The director was born in Paris, France, in 1959.
The Fifth Element was Bruce Willis' 30th film.
It was Gary Oldman's 19th film!
Ian beats them both. He had appeared in over 50 movies...
...before making The Fifth Element.
The mysterious number five! The Fifth Element is Milla's 5th film!
This is Chris Tucker's 5th movie too!
Luke made his feature-film debut in the 1994 movie 8 Seconds...
...in which he played a champion bullrider, Lane Frost.
The Fifth Element first premiered in Cannes, France, in 1997.
The movie cost $90 million to produce.
The Fifth Element grossed $17 million in its opening weekend in the U.S.
Eric Serra has scored every feature film by this director.
Gaultier is the designer of Madonna's legendary cone bra!
Mark Stetson worked for Digital Domain...
...one of Hollywood's leading visual-effects companies.
Digital Domain was co-founded by the director of Titanic, James Cameron.
Sylvie Landra edited The Professional and The Messenger...
...for the director of The Fifth Element.
Dan Weil was production designer on The Big Blue, La Femme Nikita...
...and The Professional.
Thierry Arbogast also shot La Femme Nikita and The Professional.
The screenplay for The Fifth Element was once called Zaltman Bleros.
Patrice Ledoux was the president of Gaumont...
...one of France's major film studios.
Most of the spaceships seen in the movie are models.
They were filmed at Digital Domain in Venice, California.
The Fifth Element is the director's 9th movie.
These desert scenes were the very first to be filmed.
They were shot in the African nation of Mauritania.
Mauritania is located in the north-western corner of Africa...
...next to Morocco.
These young Mauritian boys were all locals.
These interior shots of the temple were actually shot later...
...in England at Pinewood Studios.
The boys in these interior shots are different!
They were cast in London to match the boys filmed earlier in the desert.
This is actor John Bluthal.
He appeared in the Beatles' 1965 movie Help!
Luke Perry is most famous for playing Dylan on the TV series Beverly Hills, 90210.
As of 2004, Luke was starring in the sci-fi television series Jeremiah.
The temple set didn't have a ceiling because of the need for lighting.
So when you see a ceiling here, it has been added digitally by the visual-effects team.
These look like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics...
...that's because they are.
Hieroglyphics can actually be read from left to right, right to left, or top to bottom.
The priest is played by character actor John Bennett.
This is the second movie Bennett and Bluthal have been in together.
They acted together in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 1966.
Grappa is a form of Italian brandy.
It is made by distilling grape skins left over from wine production.
Contrary to popular belief, a camel's hump is not a water tank.
Camels hold water in their bloodstream.
Grappa is usually drunk after dinner as a digestive...
...especially after a cheese fondue!
"They're here" was also said by Heather O'Rourke...
...in Steven Spielberg's movie Poltergeist.
This Mondoshawan ship model took over three months to detail!
Before he was famous, Luke had a job working at a doorknob factory.
The exterior of the ship was designed to look like an insect's ovipositor!
That's the tube through which a female insect will lay her eggs!
Actors playing the Mondoshawans had to be at least 6 feet tall!
It took three people 20 minutes to dress a single Mondoshawan.
This line, "Are you German?" was deleted from the German version of the movie!
In that version he asks, "Are you from Earth?"
The Mondoshawans were built by creature designer Nick Dudman...
...and his team.
Nick Dudman has also worked on the first four Harry Potter movies.
This shot had to be done again and again because the key...
...wouldn't go into the slot.
The men inside the Mondos could only work for about 45 minutes...
...before they had to take a break to rest.
The higher-ranking the Mondo, the more spikes he has on his shoulders.
The performers inside the Mondos needed mini TV monitors...
...to see where they were going.
These stones are really made of wood...
...and currently live in the Gaumont Museum in Paris.
Goof alert! Notice the dust and cobwebs on the stones?
Now they're nice and clean! Who dusted them?
The gun Luke is holding is a C96 Broomhandle Mauser.
This line is considered one of the film's famous tag lines.
John's last scene, unfortunately.
But you can see him again in Minority Report and The Pianist!
This wind was actually created on location by a helicopter.
The helicopter was then covered digitally by the Mondo ship.
