Interview: Director Denis Villeneuve on Emily Blunt, Juarez and a Sicario Prequel

Québec director Denis Villeneuve is no stranger to suspense, having helmed the brutal revenge thriller Prisoners and the mind-bending identity stumper Enemy. Villeneuve’s latest, the gripping drug cartel thriller Sicario, is a sober look at the failure of America’s drug policy, dressed up as a white-knuckled Hollywood action film. As Villeneuve prepares to embark on his re-imagining of Ridley Scott’s classic sci-fi cult fave Blade Runner next year, he took some time to discuss Sicario at the film’s recent Québec premiere.

Sicario stars Emily Blunt as Kate Macer, an idealistic FBI agent thrown into the murky waters of the drug trade between the US and Mexico. Brought into a cross-border task force by tight-lipped CIA official Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), Macer’s by-the-book approach is swept away in a bloody battle to take down a powerful cartel leader by any means possible.

Alongside Graver and a battalion of Delta Force officers, Macer also has to follow the lead of the mysterious Alejandro Gillick (Benicio del Toro), including during an undercover mission into Mexico to extract a cartel member for questioning. When a tense border standoff results in an outpouring of violence, Macer has to question if her team’s careless disregard for the law is worth the attempt to take down the head of the cartel.

Due to its proximity to the US border, Juarez, Mexico is infamous for its terrifying outbursts of cartel-related violence, including public hangings and decapitations. With many of Sicario’s pivotal scenes set there, Villeneuve knew he had to visit Juarez, although he makes clear that he had no desire to exploit the residents of the city.

“I don’t want to make a show about that,” he insists. “People are living there on a daily basis, so for me it wasn’t “war tourism.” It was more that I knew there were important scenes set there, and I wanted to know what the place looked like, how it feels to be there, but I was just able to go there for a very short period of time. I cannot say that I know Juarez, I just had the time to embrace what the architecture looked like, what the feeling is like, what the nature looks like there, in order to find a place that looks like that in another place in Mexico. “

While no scenes were shot in Juarez (the crew shot mainly in the southern US and in Veracruz, Mexico), the film does include breathtaking aerial shots of the city, a landscape rarely glimpsed in Hollywood productions.

“Juarez is a very impressive landscape, very brutal, and very inspiring at the same time,” says Villeneuve. “I wanted the audience to feel the impact of that landscape, and the absurdity of that border. I had the chance to work with a fantastic helicopter pilot and a great cameraman, and we were able to capture that. It was a luxury I had, to work with great artists.”

As the idealistic FBI agent forced to wrestle with the lawless methods used to combat the cartels, Emily Blunt is the film’s moral compass, although her casting was not without its detractors.

“The movie was a bit more difficult to finance because we had a female lead,” admits Villenuenve. “That is something that will evolve slowly through time. If the movie has a strong box office maybe that will change things. For me, it was important that the lead be a female because it was the main inspiration of the movie for [screenwriter] Taylor Sheridan. It was inspired by a real female cop living in the south United States, and it’s part of the dramatic structure. If it wasn’t a woman, it would have a different result. I love to offer great parts to women, because there’s not a lot of them, so it was important for me to protect it.”

In direct contract to Kate’s naivety in the film is the hardened Alejandro Gillick, perfectly played by the weary Benicio del Toro. Alejandro’s back-story is mostly shrouded in secrecy, and the character’s cathartic moments in the film’s latter half have already spurned talk of a Sicario prequel focusing on Alejandro.

“It’s a very strong character,” agrees Villeneuve, although he concedes that any talk of a prequel is in the very early stages. “You know, all of that is very preliminary. My next two years are fully booked [with the upcoming Blade Runner film], so I will see how it evolves. If Taylor can write a strong script I could be interested. We’ll see. I think Taylor already has some strong ideas.”

Sicario is in theatres now.