She was bearing gifts: three battered cardboard boxes. An aunt showed up at his house for a visit. But the moment is still vivid enough to him that it’s worth revisiting at the beginning of the conversation. The story of how doesn’t really start there, because the pump had already been primed for a kid from the Quebecois countryside to blossomed into a sci-fi nerd doesn’t really start there. “Well, let me tell you about the boxes,” Villeneuve says, once he finally finds a place to settles in with an ocean view and an espresso. The Beatles in India: 16 Things You Didn't Know How True Is 'Respect'? Fact-Checking the Aretha Franklin Biopic He is, self-admittedly, simply a person in desperate need of a cup of coffee.

It’s the morning after the highly anticipated premiere of his new film, and yet the 54-year-old French-Canadian director does not come across as someone responsible for the single most anticipated blockbuster of the last few years, the brains behind a massive studio film that could become the next multimillion-dollar franchise, or the reluctant savior of the big-screen theatrical experience. Squinting in the sunlight on this early September morning in this very expensive corner of paradise, wearing a rumpled blazer over a plain black T-shirt, Denis Villeneuve is looking for a place to sit. Sandy, sun-baked, alien landscapes, however, are exactly what the tall man who’s just wandered into this hidden nook of Eden has brought to Italy. To the naked eye, there is not a grain of sand in sight. It’s a green oasis located within a sprawling hotel complex that covers the entire area, complete with conference rooms, suites and private bungalows - think “luxury military compound” or “five-star fortress.” This quiet, green patch of serenity, however, is like an oasis dropped into the middle of several acres of casual-aristocratic chic. On an island in Venice, about a 20-minute boat ride from the mainland and several million light years away from the arid desert planet of Arakis, there’s a small garden overlooking the water.

Not forged in light destiny