General Staedert is played by character actor John Neville.
Experts believe there are more than 50 billion galaxies in our visible universe.
Did somebody actually count?
The visual-effects team says that figuring out what "evil" should look like...
...was the hardest part of their job on this movie.
All the movie's interiors except the Fhloston Opera House were filmed...
...at England's Pinewood Studios.
This is Tom "Tiny" Lister Jr. "Tiny" is 6 feet 5 inches tall!
The young priest is played by British actor Charlie Creed-Miles.
Charlie also starred in the film Nil by Mouth directed by Gary Oldman.
You may recognize John Neville as the baron...
...from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen!
The actor in the middle here is Brion James.
He played Leon in the 1982 film Blade Runner.
Ian was knighted in 1998. So that would be Sir Ian Holm to you!
This speech does indeed take exactly 20 seconds!
Ian Holm was nominated for an Oscar in 1981 for his performance in Chariots of Fire.
Visual-effects company Digital Domain also did the effects for the movies...
...Dante's Peak and Apollo 13.
The first beret on record was spotted on the streets of ancient Crete...
...around 1750 BC!
Relax, Tiny! Today, there are only 6 billion people in the world.
Costume designer John-Paul Gaultier first met the director of The Fifth Element...
...at a party for Madonna in Cannes.
Tiny Lister had a brief stint in the World Wrestling Federation.
Tiny's wrestling name? Zeus.
Ian Holm played the role of Bilbo Baggins...
...in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
He reprised the role in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
John Neville's first on-screen performance was as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet...
...in 1955!
Watch the upper right corner of the general's head!
Guten Morgen, Korben! Bruce Willis was born in West Germany.
But he grew up in southern New Jersey.
Watch for the March 18th on the alarm clock.
That's the director's birthday.
Willis' birthday is March 19th.
The director likes the water.
When he was a boy he wanted to be a marine biologist.
At the time of this film, Bruce was married to Demi Moore...
...who was about to take her own top off in Striptease.
Bruce also smoked in Pulp Fiction, Die Hard and The Last Boy Scout.
Animal trainers will often put the scent of something good against a surface...
...to make a cat rub against it.
The voice you hear is comedian Chris Tucker. Watch for him later!
This is French actor and director Mathieu Kassovitz.
Mathieu has appeared as the face of Lancôme's men's cologne Miracle Homme.
Mathieu directed the movie Gothika starring Halle Berry.
He also appeared in Birthday Girl with Nicole Kidman.
The idea for flying taxicabs came from the French comic book Valerian...
...by Jean-Claude Mézières.
Bruce Willis has made seven movies with numbers in the title.
You want to know them all?
Here goes: The First Deadly Sin, Four Rooms, Twelve Monkeys, The Sixth Sense...
...The Whole Nine Yards, The Whole Ten Yards, Ocean's Twelve.
To shoot these scenes, a full-size cab was mounted...
...on a massive gimbal at Pinewood Studios.
To be or not to be! Ian Holm spent 14 seasons...
...with England's illustrious Royal Shakespeare Company!
This book still resides at the Gaumont Museum in Paris, France.
It contains ancient maps, fabrics, and even seed samples!
All of the robotic Mondoshawan heads were identical.
This was so one could easily be substituted for another...
...if any broke down during the shoot.
Because of the shape of the Mangalore heads...
...you had to have a sloping forehead to play one!
The little motors to control the Mangalores' facial expressions...
...were in their backpacks.
Interested in how the Mangalores were made?
Watch "The Alien Element" featurette.
The casting director attended many fashion shows...
...and studied fashion magazines to cast roles like this one!
This is Gary Oldman's 2nd film with the director.
Gary played the corrupt DEA agent Stansfield...
...in the director's 1994 movie The Professional.
Because his father was a psychiatrist, Ian Holm was born in a mental asylum!
DNA is the material inside the nucleus of a cell that contains genetic information.
This is British actor Christopher Fairbank. He played Murphy in the 1992 movie Alien 3.
Leeloo's reconstruction was created using computer-generated effects.
Visual EFX supervisor Mark Stetson says it's the sequence...
...he's least satisfied with in the movie.
Milla Jovovich began modeling when she was 11 years old...
...and she once modeled for Calvin Klein.
