Interview with Roxane Mesquida - October 24th, 2007

Promoting: The Last Mistress
Venue: Sofitel Hotel
Interview type: One-on-one



ViewLondon (VL): Obviously you've worked with Catherine Breillat before (in A Ma Soeur and Sex Is Comedy). Were you always going to play the character that you play? Was it written for you?

Roxane Mesquida (RM): Well, no. Not really. I didn't know that I was going to play this character. We really want to work together all the time but this character is only 16 so she was scared that I was maybe too old for the role (I'm 26). She needed a big difference between (co-star) Asia Argento and the girl playing Hermangard. So she had these doubts about me for the role and one day we went to a retrospective of her movies and there was a screening of A Ma Soeur and Sex is Comedy, so we saw them together and she looked at me and said, “Oh my God, you're exactly the same! You haven't changed!” And at this moment, she realised it was completely possible for me to play a 16-year-old girl. Well, I'm always 16, in all the movies I make! And it's really funny because it's the third time I play a virgin in her movies – I've started to specialise in losing my virginity on screen.

VL: What was your favourite scene to film?

RM: My favourite scene was when I cried on the cliffside. It was really cool, because it was really hard. I had to run upstairs like maybe 20 times, it was really high and every time Catherine said, “No. You smiled a little. Go back.” I didn't smile! I almost passed out, I was like, “Please Catherine, I promise, I didn't smile...”. And so I cried for real.

VL: You don't have many scenes with Asia Argento. Did you get to know her at all?

RM: I have only one scene with her and the really interesting thing is that Catherine asked me to never speak with her. And I never spoke to her on the set, so I don't know her at all. And when I saw the movie for the first time, I realised why Catherine asked me to do that. So, in this scene with Asia, where I'm looking at her, you can see in my eyes that I really don't know her and I'm asking myself questions about her.

VL: What was it like working with (male lead) Fu'ad Ait Aattou?

RM: He's a model and it was his first role. It was really interesting. I really love acting with actors who've never acted before because there is something fresh and spontaneous about them. And Catherine is so good at directing actors – even if you're not an actor, you can only be good in her movies.



Note: I've posted interview notes in the comments section below.

Interview with Olga Kurylenko - August 24th, 2007

Promoting: The Serpent
Venue: Apex Hotel, Edinburgh
Interview type: One-on-one


ViewLondon (VL): How did you get involved with The Serpent?

Olga Kurylenko (OK): Eric (the director) was looking for a girl…well, I don’t want to say…

VL: I think I can guess. The script calls for an incredibly beautiful girl, right?

OK: (laughs) Yeah and he tried a few models, I guess and it didn’t work out and then he met me and it was good.

VL: Your character is essentially the bait, isn’t she?

OK: Yes, but mainly I’m the victim because she’s used by Plender. She has no papers, so basically she’s illegal in France and you can imagine that he probably took her passport and makes her do all these things because she has nowhere to go. But that’s what attracted me to the part, you know, she’s not a mean person but she does bad things. It’s like a contradiction – she’s a victim but because of her there are many men whose lives get destroyed.

VL: I assume you weren’t shooting for that many days? You’re only in a small handful of scenes compared to the other two.

OK: Well, I did ten days. You know they cut a lot of scenes out.

VL: They cut some of your scenes out? Were there any specific scenes that got cut that you really liked?

OK: Yeah, in the scene where I drug Vincent, there was much more dialogue, but I guess it was too long so they shrank it. And also with Chandras, the lawyer in the beginning, now we only see what she does with him on the video camera, but in the beginning there was more of a seduction, you know, I invited him to my house and so on.

VL: Next to you, my favourite part of The Serpent was the unusual staircase. How was it filming those scenes?

OK: Oh my God, that was terrifying. I was freaking out. I’m scared of heights – I can’t even go out on my balcony and I’m on the fifth floor. So can you imagine, for me, falling down? It was crazy.

VL: You did the whole falling scene yourself?

OK: I did the whole thing myself yes. There was a stunt girl but I did the whole thing myself – I don’t even know why they invited the stunt girl. I wore a harness and I was attached by cables and there was a guy who controlled it all. There was a mat on the floor and it was about ten metres high. So first they dropped me and it was like real speed, you know, real falling and then they slowed it down at the end. But the first moments were real and I was white (with fear). And Eric played a joke on me, because during the shooting, I was really, really scared and he saw that. And at the end, at some point, he said to the guy, “Okay, drop her”. And I got so scared, I screamed like this, ”Aaaaaah!” and he said, “Okay, we got it, that’s the shot”.

VL: We recently saw your Vampire movie, the short film you made with Elijah Wood in Paris, Je T’aime. How was that?

OK: It was amazing, I loved it. It’s the only part I’ve played where I don’t play a human being. The director told me to think of my character as an animal and that was good advice, because it made me change my way of thinking. It’s a pity it was a short and that it couldn’t be developed a bit more. I’d love to do a full-length vampire movie, but a classic one, you know, not a stupid one. Like a fairy tale, with beautiful costumes.

