Marion Cotillard reflects on her experience of being manipulated by a director and making her believe it was a collaboration. A scene from her newest project, Little Girl Blue, saw Cotillard being instructed by the director to remain in character as she drinks her tea, despite being on her break.
Little Girl Blue is based on the story of Carole Achache, the mother of the film’s director Mona Achache. The French actress contemplated if this technique suggests manipulation.
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Marion Cotillard Reveals Being Manipulated By A Male Director
In her recent interview with Variety, Marion Cotillard disagreed and expounded on the concept of manipulation as an actor:
“I don’t see a director and an actor as being in relationships of manipulation. It’s more of a collaboration. It happened to me only once where I felt that I was being manipulated by a director, and I really didn’t like that.”
She revealed that a male director once pulled this trick on her. Cotillard did not drop a name, though she claimed this director made her believe it was “a process of working together with a collaborative connection.” She later realized that he was actually trying to use manipulation:
“I thought: Is he manipulating me because he thinks that I’m going to be unable to give him what he needs, what he wants, if he doesn’t act this way? And I felt like an object, and I really hated it.”
The director’s attempt at manipulation completely put her off. She admits seeing through it immediately:
“I saw right away all the manipulation, and I had the judgement that it was kind of dumb that you can’t ask me to do things without trying to use ways of manipulation that really don’t work with me, with my personality as a woman, I mean, as a human being, and as an actress.”
The 47-year-old star explained the distinction between manipulation and surrender, the latter commonly used to fully embody a role or character:
“I think surrender is something that you really need to go through when you’re an actor. You surrender to the character, you surrender to the story, and you surrender to the creator, the director. But it needs to have, for me, a harmony that I don’t think you can find in manipulation.”
Cotillard clarified that a successful collaboration between an actor and a director requires working hand in hand and developing an open and healthy connection.
Marion Cotillard Stars In New Documentary Drama ‘Little Girl Blue’
Mona Achache’s Little Girl Blue, which stars Marion Cotillard as Carole Achache, is the director’s attempt at understanding why her mother took her life at 63. There was no note left when she committed suicide, but the filmmaker found thousands of notebooks, photos, audio recordings, and diaries in her mother’s cellar.
The movie attempts to bring Carole Achache, a writer and photographer, back to life through Cotillard’s portrayal, which the actress finds quite intriguing:
“There was something very deep and very touching about this lineage of women, and Mona’s quest to understand her mother through a process of sort of bringing her back to life. And I thought that was very touching and very interesting, and I was just very deeply moved by the character of Carole.”
Produced by Laetitia Gonzalez and Yaël Fogiel for Les Films du Poisson, Little Girl Blue recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Source: Variety
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