Babylon Stars Reveal the Classic Films and Performances That Inspired Them (Exclusive)

Babylon is the latest film from Damien Chazelle who is best known for helming Whiplash, La La Land, and First Man. The upcoming movie has a star-studded cast that includes Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jovan Adepo, and Li Jun Li. The film traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood. While the actors are all playing fictional characters, many are based on actual stars from that time. Recently, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with the aforementioned stars, and they revealed which iconic actors inspired their roles and which classic films they researched before making the movie. 

"Something that really struck me when researching for this, I watched Wings, which is a movie that Clara Bow was in, and Clara Bow largely inspired my character," Robbie explained. "And it's the first Best Picture winner ever from 1927. And to see that movie and it be better than 90% of the movies I've ever seen in my life, it's just like, God, that was almost a hundred years ago, and look what they could do. It's so cool." 

"Curtis Mosby was an earlier influence that Damien brought to my attention, but I also just spent a lot of time looking at jazz artists like Wynton Marsalis, Miles Davis, obviously Louis Armstrong, you always take a bit from everybody, but there was really no pressure from Damien to pick one specific person, and you need to bring him to Sydney's character," Adepo explained. "I had the freedom to pick and choose different things from different people, which was really refreshing." 

"And my character was based on Anna May Wong, and actually that was how it was presented, because I thought, 'Oh my God, the opportunity to portray Anna May Wong," Li shared. "And then soon after I was, casting said, 'Actually, her name is Faye, and we are going creatively in a similar direction, but very different at the same time,' which was also a blessing because we got to be creative and more free, and obviously some parts of my role were inspired by Marlene Dietrich." 

Calva added of Babylon, "Oh, the first time I read, I feel it was something like the Satyricon, from Fellini, and I was like, 'Okay, this is going to be a crazy extravagant kind of situation.' But honestly, when I was reading the script, it's just also so different to anything else. So Babylon is just Babylon. You can relate with other movies, but it's what it is." 

In addition to the above cast, Babylon also features Brad Pitt, Jean Smart, P.J. Byrne, Lukas Haas, Olivia Hamilton, Tobey Maguire, Max Minghella, Rory Scovel, Katherine Waterston, Flea, Jeff Garlin, Eric Roberts, Ethan Suplee, Samara Weaving, and Olivia Wilde.

Babylon hits theaters on December 23rd.