BEN WHISHAW LOOKS FOR DARK SCENT IN PERFUME

Ben Whishaw portrays a perfume maker in search of his ultimate scent and there’s a dark way he preserves the girls who appeal to his sense of smell.

Ben Whishaw portrays a misfit Perfume expert in Perfume: The Story Of A Murder, and he talked with us about the preparation for the character and the effect it had on his psyche. Whishaw’s character is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an orphan born in 18th century France with a great olfactory sense. After apprenticing with a perfumer, his sense allows him to be one of the tops in the world, and his new ingredient requires the use of young girls. The character uses murder to “preserve” his victims’ scents.

Whishaw, whose olfactory sense is extraordinary in the movie, was asked if he studied perfumes.

“I did a little bit when we were sort of trying to develop the character, but I think I realized quite early on that it wasn’t actually getting me very far. It wasn’t taking me to the heart of the character, because for him it’s just a totally intuitive, a skill that he has. It’s not something intellectual. I did a bit of work, but I let [director] Tom [Tykwer] become the expert on the perfume.”

His character is very dark and had an isolated life, and we asked what kind of effect it had on his subconsious and dream-life.

“Actually it’s very interesting that you mention dreams because I remember having very weird dreams, but not necessarily connected to the film but very, very vivid and very haunting dreams. God knows where that came from. The thing that sort of stayed with me is this sort of lonely feeling because the character is so withdrawn and so disconnected from people that after a while it slightly went to my head. I needed to speak to people again. I’d spend weeks and weeks and I hadn’t had a scene with anybody.”

Perfume is in limited release and film fans can find it in their favorite independent theater, and it also stars Dustin Hoffman.