Devil Wears Prada sequel: Stanley Tucci says second film will never happen

Sadly, it seems like we’ll need a little more than Crisco and some fishing wire to make a Devil Wears Prada sequel happen — according to star Stanley Tucci, that is.

Receiving a career tribute award at France’s Deauville Film Festival on Saturday night, the 55-year-old was clear on his stance regarding a return to the big screen as Nigel, the sassy art director at Runway fashion magazine who helps a style-averse journalist, Andy (Anne Hathaway), survive her first job at a major publication as the assistant to the book’s ruthless editor, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep).

“That’s never going to happen,” Tucci said, according to The Hollywood Reporter, when asked if a sequel to the 2006 film, which also stars Emily Blunt, Adrian Grenier, and Simon Baker, is in the works.

Still, Tucci praised the original David Frankel-directed comedy, the world of which Hathaway and Blunt previously expressed interest in returning to for a sequel based on the literary continuation, Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns, released by the source novel’s author, Lauren Weisberger, in 2013.

“That role was so great because it was so beautifully written and he was incredibly funny and there was a real substance to it. It was a truly great American studio movie in every way,” he said. “Perfect in every way… Sometimes it’s best just to leave things. If you try to redo it, let’s face it, there are very few sequels that actually work.”

Additionally, the Oscar-nominee previewed his character, studio head Jack Warner, whom he’s set to play opposite Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford in Ryan Murphy’s upcoming TV series Feud. The series reportedly begins filming next week in Los Angeles.

“It’s very funny and a fascinating story,” he said of the show, which follows the infamous rivalry between Davis and Crawford as they filmed the 1962 classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? “I had no idea that this had happened. [Warner] is horrible, but he’s really funny. It’s very satisfying to play the mean, funny guy.”

As the French-based Deauville Film Festival honors American cinema, Tucci also tinged his acceptance speech with commentary on the U.S. presidential election.

“Cinema is a collaborative art form,” he said, noting the team spirit often found on film sets. “That collaboration is one that has brought us so many great films, but it’s in that spirit of collaboration that we hope we can all move forward and I think in this way, politicians might have something to learn from artists.”