It is hard to imagine that two Belgian teenagers have experienced something like Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele in the past 12 months. The pair walked the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival last May. They have moved from complete anonymity to being recognized on trains and walking through airports. Nevertheless, the success of their feature debut ‘Close’ only fully materialized until it received an Oscar nomination in January as a Belgian entry in the international film category.
De Waele, who turns 15 next month, set an alarm during a dance class to remind herself of the announcement. Dambrine was also in school, but wouldn’t miss seeing it live. He recalls: “I was in Dutch class. I looked on YouTube and when I heard “Close,” I said to my friends, “Oh, my God, oh, my God.” I started to cry, I thought: ‘Can I go to the toilet please?’ I fell to the ground and jumped into the air. All the emotion came into my body, which was kind of scary, but it was amazing.
And if you’re curious how Dambrine’s teacher didn’t know he was looking at his phone, the 16-year-old snaps, “I’m a pro. I do this every day.”
Directed and co-written by Lukas Dhont, “Close” follows two young teenagers, Léo (Dambrine) and Rémi (De Waele), who have formed a friendship that resonates emotionally. A friendship rarely seen in boys their age. When the pair return to school after a blissful summer vacation together, peer pressure begins to dramatically affect the relationship. The drama was awarded the Grand Prix, actually second place, at Cannes and has moved audiences to tears in theaters around the world.
Dhont says he and his team spent months visiting Belgian schools looking for the right actors to play Léo and Rémi.
Eden Dambrine, Émilie Dequenne and Gustav De Waele in a scene from “Close.”
(Courtesy of A24)
“We just talked to a lot of young people and invited them to do a casting if they wanted to. And we met a lot of great people just like that,” says Dhont. ‘I mean, I know Gustav because Oliver (Roels), who did these castings with me had once worked with Gustav during one of those workshops. And he remembered Gustav as someone very, very remarkable, someone with a lot of talent.”
Dambrine, on the other hand, was a true Hollywood discovery. The filmmaker was on a train to Ghent when he caught Dambrine interacting with his friends in the car. The youngster admits he was a bit suspicious after Dhont approached him but was intrigued by the offer to audition for the film. He recalls, “After he was gone, I called my mother directly. I was like ‘Okay. So there was a man on the train and now he’s asking me to cast for his new movie.’ She was like, ‘Who is he? Run off the train. Going out. Walk. I’m going…’ I was like ‘No, no, it’s okay.’ So my mom gave me permission to do the casting, but she had to meet Lukas first.”
During the casting process, about 20 potential actors took part in small improvisational exercises, lessons that would benefit them even if they didn’t get the part. And whether they were paired or not, Dambrine and De Waele instinctively gravitated towards each other. After landing the roles, Dhont felt it was important for the boys to develop a genuine friendship before filming began in the summer of 2021.
“Lukas didn’t want us to learn any rules; he wanted us to write the words in our heads as we played,” says De Waele. “He wanted the words to come from our personalities, so the words we said were words we would use in real life. So in rehearsals we met a lot of people (who were working on the film). Lukas wanted us to bond with those people before filming. And when he cast my mom in the movie, he asked me to be there. And, it sounds crazy, but he asked us to bake a cake together.”
Dambrine spends half his day in dance lessons, and De Waele has theater training, but Dhont was focused on making sure they never got too self-conscious about their characters or the filming process.
“I never want them to feel the technique. I never wanted to see the lights. That is why we always take the lights outside the (acting) space,” says Dhont. “I never want them to worry about the (dolly) tracks or the things on set. I’ve never made anything like the mark on the floor and say, “You have to stand here.” We didn’t do anything like that. I have a great team of people around me. They all know that we want to prioritize the energy of the actors.”
“Close” has already had a successful theatrical run in Europe, and the Oscars are basically the end of the journey for the two teens. But they’re both understandably excited about attending the ceremony. Dambrine hopes Timothée Chalamet will be there and would love to run into Austin Butler again after a brief chat in Cannes. De Waele has a movie legend he would like to meet, even though he knows: “well, but he’s dead.”
“Obviously I’m excited to see everyone. I would really like to meet Billy Wilder. I’ve already gotten to know him a bit because I went to Sunset Boulevard,” says De Waele. “Maybe I’d like to see Steven Spielberg. I really like all his movies. And Tom Hanks.”
