100 Fun Facts About The Fifth Element

Luc Besson co-wrote The Fifth Element with which screenwriter, who also wrote The Karate Kid?

Robert Mark Kamen's partnership with Besson outlived the film: the two went on to write the Transporter and Taken series together.

Luc Besson began the story of The Fifth Element at 16 as an escape from what?

Boredom drove him: the teenage Besson lived deep in the countryside with no television and few friends, so he invented a 23rd-century world, at first as a novel.

Which actor plays cab driver Korben Dallas?

Bruce Willis looked too expensive, so Besson planned on a cheaper lead until the star told him that if he liked the script they could come to an arrangement.

Which A-list actress was considered for Leeloo before Milla Jovovich was cast?

Julia Roberts was Besson's planned Leeloo when the film was first due to shoot in 1992; the financing fell through, and the part was recast when the project came back to life.

What was Korben Dallas's job before he became a taxi driver?

Korben Dallas was a special forces major before driving a flying cab in 23rd-century New York; General Munro pulls him back in for the Fhloston mission.

What does Zorg nearly choke to death on while lecturing Father Cornelius in his office?

A cherry sticks in Zorg's throat just as he boasts that destruction creates life; none of his desk gadgets can help, and the priest saves him with a slap on the back.

How often does the great evil appear, according to The Fifth Element's prologue?

Every 5,000 years the great evil returns, the professor reads from the temple wall; that is why the departing aliens promise to be back in 300 years, when it is next due.

What are the aliens who guard the weapon called?

The Mondoshawans are the armoured aliens who guard the stones and the fifth element; Mangalore mercenaries hired by Zorg shoot down their ship.

How is Leeloo recreated by scientists in the 23rd century?

From a severed hand in metal armour: it is all that survives when the ship carrying her is ambushed, yet its cells are enough for the lab to rebuild her.

How does Leeloo first meet Korben?

She crashes through the roof of his flying taxi: fleeing the lab, Leeloo leaps from a ledge and lands in Korben's back seat.

What are the first names of Zorg, the industrialist villain of The Fifth Element?

Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg gives his name in full when his men bring in the priest, who remembers him as a 'so-called art dealer'.

Which word does Leeloo proudly repeat while showing her ID at the spaceport check-in?

Multipass is the name of her new identity card, and she repeats it so often at check-in that an embarrassed Korben snaps, 'She knows it's a multipass!'

Where are the four elemental stones hidden?

Inside the Diva Plavalaguna's body is where she has hidden the four stones; Korben pulls them out after she is fatally wounded in the attack, while Zorg flees with an empty case.

How does Zorg die?

A dying Mangalore's bomb blows up the hotel moments after Zorg has come back for the stones and switched off his own, so he is killed by a device he knew nothing about.

What finally makes Leeloo willing to unleash the weapon at the end?

Korben declaring his love and kissing her changes Leeloo's mind: after studying human history she had asked what the use was of saving life at all.

How did Milla Jovovich and Luc Besson practise the invented 'Divine Language' that Leeloo speaks?

By writing each other letters in it, until the two could hold whole conversations in a language that nobody else on the set understood.

Which musician was first given the role of Ruby Rhod but never played it?

Prince could not fit the shoot around his tour dates, Besson has said; the singer later told the actor who replaced him that the costumes were a little too much for him.

What is the name of the all-in-one gun that Zorg demonstrates to his hired mercenaries?

The ZF-1 hides a rocket launcher, a net launcher and a flamethrower, but Zorg never explains its little red button; a mercenary presses it and the whole warehouse goes up.

Which fashion designer created the costumes for The Fifth Element?

Jean Paul Gaultier designed all the film's costumes, from Zorg's suits to the Fhloston extras, and personally checked each extra's outfit every morning on set.

Which two French comic artists were hired for The Fifth Element's production design?

Besson hired Moebius (Jean Giraud) and Jean-Claude Mézières, whose comics inspired the futuristic New York; their drawings shaped the flying taxis and towering cityscape.

Korben became a cab driver after Besson saw a flying taxi in an album of which comic series?

Valérian and Laureline's 1994 album The Circles of Power has a cabbie flying his taxi through a vast city; its artist was designing the film, and in 2017 Besson filmed the comic itself.

