and shooting the film that we were almost surprised that people have liked it so much," says Delpy.

Delpy said making Before Sunset was an emotional time

"When you enjoy doing something so much it is almost like you are going to pay the price for having had a good time... but it is not happening that way so far."

The 34-year-old actress, who co-wrote the sequel with Hawke and director Richard Linklater, says she spent "two or three years" developing Celine's character.

"The kind of power you have over characters [as a writer] means we have in our hands the future of these people that exist in the imagination.

"It is very exciting to have this power... it is the power of creating things and I love writing for that reason."

It is dangerous when you do a sequel. You don't want to ruin the first film by doing a sequel that is too similar, too different, or too good. Julie Delpy

After Before Sunrise there were no plans to make another, but over the years Delpy, Hawke and Linklater would find themselves musing over the fate of the characters every time they met.

It was in 1999 while the three were working together on the animated film Waking Life that the idea of a sequel began to take a definite form.

Delpy says the intensity of collaborating on the movie proved an emotional journey for all of them.

Creativity

"It is dangerous when you do a sequel. You don't want to ruin the first film by doing a sequel that is too similar [to the original] or too different, or too good.

"We sat down and talked about the concept and we decided it was going to be an hour-and-a-half in real time.

"We started writing the script in 2002 and finished it just couple of weeks before we started shooting, but I didn't let myself believe it was actually going to happen until Ethan literally arrived for rehearsals."

Filming in real time on location proved to be "fun but challenging" for Delpy who says she needed "two heads" to tackle the technical and creative demands.

Delpy and Hawke have worked on a number of films with Linklater

Because the whole film was set in late afternoon, matching the light meant they were only able to shoot for a few hours every day.

A tight three-week filming schedule also meant scenes had to be nailed quickly and a single take could last more than 10 minutes.

It helped add to the "realism" of the film and complemented the natural feel and rhythm of the dialogue.

But, as Delpy explains, the seemingly spontaneous conversations and mannerisms were carefully choreographed to be as natural as possible.

"Everything was written, even things like the hesitation in the dialogue. We spent time studying the way we speak because we wanted to make the dialogue very flowing."

Although Delpy says there are "no plans" for a third film, she is reluctant to rule out the possibility.

"It would only be worth doing if we wanted to explore something else with these two characters, like them living together. We could call it 'Before We Go Crazy'," she jokes.

'Disturbing'

But if Celine's future is not yet mapped out, Delpy's career path certainly is.

Next year she wants to direct a feature film she has written about bloodthirsty Hungarian Countess Erzebet Bathory, who, it is rumoured, inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula.

"I just love that story," says Delpy as she recounts the tale of Bathory who is said to have bathed in the blood of virgins.

"It is really, really dark... I actually had an agent who dropped me because of that script. He said it was so disturbing he didn't think he could work with me any more."