VL: If you’d been asked, would you have been one of Keanu’s vampire brides in Coppola’s Dracula?

OK: Of course I would! Yes! It’s a beautiful movie.

VL: What have you got coming up next?

OK: Well, after The Serpent I did an American film called Hitman – it’s based on a videogame and it’s coming out in October or November. It’s also my first American film.

Note: Interview notes posted in the comments section below.

Interview with Julie Delpy - June 7th, 2007

Promoting: Two Days In Paris
Venue: Chesterfield Hotel
Interview type: One-on-one


ViewLondon (VL): How difficult was it to put the film together, because obviously you’re doing pretty much everything yourself: writing, directing, editing, composing and acting?

Julie Delpy (JD): Well, it was quite hard to get money from anyone. Luckily the producer believed in the film like crazy and that really made the film happen. Basically every day we had the news that we were getting no money and we ended up with very little to make the film, but even though we didn’t even have enough to finish the film, we shot it and then the producer was able to find a company that lent us money to finish it. But what was great was that no-one was in the film for the money and they all worked their asses off.

VL: You cast a lot of friends and family in the film. Were they encouraged to improvise at all? What kind of direction did you give them?

JD: You know, originally I wanted to improvise quite a lot of the film and then as I met Adam a few times, I realised it wasn’t going the direction I really wanted for the film. And then when I told my parents about the film they said “We don’t want to improvise a word. We’re actors, we need scenes.” So I started writing the film and ended up with 110 pages of screenplay, basically the whole film. There’s a few little chunks that are improvised, but it’s funny because people don’t know, because it seems almost more staged than the other stuff. Just little chunks like the gallery, but not the whole gallery, just little chunks.

VL: Adam Goldberg is fantastic in the film and I gather you wrote the part especially for him. What was it about him that made you want to use him in the film?

JL: Well, he’s the sad clown, kind of thing. It’s like the sadder and more upset he looks, the more people are hitting him on the head, the funnier he looks. And he has great comic timing and I wanted someone who looked funny when they were upset. But he resisted a lot of the comedy stuff – he didn’t want to be jealous, he was like “How could I be jealous of these guys? I mean, look at me…”

VL: The script is excellent. The arguments are very believable, much more so than in any relationship comedy I can really think of.

JD: Well, I’ve argued a lot in my relationships (laughs). And I’ve witnessed a lot of arguments too.

VL: How much of it was drawn from actual arguments you’d had?

JD: Well, you know what it’s like when you’re a writer, you’re in the middle of breaking up with someone and you’re like, “Ooh, good line”. It’s like the pathetic side of being a writer, you never really stop observing, even yourself. Some of it is taken from other people but you know, in the story, it can be totally fantasy and made-up things, but I like to take the dialogue from real things.

VL: What have you got coming up next?

JD: I have The Countess, that I wrote. It’s a drama – it has nothing to do with comedy, hopefully. It’s about murder, cruelty and power and destruction. It’s very, very dark. So that’s my next film that I’m directing and starring in.

Note: Interview notes have been posted in the comments section below.

Interview with Emma de Caunes - March 7th, 2007

Promoting: Mr Bean's Holiday
Venue: St Martin's Lane Hotel
Interview type: One-on-one


Question (Q): Who do you play in the film?

Emma de Caunes (EdC): I play Sabine (Bean, Sabine, you see?). I become his friend because I drive a Mini, like his Mini in London, the same, so he is astonished by my Mini. His only goal is to see the beach in Cannes and I play an actress who is just starting out, she’s doing commercials and she has a small part in a movie in Cannes so she gives him a lift with the Mini and then the adventure starts.

Q: So there’s no romance?

EdC: You can’t talk about romance really with Mr Bean, you know? He’s such a child trapped in an adult body but he’s not really comfortable with love. It’s more about friendship.

Q: Were you aware of Mr Bean before you signed on to the movie?

EdC: Of course, of course. I’ve been a big fan for a long time. As you know, maybe, my dad (Antoine de Caunes) did a TV show here and he so when I was younger he brought back tapes of Mr Bean and I liked it a lot.

Q: What was it like working with Rowan? I hope he didn’t spend the whole time in character?

EdC: Um, he was really concentrating the whole time and I really understand that, it’s so difficult and I was so amazed by his work. It has nothing to do with normal acting, it’s physical, his body is his real instrument. And also, with this kind of comedy, it’s all about rhythm, you have to catch the perfect rhythm because the joke won’t work if it’s one second too late or too early.

Q: Does he come to the set as Mr Bean or does he come to the set in the clothes and switch on the character when the cameras roll?

A: Oh, no, he’s Rowan Atkinson and then action! And then suddenly…it’s amazing to see the way he splits the two. I guess he’s had Mr Bean in him for a long time and he knows him perfectly. Sometimes he was improvising and it was hard for me not to laugh.

Q: In the paper today there was a picture of Rowan promoting the film on a beach in Sydney and you’re here in London. Does that seem fair to you?

EdC: (Laughs) Yeah, that’s not fair! I want to go to Sydney too.

Note: I've posted notes on further questions that didn't make the published version of the interview in the comments section below.