Exclusive: Julie Delpy Says Despite Recent Reports, The 'Before Sunset' Sequel Won't Shoot This Summer

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by Jen Vineyard
August 10, 2012 3:00 PM
3 Comments

When reports surfaced earlier this year that the long-awaited followup to Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise"/"Before Sunset" films would shoot this summer, many were surprised at the announcement. A collaboration between Linklater and actors Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, last we had all heard, the film was still in the conceptualizing/writing stage. So going before cameras this summer felt like, well, a shock. But it turns out the movie is not shooting this year at all. The Playlist correspondent Jennifer Vineyard caught up with 'Sunrise'/'Sunset' star Julie Deply to discuss her latest directorial effort "2 Days In New York," and got the scoop on the Linklater trilogy-closer, and it turns out they could be as far as a year and a half out. Here's the excerpt from our interview.

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What Julie Delpy loves as a writer and director is to explore characters "in time, in real time." Connecting her own '2 Days' films and Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise"/"Before Sunset" films (which she co-writes and stars in with Ethan Hawke), she called both series "a kind of conceptual art, in a weird way. These movies are a conceptual statement, which is unusual."

"It's Marion five years later, it's Jesse and Celine nine, ten years later," Delpy explained. "It's almost like a slice, a cell of something, and then you go study it under a microscope -- slice someone and learn as much about that person under the microscope. Go into the tiny little details of a shorter moment, and how to capture that. I'm a bit obsessed with microcosms, and these are becoming kind of like the work of a lifetime, sort of, eventually."

Although Delpy is co-writing the untitled third installment of Linklater's series, she stresses that the '2 Days' films are "closer to who I am," she said. "They're less romantic, and at the same time, more girlie. The woman isn't objectified at all, whereas Celine is a bit of a dream girl."

The third film, she said, will have more realistic elements, however, because it will be "rooted in the technology of now." "It would be weird not to include that," she said. "They haven't emailed before, but perhaps if they had, they would have been together and fallen apart by now."

Despite earlier projections predicting they would start shooting this summer, Delpy said it probably won't be until "sometime in the next year, year and a half," because they're still writing it. "A lot of it will be Richard's decision," she said, deferring to the director. "I'm just one of the people involved."

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More: Julie Delpy, Before Sunset, Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke

3 Comments

| Reply
Michael M | August 15, 2012 1:36 PMReply

Oh bummer! I was so excited of the idea of it coming out some time soon!
anon | August 12, 2012 11:52 PMReply

...best trilogy ever!
Too Good To Be True | August 10, 2012 10:36 PMReply

:(