Which effects company, co-founded by James Cameron, created The Fifth Element's flying traffic?

Digital Domain steered the flying cars with particle systems rather than by hand, because the cityscape shots each held too many vehicles to animate one by one.

Which Besson film, made while The Fifth Element was stalled, helped get it financed by Columbia?

Léon: The Professional was a hit, and Columbia, a partner on it, then agreed to finance the long-stalled epic once Besson had trimmed both its script and its budget.

Where was The Fifth Element mainly filmed, after Besson failed to find facilities in France?

Pinewood Studios near London housed the shoot, and Besson later said that filming abroad 'with a heavy heart' was what set him on building his own studio complex outside Paris.

In which African country were The Fifth Element's 'Egyptian' desert scenes shot?

Mauritania's dunes stood in for Egypt, and a crew filmed the desert backgrounds there weeks before the actors began work on the studio sets.

Which two characters of The Fifth Element go the whole film without meeting?

Korben and Zorg never meet: Besson said he changed anything that felt 'too classical', such as the villain facing the hero for a final fight.

Whose phone call does the president take in the closing scene of The Fifth Element?

Korben's mother has rung to scold her son yet again, and when the president himself comes on the line she refuses to believe it is really him.

What does Korben use to open the fire stone at the climax of The Fifth Element?

A single match, the last in his box: nobody else in the temple has any fire, so Korben tells them all not to breathe while he strikes it.

Who composed the score for The Fifth Element?

Éric Serra, who has scored nearly all of Besson's films, swings here from a Stalinist-style fanfare at the spaceport to reggae before take-off and hula music on arrival.

The Diva Dance opera scene uses the mad-scene aria 'Il dolce suono' from which opera?

Lucia di Lammermoor's bride sings 'Il dolce suono' just after stabbing her new husband on their wedding night; in the film the aria then gives way to 'The Diva Dance'.

Which soprano actually sang the Diva's aria?

The Diva's voice belongs to Albanian soprano Inva Mula, who recorded the aria for the film; the actress on screen only mimed to her track.

Who plays Diva Plavalaguna on screen?

Maïwenn Le Besco was married to Besson when she played the blue Diva; during the shoot he left her for Milla Jovovich, his Leeloo.

The music in the taxi chase, 'Alech Taadi', is by which Algerian singer?

'Alech Taadi' is by the Algerian raï star Khaled; it appears on his 1993 album N'ssi N'ssi but was left off the film's soundtrack release.

The Fifth Element premiered as the opening film of which festival in 1997?

Cannes opened its 50th festival with the film on 7 May 1997, and two days later it went on release in the United States, where it debuted at number one.

Which 1990s TV heartthrob plays Billy, the young artist in The Fifth Element's Egyptian prologue?

Luke Perry had left Beverly Hills, 90210 in search of more grown-up roles when he played Billy, who panics at the sight of the aliens and pulls a gun on them.

Which 2011 film beat The Fifth Element's record as the highest-grossing French film internationally?

The Intouchables, a French-language comedy, overtook it in March 2012; Besson's English-language epic had earned three-quarters of its $263.9 million outside the United States.

A failed lawsuit claimed The Fifth Element had plagiarised which French science-fiction comic?

The Incal's artist and publisher claimed the film copied its settings and characters, but a French court ruled in 2004 that the case rested on only tiny fragments of the comic.

Under what name does the great evil telephone Zorg to demand the stones?

Mr. Shadow is the one caller Zorg will always take; when Zorg complains that his costs have tripled, the voice on the line replies that money is of no importance.

The Fifth Element won three Césars: Director plus which two categories?

Cinematography and Production Design went to Thierry Arbogast and Dan Weil at the 1998 Césars; the film's costumes, music, editing and sound were all nominated, and all lost.

Which Fifth Element cast member, asked in 2014 about the film, replied 'I can't bear it'?

Gary Oldman had already explained why he took the part: he was 'singing for my supper', because Besson had helped to finance his directing debut, Nil by Mouth.

Besides the actor finally cast, which star did Besson approach to play Korben Dallas?