She made her film debut in 1991 in Return to the Blue Lagoon.
Milla is also a talented singer who recorded an album called The Divine Comedy.
Ouch! Milla really did bang her head against the glass during this shot.
Milla claims she was constantly covered with bruises while filming The Fifth Element.
The director personally invented Leeloo's language.
Milla was asked to memorize the language before reporting to the set.
It sounds Russian, doesn't it? Milla speaks fluent Russian.
Milla's mother was the famous Russian actress Galina Loginova Jovovich!
Milla has appeared on more than 100 magazine covers.
For these exterior shots of New York...
...Digital Domain built a massive model of the city.
Some New York models had photos of room interiors stuck in the windows...
...so you could see inside!
This studio shot of Milla was combined with a background shot...
...of the model New York models.
Check out the clocks on the building! They're actually just pocket watches!
This train model still resides at Digital Domain in Venice, CA.
It was designed by French comic-book artist Jean-Claude Mézières.
Milla's first name is short for Militza.
And in case you're wondering, her last name...
...is properly pronounced "yo-vo-vitch."
This overhead shot is not Milla!
A stuntwoman performed this jump into an airbag at Pinewood.
Digital Leeloo!
To see how these shots were created...
...check out "The Digital Element" featurette!
In 2000, Milla appeared in a second project with Gary Oldman:
A clothing ad for DKNY!
According to the casting director, one of these cops was cast for his strong jaw line...
...which complemented his helmet.
The actor on the left, his real name is Mac McDonald.
As of 2004, McDonald's has more than 30,000 restaurants in 119 countries!
More than 47 million people eat at McDonald's each day!
The recent documentary Super Size Me was about a guy...
...who only ate McDonald's food for 30 days!
Watch the text on Korben's graphic display: it will get flipped in a second!
See? They must have flipped the shot.
This tunnel was an enormous model built at Digital Domain in California.
Freeze-frame and you can see the words "67 trillion served"...
...on the McDonald's truck!
This is actually a model taxi being filmed against a green screen.
Ian Holm has been buried up to his neck in three different movies.
Alien, Brazil and Simon Magnus.
Ian Holm is no stranger to working with action stars.
He played Polonius to Mel Gibson's Hamlet in 1990.
To see this set devoid of any actors...
...check out "The Visual Element" extras page!
Milla's hair is really brown and she has bluish-green eyes.
At first they kept dyeing her hair "mandarin"...
...the director's name for the color.
But the repeated dyeing made her hair start to break!
So they had to make a wig.
The Leeloo wig is now stored in the Gaumont Museum in Paris.
Leeloo's full name is a real mouthful! It's...
...Leeloominai Lekatariba Laminatcha Ekbat de Sabat!
This is the second time Ian Holm has starred opposite a character named Dallas.
The other time was in Alien, where Dallas was played by Tom Skerritt.
Bruce was once honored with Harvard University's Hasty Pudding...
...Man of the Year award!
Milla played a model named Katinka Ingabogovinanana...
...in the movie Zoolander.
Milla once said, "Scratch a Russian and you'll find a peasant!"
On being an actor, Ian Holm said, "The most important thing in the face is the eyes...
...and if you can make the eyes talk, you're halfway there."
Gary Oldman was born March 21st, 1958, in London, England.
He is the son of a welder and a homemaker.
The author of this famous phrase is the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
In the '80s, Bruce Willis released a record album titled...
...If It Don't Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger.
In most shots of Gary Oldman, there is a circle in the décor behind his head.
In fact, a circle somewhere near the middle of the frame...
...is a motif that is fairly constant throughout the film.
Most of the actors playing aliens got to appear in the movie...
...without their masks as extras.
Gary's film debut was playing punk superstar Sid Vicious...
...in the 1986 film Sid and Nancy.
This is not Milla's natural laugh.
To hear her natural laugh, check out "The Star Element" featurette.
Milla and the filmmaker were able to have full-length conversations...
...in Leeloo's language.
Although they may have been discussing their upcoming wedding.
They were married seven months after The Fifth Element premiered.
(They divorced two years later!)
Gary has played some of the most famous killers in history:
Lee Harvey Oswald, Pontius Pilate and Dracula.
