Famed Dutch director Paul Verhoeven told a packed audience of Oscar and key Guild voters at our awards-season event The Contenders Presented By Deadline that had Isabelle Huppert not chosen to make his controversial rape drama Elle , the film would not — and should not — have gone forward.
Speaking last month during Sony Pictures Classics’ segment of annual awards-season event at the DGA theater, Verhoeven also expressed his thanks to the French selection committee that chose Elle as their country’s official Oscar submission to the Foreign Language Film race, even though it was directed by a Dutch man and that it was Verhoeven’s first film shot in French. Discussing the origins of the film, he said at one point it was going to be an American film in English, but no A-list actress he took the film to would consider playing the role. For Verhoeven it was all a big adventure — both he and Huppert , who has won several critics awards so far, were nominated for Golden Globes today.
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