This article is published in issue 15 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until April 12, 2022
In Paris it is a colder morning than usual, but Léa Seydoux it is solar. In fact, we sing together Jenny from the Block by Jennifer Lopez, in an a cappella duet she suggested … that quickly fades into a crescendo of giggles. Then, she shows me a picture of her on her phone: she is buying that ring that she, she jokes, reminds her of the song. She’s just like that, friendly and helpful, the opposite of the glacial actress that her global star image might suggest. She talkative and open, sitting next to me as if she were a mere acquaintance, rather than the most wanted of Cannes. Her famous smile often opens up on her face like a wave, dissolving the most intense moments in self-irony. This is the magic of Léa Seydoux, an interpreter capable of passing with ease from sincerity to malice, juggling the many moods that she represents on the screen. Critics love to describe her as melancholy, but passing her off as a shadowy French romantic doesn’t do justice to her instinctive comedic side. “I love to laugh. She’s like a sweetheart, ”she says with her eyes sparkling. «I know the suffering, but also the joy, which I prefer».
His comedic times can be seen in two of his most recent films, France from Bruno Dumontin which she is a famous journalist in an existential crisis, and The French Dispatch from Wes Andersonin which she wears the shoes of a stern prison guard who works in black as a nude model for an inmate artist (a gruff Benicio Del Toro). In the first of her she is vulgar and cheeky, she exchanges heavy gestures with her producer behind the French president. In the second, she is stern and self-possessed, a perfect contrast to Anderson’s ironic staging.
Soon we will see her again at the cinema in My wife’s story from Ildikó Enyedi (from April 14), set in the 1920s, and in Tromperie – Deception from Arnaud Desplechin (from 21/4), adapted from novel from Philip Roth.
“I recently made a film with a woman who is perhaps over 70 years old. And that’s just … »Seydoux gesticulates exuberantly with his hands. “She is really full of life. She is young! She is very young and she is funny. I immediately thought, “This is exactly how I want to grow old.” I want to be like her. I want to be a little girl all my life; to be like the little girl I was before ».
I ask her if she believed in as a child spells, in witches and things like that: “Yes, and in a way I still believe it,” she replies thoughtfully, her voice more calm and serious. “The artfor example, is magical for me. The art that expresses the beauty: a painting, a film. Every time I’m moved, touched by something, it’s as if I feel inside a kind of … »she interrupts herself, absorbed in her thoughts. “It’s almost a religious feeling.”
A feeling similar to what you get at work. “When I arrive on set, it’s a sacred moment for me. It’s a bit like entering a church: the atmosphere is quiet and the people are concentrated … We are all there together to create something ».
There is great intensity in his words and it is clear that the joy he knows how to convey is accompanied by a deep respect for his profession. This is why I ask her how she dealt with the experience of acting in the films of James Bond: Big blockbuster sets with huge crews, just the opposite of the intimacy you just described. “It’s difficult,” she admits. “The problem of blockbuster is that everything is excessive, boundless and you have to be very focused on your part, you also have to adapt more ».
Despite her preference for simpler productions, it was unthinkable to give up Seydoux’s powerful charm and in fact they called her back for a second film, so the Madeleine Swann from Specter reappeared in the highly anticipated No Time To Die of 2021. In both it enriches the archetype of Bond Girl of a new complexity, giving the crackling franchise depth and emotion.
Léa Seydoux also likes it because she doesn’t spare herself, she plays her roles with extreme generosity, entering the characters with a palpable vulnerability that crosses the screen. Despite her technical mastery (from the maverick Emma ne Adele ‘s life to the lonely leader in the dystopian The Lobster by Yorgos Lanthimos, up to the cold and complicated France de Meurs in France), you get the feeling that each of the characters she plays is able to convey a part of herself.
“I’ve always thought that in the end you play your part, over and over again, in different costumes, in different languages. In a way, it’s very difficult to be someone else, and I don’t think it’s that interesting, at least for me. This is why I don’t like biographies, because it’s like imitating something. It’s a trick. What moves me is when you realize that an actor is really telling something about himself, something very personal ».
Seydoux is also ambassador from Louis Vuitton, consecrated by the iconic French maison in 2016. Its charm, in line with the vision of Nicolas Ghesquière, artistic director of the fashion house, winks at a legacy of Gallic icons, albeit reinterpreted from a point of view absolutely modern, if not downright futuristic. A definition, the latter, often associated with Ghesquière’s aesthetics and also suitable for Léa, who will soon be the protagonist of the latest film by the legendary director David Cronenberg, Crimes of the Future.
Source: Vanity Fair
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