Gary played another killer, Mason Verger, in the movie Hannibal.
At the time of Hannibal's release, his name did not appear in the credits.
He appeared in the 1990 movie Henry & June...
...under the name Maurice Escargot!
This actor with Gary Oldman is the musician named Tricky.
Tricky is most known for creating the music known as trip-hop.
Tricky had never acted before The Fifth Element.
But he did used to date fellow musician Björk!
Ian has only ever used his real name in his movie credits.
Although he will use the "Sir" sometimes!
The name of Zorg's pet is Picasso.
To see how he was built, check out "The Alien Element" featurette.
The human Picasso was a famous painter best known for his cubist paintings.
It took 20 cables and about five or six puppeteers to make Picasso work!
The shot of Picasso getting hit in the eye...
...was actually filmed two months after the movie wrapped.
There are 5000 species of roaches worldwide.
Roaches can run up to three miles per hour.
They can also live a week without their heads.
They only die when decapitated because they get thirsty...
...and no longer have a mouth to drink with!
Bruce's nickname is Bruno.
This is the Asian actor Kim Chan.
He once starred opposite David Carradine in the TV series Kung Fu.
Kim was discovered as a young man when he was working...
...as the maitre d' in his father's Chinese restaurant in New York City.
To see the floating Thai restaurant on the green-screen set at Pinewood...
...check out "The Digital Element" featurette.
Not surprisingly, Bruce was voted student council president...
...in high school.
At 6 feet 3 inches tall, Brion James often played villains and heavies.
Picasso was so heavy that Gary Oldman had to put him down...
...between takes.
In 2002 Milla became an international spokesmodel for L'Oréal cosmetics.
In 1992, at the age of 16...
...Milla eloped with her Dazed and Confused co-star Shawn Andrews.
But her mother quickly had the marriage annulled.
On the subject of dressing, Milla's measurements are 35-22-23.
In 2002, Milla was voted "Sexiest Female Movie Star"...
...in Australia's Empire Magazine.
If exposed to a temperature of minus 66 degrees Celsius...
...human flesh will freeze within seconds!
See all that garbage piled up against the edge of the set?
It's there because in a deleted scene the alien garbage men...
...had gone on strike and refused to move it.
They were called the Strikers.
You can see them in "The Alien Element" featurette.
The casting director interviewed hundreds of models...
...from all over the world for the flight attendants.
When casting was complete...
...she realized that only girls who had freckles had been cast!
In real life, Bruce was a truly dedicated husband!
He stripped on David Letterman's The Late Show...
...to help promote Demi Moore's movie Striptease.
Believe it or not, Ian Holm used to have severe stage fright.
On the subject of air travel: Milla flew to the United States from Russia...
...when she was 5 years old.
She and her family settled in Sacramento, California.
In case you don't know, this is the amazing Chris Tucker...
...playing Ruby Rhod.
Chris Tucker's breakout role was Smokey in F. Gary Gray's movie Friday.
He also starred in both Rush Hour movies with actor Jackie Chan.
Lionel Richie's hit song "All Night Long" was number one for four weeks in 1983.
According to the casting director...
...Prince was also considered for the role of Ruby Rhod!
So was Lenny Kravitz!
Tricky's real name is Adrian Thaws. He was born in Bristol, England, in 1968.
The interior of the shuttle was conceived...
...by French comic-book artist Jean-Claude Mézières.
In the upcoming close-up, notice how the numbers on the yellow buttons...
...are reversed.
In the upcoming explosion, the stuntmen were a split second late...
...and found themselves engulfed in flames.
Luckily, they were okay.
If you slow-mo the action, you can see them disappear into the inferno!
All of the flight attendants' shoes were covered with bright blue socks!
Question: When this happened to the other guy, he died!
How come Gary doesn't die?
The Fhloston Paradise model weighed over 500 pounds.
The center of the model housed a massive light...
...which illuminated the model from within.
This Fhloston Paradise set was the largest set built for The Fifth Element.
It was built on the famous 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios.
Jean-Paul Gaultier designed hundreds of costumes for this scene!
French actress Maïwenn is the one underneath the blue burka.
This is Lee Evans. He is a famous British comic.