Mel Gibson was lined up as Korben when the film was first due to shoot in 1992; the money fell through, and by the time the project was revived the part had gone elsewhere.

Which actor plays Vito Cornelius, the priest who knows the secret of the fifth element?

Ian Holm plays Father Vito Cornelius, who stows away aboard the Fhloston liner and flees the hotel with Korben, Leeloo and the stones.

Which comedian plays the flamboyant radio host Ruby Rhod?

Chris Tucker beat Jamie Foxx to the part: Besson met both on the same day, liked both, and chose Tucker because a slighter Ruby looked funnier beside the hero.

Why do the aliens take the sacred stones away in The Fifth Element's prologue?

A war is coming to Earth, their leader tells the temple's priest: the scene is set in 1914, on the eve of the First World War, and the stones stay away for three centuries.

The Diva's concert scene was filmed at which real London venue?

The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden lent its real auditorium, and the crew filmed the Diva's concert there at night like a live show: the curtain rose and the cameras rolled.

At The Fifth Element's 1997 festival premiere, what did guests use as their ticket to get in?

A Swatch watch made for the film served as each guest's ticket to the party, held in a hall of more than 100,000 square feet that Gaumont built by the sea for the night.

The Fifth Element's only Oscar nomination, for Best Sound Effects Editing, lost to which movie?

Titanic won that Oscar, but four weeks later the tables turned: The Fifth Element beat it, and Men in Black, to the BAFTA for special visual effects.

Leeloo's skimpy outfit when she is first revived was inspired by what?

Hospital bandages were the idea Besson and his costume designer settled on: a patient fresh from the machine would wear as little as possible, covered only where modesty required.

In The Fifth Element's prologue, what does the professor shout for whenever the boy Aziz nods off?

Light is Aziz's whole job: he holds the mirror that bounces sunlight into the temple, so each time he dozes the professor's wall of symbols goes dark.

Which actor plays the president of the Federated Territories?

Tiny Lister played the wrestler Zeus opposite Hulk Hogan in a 1989 film, then took the character into real WWF rings to feud with him, years before playing President Lindberg.

Korben Dallas's ribbed, backless tank top echoes the vest worn by the same actor in which earlier film?

Die Hard gave the designer his starting point: John McClane's white vest, reworked in backless rubber for a 23rd-century cab driver.

Which real fast-food chain is shown doing business in the 23rd-century New York of The Fifth Element?

McDonald's survives into the film's future, and its skimpily uniformed staff were singled out by scholars who faulted how the film presents women.

Milla Jovovich and Luc Besson married in 1997 in which city, going skydiving straight after the ceremony?

Las Vegas hosted the wedding of director and star after they fell for each other during the shoot, but the marriage lasted only until 1999.

When it reached cinemas, The Fifth Element held which record among all films ever made in Europe?

The most expensive production Europe had yet seen cost about $90 million, a gamble repaid when it earned almost three times that worldwide.

Brion James, The Fifth Element's amiable General Munro, won his most lasting fame in which earlier sci-fi film?

Blade Runner cast him as a fugitive replicant, and after a career of such heavies General Munro was a rare part on the right side.

Leeloo's strappy white outfit from The Fifth Element inspired looks in which 2015 Taylor Swift music video?

Bad Blood borrowed the strapped look for its video, as Doja Cat did in 2022, showing how the costume outlived the film's mixed reviews.

Which subject in Leeloo's crash course on human history leaves her too heartbroken to save Earth?

War is the lesson that breaks her, and the score marks the moment with a funereal passage in the manner of Mahler.

The brown hooded cloak of Father Vito Cornelius closely resembles the costume of which Star Wars character?

Obi-Wan Kenobi wears the same cloak, robe and high collar, a borrowing that tells viewers at a glance what kind of wise old guardian the priest is.

How does Earth's military give Korben Dallas a cover story for travelling to the luxury liner Fhloston Paradise?

A rigged radio contest names him the winner of a luxury holiday, which saddles him with flamboyant talk-show host Ruby Rhod as his escort.

Milla Jovovich, The Fifth Element's Leeloo, went on to play Alice in which film series based on a video game?

Resident Evil kept her in the role from 2002 to 2017, turning the actress who broke through as Leeloo into an action lead.

