Marion Cotillard On The Most Challenging Role – How She Brought A Director’s Mother Back To Life

Intro there's this struggle of an actor to embody someone and we had long conversations about that after I saw the movie because um Muna explained to me that she wanted to show in a weather difficulty to bring someone back to life [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] all right foreign [Music] [Music] Introducing Marion Cotillard welcome to behind the lens from the Cannes Film Festival and I have a real treat here because I have seen this film and it is extraordinary we have the filmmaker here Mona shash and this is a very personal story which we'll talk about and it's Star Academy Award and every other kind of award-winning wonderful actor and so many things you've seen her in this is Marion Cotillard hi good to see you again good to see you and I watched this movie and I I was just saying I have never seen anything quite like this in the cinema I mean this was an exploration something where you hired an actress to be basically bring your mother back is that right here that was that was the idea behind it The challenge of playing a directors mother is [Music] [Music] you know is logistics what was that like Marianne have you ever played a role quite like this gone into this kind of a film where you're working so closely but doing something so personal to your director here it's a different kind of challenge I would think The quest of several women your your object and um but when I read it I read it like as if I was reading a novel or something you know and um and I was very touched by the quest the quest of several women um a quest to understand um understand a mother understand a grandmother and also understand oneself and and I thought it was uh it was really really moving and when I finished the script I felt the the Deep need to be part of uh of this journey yeah and we see the transformation there you walk in as Marion coteard and we see you literally I've never seen that in a film either for an actor to do that in front of the camera The struggle to embody someone yeah that was something that was uh very disturbing at first and but what was more disturbing was when I saw the movie um I knew of course because I had shot this that I uh was coming as myself at the beginning of the movie and then I was becoming uh Carol Mona's mother but um it was it was very disturbing for me to see me coming back at some point in the movie several times um there's this struggle of an actor to embody someone and we had long conversations about that after I saw the movie because um Muna explained to me that she wanted to show um in a weather difficulty to bring someone back to life and um and the ex the whole experience was something that I had never experienced before and that I might never experienced uh experience again to um I remember the first time um we put the wig on and uh and and and the eyes and and the outfit um the feeling was mixed like I so it was during the tests I wanted monatsu believe that I was I mean to believe in what I was doing and at the same time I was kind of scared of how she would react so you know this like the limit that you have to cross that you have to become someone and at the same time the kind of fear of the reaction but it was very interesting you know to be in that position to help someone to bring someone back to life and especially a mother yeah well you know when you did what you won an Academy Award for La Vie En Rose you didn't have me to pee off sitting there watching your every move in that yeah La Vie En Rose but it's it's funny because I became very good friend with one of her best friends at the time and she's still alive she lives right here actually and um so it was we had some moments with her name is Gino where she was very disturbed by the fact that she she was looking at me and she would see her past friend and it and it was kind of the same feeling like I'm happy that she is disturbed because it means that it works and at the same time this feeling of oh but I don't want her to feel pain I don't want her to go back to like Dark Places uh because at the end at the end of her life in dpf's life it was very hard for jinu and it was the same feeling like this um do I have the right to bring that back and actually she gives me the this right because she wants me to bring that person back but it's it's really like Twisted feelings um it's almost hitchcocking in a way I mean you could see where this could go um but this is what they would call a docudrama how would you describe this form that you've created here [Laughter] Shooting chronologically I I don't know um foreign confidence is you do this and most homes don't do this you shot this chronologically yes yeah how difficult was that especially a beautiful set that you kind of designed that seemed to work for everything here but shooting chronologically is not the norm it's not the norm it happens to me Evolution of a character twice and it's absolutely fantastic you have the evolution um of a character within the story uh I really loved it I had the the first time I had the the experience with with the then with two days one night and um and I found it I mean it's more actually it's more difficult to shoot uh with uh uh I mean non-tronologically non-promological yeah and um and what was beautiful um besides the fact that we shot chronologically with the research that I um that I had to do that I wanted to do and what Mona just said to have like another vision of this woman and I was because the way an actor Will try to understand a character is very different from someone who just like study a person because it's it really like you mix your feelings you mix your emotions and you need to understand where those emotions come from and um and I remember that was there was a very touching day where um I said to Mona because I had studied all the footage I had studied the pictures the the writing and I felt the love that Carol had for her kids and and Mona was a little um surprised I would say and she said but you know she was very very hard with uh her kids she was very hard with me with my brother and and so we shared the love that I discovered um in Carol and it was something that was really deep and very beautiful because it is as if I I had kind of I had to convince her that she loved her kids and that's that's something that I felt very deeply that's really interesting yes wow um this she sadly died just before the metoo movement came in which probably having seen this whole film would have meant so much to her and helped her explain to others her life it's kind of Bittersweet I think yes but What is beautiful um what is beautiful in Mona's uh film is that she never had a voice and it killed her she was never heard she was never understood and she was never looked at someone who needed to be loved because she was suffering so much and the fact that we can give her a voice today is something that is so deep and so beautiful and that's also why I wanted to be part of this project that people would listen to her and and understand and love her um and the fact that she I mean this movie kind of healed the fact that she died right before um this um Revolution uh that happened in in 2017 and to give her today maybe what she always waited for and and needed is something that I find so touching and beautiful I do too film is Immortal and you have made her Immortal in that way for sure exactly which is really a great thing about this profession is you you have chosen here uh thank you so much and welcome back to the Khan film festival you've been here many times yes it's great thank you it is nothing like it nothing like it thank you thank you so much thank you [Music]