| Refn with his wife Liv Corfixen in 2012. Photograph: Richard Young/Rex Features |
INTERVIEW
Nicolas Winding Refn: 'I bring the singular, the narcissistic, the high art'
Fri 1 July 2016
His films are stylish glitterbombs of sex and death. As The Neon Demon arrives, the director talks about couples therapy, turning down Rihanna – and witnessing a stranger die in an LA parking lot
O
n an April morning last year in Los Angeles, Nicolas Winding Refndropped his daughter at school and walked into a parking lot. He was shooting a new film, but still scouting locations. The lot stood behind Musso and Frank, the Hollywood steakhouse whose regulars once included Steve McQueen. There, he found a young man on the asphalt, bleeding nightmarishly; another man was hunched over him, trying to staunch the blood. With no one else in sight, Refn attempted to help. It was no good. The man died. Soon the LAPD arrived. He had never seen anyone die before.