in English - Cannes International Film Festival

Were they other scenes you were particularlydreading?Beside the tap dancing scene and the interviewscene, no. On the other hand, the scene I foundhardest is the one where they run into each other onthe staircase. It was really difficult. I don’t know why.George and Peppy run into each other by chance; she’sgoing up, he’s coming down. She has just signed acontract, he has just found out it’s all over for him, andthey are not on the same level. This was difficult toact, I can’t really explain why. Light, cheerfulness, analmost happy-go-lucky attitude was needed... Michelasked me to talk all the time, to improvise in English -which is not what I prefer. I felt as if I was in a loop, asif I had lost the character, overdone it... Afterwards,I saw it worked very well. These are the miraclesof - silent - movies!What about the scene where you wear GeorgeValentin’s suit?I was a bit apprehensive but it was fun to play.I love that scene: it’s very poignant. To imagineyourself wearing the clothes of the one you love,there’s something disquieting, arousing… It had tobe done well. I rehearsed it the day before, but it wason set that I thought that Peppy could pretend Georgehad grabbed her behind. Michel liked the idea anddecided to keep it....How did you feel to find yourself in Hollywood - ayoung French actress, acting in a film about Hollywood’shistory?For a start, it is rare that French cinema talksabout American cinema... And of course, therewas something magical about playing a youngAmerican, finding yourself in the Warner studios,wandering around the streets of the studio, living inHollywood - well, in the film in Mary’s Pickford’shouse... These are anecdotes and memories thatyou enjoy telling afterwards but at the time you’reso involved in the film and work that it’s difficultto really make the most of it. What was strange andvery exciting was the enthusiasm of the Americanswho worked on the film. They said: “We couldnever do this in the US!” We told them that inFrance it hadn’t been easy either but they insisted:“We could never do this!”. They were absolutelyfascinated by the project. Maybe because this filmbrings us all back to the sources of our profession,because it’s very poignant to make a film aboutthe beginnings of cinema, precisely where ithappened. Even if we know the silent cinemawell, we’ve all seen the Charlie Chaplins, theBuster Keatons... We love this profession forthese kinds of films as well...Among all the films you watched duringpreparation, which ones touched you most?The first one that I saw at the Cinémathèque:Murnau’s CITY GIRL. Incredible! How modern thisfilm is! SUNRISE too, and SEVENTH HEAVEN byFrank Borzage... All these films with no dialoguebut where the picture suffices... And in fact they’renot old at all. The stories are wonderful, the actorsbeautiful, the emotions are very strong. I loved thattime where I went from one discovery to the next.It went way beyond preparation for the film. I loveGloria Swanson and Joan Crawford’s biographies:they’re really the mirror image of each other. I evenfell in love with Joan Crawford. With her beauty,her class, her journey, the way she smoked, the way- 43 -