Which colour did Luc Besson insist on for Leeloo's hair, a shade repeated in Korben Dallas's rubber vest?

Orange was the director's own choice for his heroine, and his liking for the shade spread to her braces and to the cab driver's vest.

Ruby Rhod, the flamboyant talk-show host of The Fifth Element, wears a jumpsuit in which animal print?

Leopard print was paired with a portrait collar borrowed from 1950s dresses, mixing men's 1970s jumpsuits with womenswear to suit the host's gender-bending persona.

President Lindberg's uniform in The Fifth Element resembles those worn in which science-fiction TV franchise?

Star Trek supplied the template: the suits echo Voyager's Starfleet uniforms, keeping government dress conservative while the film's street fashion runs wild.

Which Chicago Sun-Times critic gave The Fifth Element three stars and a thumbs-up on his television show?

Roger Ebert recommended it for the richness of its imagery, though he complained that at 127 minutes it played long.

The Fifth Element's 1998 video game adaptation was released for Windows PCs and which games console?

PlayStation owners got the weaker deal, as that version drew mostly negative reviews while the PC release was better received.

After fleeing Fhloston Paradise with what he takes for the stones, what does Zorg discover that sends him back?

The case is empty, as Zorg learns only once he has left, so he must turn round and return to the liner he believed he had finished with.

After The Fifth Element, Luc Besson next directed Milla Jovovich as which historical figure in a 1999 epic?

Joan of Arc was the title role of The Messenger, the director's next film after the hit that had lifted both their careers.

Luc Besson began The Fifth Element at 16 intending the story to become which kind of work?

A novel was his first plan, and the draft sprawled so far that by 1991 he had a screenplay running to 400 pages.

How were the skyscrapers of The Fifth Element's New York mostly created, in work that took 80 people five months?

As scale models built at 1:24, the towers took 80 workers five months, with miniature furniture and blinds fitted behind the windows.

Luc Besson broke with science-fiction habit by demanding that most of The Fifth Element's action scenes be shot how?

In broad daylight was his rule, because he wanted a bright and cheerfully crazy future rather than the dim, realistic kind.

Which French studio, the oldest surviving film company in the world, was behind The Fifth Element?

Gaumont, founded in 1895 and known by its daisy logo, was the first company to take on the project and counts it among the biggest hits in its library.

The Fifth Element's French opening was the second biggest on record, behind which Hollywood blockbuster of 1996?

Independence Day alone had opened bigger in France, and Besson's film went on to hold the number one spot there for seven weeks.

Which ability do the Mangalores, the alien mercenaries hired by Zorg, possess in The Fifth Element?

Shapeshifting lets the brutish mercenaries pose as humans when they decide to go after the stones for themselves.

What is the name of Father Vito Cornelius's apprentice, who is sent ahead to prepare the temple?

David, played by Charlie Creed-Miles, is waiting at the temple to meet the others when they arrive with the stones for the finale.

Which future Best Actor Oscar winner did Luc Besson like for Ruby Rhod before choosing a slighter comedian?

Jamie Foxx impressed the director, who nonetheless felt that a smaller build suited the hyperactive host better.

The Fifth Element's composer had scored which James Bond film just two years before the 1997 release?

GoldenEye carried his synthesiser score, but the director rejected his music for the tank chase and another composer was brought in to rewrite it.

Which style of music greets the passengers when they arrive at Fhloston Paradise in The Fifth Element?

Hula music welcomes them to the resort, one of several borrowed styles in a score that keeps music playing for about 90% of the film.

Which British stand-up, later seen in There's Something About Mary, plays Fog in The Fifth Element?

Lee Evans had made his cinema debut only two years earlier in Funny Bones, and he followed this part with a starring role in Mouse Hunt the same year.

Which Bristol trip-hop musician plays Right Arm, the henchman of the villain Zorg in The Fifth Element?

Tricky took the acting job two years after his debut album Maxinquaye had made him a leading name of the Bristol scene.

Milla Jovovich, who plays Leeloo in The Fifth Element, was born in which city of the Soviet Union?