Maïwenn is not actually that tall. She is standing on stilts!
Maïwenn was engaged to the director at the time of shooting the film.
She only took the role of the Diva when the German actress who had been cast...
...failed to show up!
The opera scene was shot at the Royal Opera House in London, England.
The scene took several nights to film...
...because an opera was being performed at the Opera House at the same time.
So filming could only take place at night...
...after the real opera ended and before the staff arrived the next morning!
The Royal Opera House was built in 1732.
The Opera House was twice destroyed and then rebuilt after a great fire!
The Diva Plavalaguna is played by the French actress Maïwenn.
Maïwenn's name is from the French region of Brittany.
She first met the director of The Fifth Element...
...when she was only 12 years old.
When she made The Fifth Element, she was only 20.
This is not Maïwenn's voice.
The aria is being sung by soprano Inva Mula.
Maïwenn was also dubbed when she appeared briefly in The Professional.
When the camera is facing Maïwenn...
...she is singing against a green screen on a sound stage at Pinewood.
The only shots of the Diva filmed at the Opera House...
...are the ones facing out into the audience.
The music for the aria is performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.
Although she was only lip-synching, Maïwenn was directed to really sing...
...so that it looked real.
In order to be accurate, she had practiced the aria 30 times per day before shooting.
This fight scene took several days to film.
But it was worth it!
Milla Jovovich was nominated for a 1998 MTV Movie Award...
...for Best Movie Fight!
Look out for the boot coming up to kick the Mangalore!
It's on the end of a pole!
When she saw the movie, Maïwenn was disappointed...
...that her aria had been edited so much.
Milla says that she trained for months before shooting The Fifth Element...
...to get into the best possible physical shape.
To see the complete unedited version of the Diva's aria...
...check out "The Alien Element" featurette.
Watch closely! As Milla throws the box of stones, it is rotating to the left.
But in the very next shot, the box is rotating the other way!
Bruce sings too. His recording of "Respect Yourself"...
...reached #5 in January 1987.
Bruce also plays the harmonica.
Milla once fronted a band called Plastic Has Memory.
According to Maïwenn, her skin started to absorb the blue make-up...
...during the shoot!
Although Bruce is a major action star...
...one of his favorite TV shows is SpongeBob SquarePants!
Although he also likes the character of Spike in Rugrats!
Bruce is at home behind a bar:
He once tended one before becoming a working actor.
Bruce won the Best Actor People's Choice Award...
...for his performance in M. Night Shyamalan's film The Sixth Sense.
This explosion is one of the largest ever filmed on a movie sound stage.
The fire from the explosion actually got out of control...
...and the stage had to be evacuated.
It took 20 minutes to put out the fire.
Classic Bruce line!
Chris once said, "When you're first starting out...
...you want to keep making good movies."
...and you're through."
This is the only shot in the film where all the main characters are together.
Did you notice that during the entire movie...
...Korben Dallas and the Zorg character never communicate in any way?
Although Bruce and Gary did sit together at the banquet...
...for The Fifth Element's premiere at Cannes.
Here's another five! Zorg stops the bomb with five seconds to spare.
No wonder Bruce was ranked number three in Star TV's Top 10 Box Office Stars...
...of the 1990s! Go Bruce!
Milla was nominated for a Blockbuster Entertainment Award...
...for Best Newcomer for The Fifth Element!
Milla is also an accomplished composer.
Her songs have been heard in the movies The Prince and Me and Underworld.
Milla's still going strong.
One of her recent movies, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, opened at number one!
The visual-effects team spent months trying to create the perfect light...
...to emanate from the stones.
They felt that these shots had limited potential because they were framed so tight.
Not much room to play!
This was Bruce's last day of shooting.
Say "bye-bye," evil!
Bruce threw a big party for the entire cast and crew on his final day of shooting.
Nice guy!
Again with the fives!
That's the final five!
The Fifth Element premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997.
The movie won a British Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
The Fifth Element was nominated for a Sound Effects Editing Academy Award...
...but it lost out to James Cameron's Titanic.
In total, The Fifth Element grossed a whopping $263,600,000!
The director's next movie was The Messenger: The Story of St. Joan of Arc...
...starring Milla Jovovich.