FAQ

The milk is visually ironic. Léon is a master hitman. He's a big, strong man who does airborne crunches with his legs wedged under a dinner table. He can disappear in and out of a location to assassinate a dozen men without being seen - and then he goes home to drink some milk. It's not what one expects, and adds a layer of complexity to his persona. Metaphorically, it's a symbol of wholesomeness and his paternal concern for Mathilda. He attempts to enrich her and provide her with a more wholesome environment, and milk represents those qualities. It's a fluid of life, nurture, and care. Additionally, it's a fluid of innocence and, in the case of both Léon and Mathilda, childhood. Léon represents childhood in the ways that Mathilda does not; he does not know how to read, he finds great pleasure in simple entertainment, he has no apparent sexual desires or relationships. He is, on many levels, more immature than Mathilda. And she, though an actual child, is intellectually superior to Léon, dresses beyond her years, and is raised in an environment that exposed her to many things children shouldn't have to deal with. At one point in the film he merely says, "I like to stay in shape."

Because he is a professional

Léon was based on a script by French filmmaker Luc Besson, who also directed the movie.

Gary Oldman indicated that the capsules and the effects of the drug were intentionally unknowable, i.e. intentionally different from any specific drug. The idea was to increase his strangeness rather than fit any specific model of drug use.

It's Always Fair Weather (1955), directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, and starring Gene Kelly.

Portman was 11 years old when she first read the script and was offered the role.

go to "Leon: The Professional" on IMFDB for a detailed overview of all of the weapons seen in the film.

The R1 US Deluxe Edition DVD released by Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment in 2005 contains the following special features:

• The Uncut International Version of the film running 133 minutes.

• Feature length text commentary with background information about the making of the film.

• 10 Year Retrospective: Cast and Crew Look Back (2005); a 25-minute featurette in which cast and crew reminisce about the making of the film.

• Jean Reno: The Road to 'Léon' (2005); a 12-minute featurette looking at the performance of Jean Reno in the film.

• Natalie Portman: Starting Young (2005); a 14-minute featurette looking at how shocked Natalie Portman was when she read the script and acted in the film at such a young age.

The R2 UK DVD, released by Touchstone Home Entertainment (UK) in 2000, contains no special features other than scene selection. The film is non-anamorphic.

It is often reported that due to poor test screenings in the US, Luc Besson cut out nearly 25 minutes for the US theatrical release of the film, primarily depicting more of the interactions and relationship between Léon and Mathilda, with which American audiences were uncomfortable. This, however, is not entirely accurate. When the film was first test screened in Los Angeles, the only scene that the audience reacted to was the scene where Mathilda propositions Léon, and he rejects her. The audience responded with nervous laughter, and Besson was pressured to remove the scene. However, this is the only scene which was cut. In 2000, in an interview with Richard Jobson of the Manchester Guardian, Besson stated, "I was happy with the first one, it was mine, my director's cut, no one asked me to cut it." He also explains why he made the extended cut for the first time in 1996; At the same time you still have 25 minutes that nobody has seen. I think it was the beginning of the summer; in the summer France is like a desert, the people are on the beach, but there are some poor guys who stay in the cities to work, so we decided to make a long version, an extended version, to play in a just a few theatres for the people who stayed. Besson further elaborates on why the longer version was released in Japan; So we had like five screens and people loved it and sent their friends and then the Japanese called and said: "We want the long version, please." It is for this reason that the extended version tends to be called the International Cut rather than the Director's Cut.