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Two subjects are off limits to the jury of The smartest person in the world: Erik’s teeth and his American film The Loft. “I don’t want my next film to be announced in advance as a flop.”
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Erik Van Looy looks back on his American adventure with mixed feelings. He tells that in this week Smoke. “I’m still proud of it, though,” he says. “The shooting period was great, it’s only at the distribution level that a lot has gone wrong. Plus, that whole process contributed to the end of my marriage. I was there for five years in a row: that of course alienates you from your wife.”
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Because of the many jokes in The smartest person live the idea that the film was a big flop. Van Looy nuances this. “Despite everything is The Loft released big in America. He even entered the top 10. Only: not at number 1 or 2, but at number 9. I participated in the Eurovision Song Contest, but I was not Sandra Kim.”
A punch line
In order not to make that idea bigger than it already is, Van Looy does not want The smartest person jokes are still being made about his American film. “I let that go too far. I don’t really find those jokes bad at all, and actually quite funny. The problem is that people have come to believe the jokes. Sometimes someone approaches me confused: ‘Say, The Loft… that wasn’t that bad, was it?’ The jokes had made the movie a punchline, and I don’t want that anymore. I don’t want my next film to be announced in advance as a flop.”
You can’t joke about Erik’s teeth either, but that’s for a different reason. “Those jokes were simply, like pieces of my teeth, sawn off.”
The smartest person in the world, Monday to Thursday at 9:40 PM at Play4.
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