Kyiv was her birthplace, though she has said she was born in Ukraine almost by accident and remembers her years in Russia far better.

The Fifth Element won a BAFTA in which category, an award shared among five members of the crew?

Special Visual Effects went to five crew members, among them the heads of the film's separate mechanical and creature teams.

Which future Troy star auditioned for The Fifth Element at 17, when Luc Besson steered her towards drama school?

Diane Kruger was not yet fluent in French when she tried out, and although she won no part the director advised her to enrol at the Cours Florent.

The star cast as Korben Dallas hesitated over the risky part after which of his 1991 comedies was poorly received?

Hudson Hawk and the gangster drama Billy Bathgate had both disappointed, so he held back until a chance phone call years later brought him the script.

John Neville, who plays General Staedert in The Fifth Element, had starred in which Terry Gilliam fantasy?

Baron Munchausen, in full The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, revived the stage veteran's fame in 1988, and cameos like his space commander followed in later years.

The cropped haircuts of Father Vito Cornelius and his apprentice are a futuristic take on a style worn by whom?

Medieval monks wore the tonsure that the two haircuts update, one of several real religious details in the priest's look, such as a collar fastened like a cleric's.

A film scholar suggested that the name Ruby Rhod was built from two entries in which scientific chart?

The periodic table has rubidium at the start of its fifth row and rhodium halfway along it, so the first halves of the two names spell out the host's.

The actor who plays Zorg said he took the role because Luc Besson had helped finance which film he directed?

Nil by Mouth, a drama drawn from his south London upbringing, went on to win the BAFTA for best British film.

The Fifth Element, a French production with a French director, was filmed in which language?

English was the language on set, yet the film still counted as French and won three César awards, France's national film prizes.

What does Korben Dallas wear to the Diva's concert on Fhloston Paradise, amid a crowd in futuristic outfits?

A traditional tuxedo goes unremarked among the wilder outfits, a sign that formal dress codes have barely changed by the film's 23rd century.

In Luc Besson's original teenage story, the hero wins a trip to a resort run by which real holiday company?

Club Med ran the resort on Fhloston Paradise in the first version, where the hero met a girl called Leeloo who was more than 2,000 years old.

The Fifth Element was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation but lost to which film?

Contact, the Jodie Foster drama based on Carl Sagan's book, took the 1998 prize from a shortlist that also held Gattaca and Men in Black.

Before a comic artist's flying cab changed Luc Besson's mind, Korben Dallas was written as a worker in what?

A rocket-ship factory was the hero's workplace until drawings of an airborne cab on a crowded alien planet gave the director a better idea.

The uniforms of Fhloston Paradise's crew reflect the costume designer's career-long fondness for which motifs?

Maritime touches run through the designer's own collections, and he treated the film's thousand-plus costumes as many small collections of their own.

By the release of which 1991 Luc Besson documentary had The Fifth Element's script swollen to 400 pages?

Atlantis came out with the screenplay at that length, and the director spent the stalled years that followed cutting it down.

Which American science-fiction author, known for Bears Discover Fire, wrote The Fifth Element's 1997 book adaptation?

Terry Bisson adapted the screenplay for HarperPrism, and his book keeps the first name that the original script gave Ruby Rhod.

The Fifth Element's towering New York drew on the 1910s drawings of which Italian architect?

Antonio Sant'Elia supplied one half of the look, his soaring towers being crossed with the stacked modular flats of 1960s metabolism.

Which British designer's 1998 collection had a strappy white look strikingly like Leeloo's Fifth Element costume?

Alexander McQueen showed the look only a year after the release, and Pam Hogg revived it on the catwalk again in 2012.

Which director of La Haine, also an actor in Amélie, has a small role in The Fifth Element?

Mathieu Kassovitz took the bit part two years after La Haine had won him the best director prize at France's leading film festival.

Which Showgirls star was among the hundreds of actresses Luc Besson met in person for the role of Leeloo?

Elizabeth Berkley was among the 200 to 300 hopefuls the director saw face to face before he settled on Milla Jovovich.

In the original script of The Fifth Element, the talk-show host Ruby Rhod went by which different first name?

Loc Rhod was the host's name on the page, and it survives in the book version published alongside the film.