PARIS | She can chain the roles in the chain well James Bond, sand dunes and other major Hollywood productions, Léa Seydoux always returns to her first love, French cinema. For A nice morningIn a new film from director Mia Hansen-Love, the 37-year-old actress took on the role of a young single mother who rediscovers love when her father’s condition, who is suffering from a degenerative disease, worsens. The newspaper met her in Paris last month.
In the cinema you were often filmed as an object of desire. Mia Hansen-Love says she was quite seduced by the melancholy that emanates from her. Does that surprise you?
“No, because I think I always had this melancholy in me as a child. I also have a photo of me when I was only 1 month old already having a melancholy look. I think we’re born that way. I find it fascinating to see how much our personality is already shaped in our childhood. I like Nietzsche’s phrase that said, “Become who you are.” I believe that throughout our lives we develop a personality that we were born with.
Mia Hansen-Love was strongly inspired to write her film by her story and her father’s illness. What did you like about his screenplay?
“I really liked the portrait of this woman. I also liked that it was her story that Mia told in the film. He is a character experiencing a new beginning. She was already in a romantic relationship where she had her first child. She felt her life was over when this couple broke up. But suddenly this new love story happens to her while going through painful moments with her sick father. It was something that touched me. There’s also a certain kind of naturalism in the style of photography that I liked.”
Photo courtesy of Les Films du losange
Léa Seydoux and Camille Leban Martins in a scene from the film Un beau matin.
Mia Hansen-Love once said that you were the first actress who made her cry while shooting one of her films…
“It’s true that I’ve seen her cry several times. But Pascal [Greggory, qui joue le père] made him cry too. The film tells her father’s story so compellingly that it must have touched her. But this isn’t the first time I’ve made my directors cry. I also remember making Xavier cry [Dolan] during the filming of Only the End of the World!”
They manage the transition between major Hollywood productions and international auteur films. What type of production do you feel most comfortable in?
“The closer the roles are to reality, the easier it is for me to play them. I find it harder to act in the scenes that are shot in the studio on green screens because you have to invent and imagine what’s around you.
You will play the mythical character of Emmanuelle in a new film adaptation of the erotic novel of the same name, directed by Audrey Diwan. What can you tell us about this project?
“It will be very different and unrelated to the Emmanuelle films that have been made in the past. It really will be an Emmanuelle of the year 2023. There will be eroticism, but it will be approached through a female prism and from her own point of view.
A nice morning opens on February 17th.