Photo by
Etienne George, Paradis Films
A
collaboration between Picktainment/PopCulturePassionistas
This
weekend an epic French film is opening in select theaters in New York and Los
Angeles. The Princess of Montpensier is based on the short story by Madame de
La Fayette, and tells the tale of a young, aristocratic woman forced to marry
in the shadow of the Wars of Religion. At a recent press conference director
Bertrand Tavernier and star Gaspard Ulliel talked about developing the project,
the appeal of the characters and finding the perfect leading lady.
Tavernier
explained that when he signed on to the film, there was already a script in
place — but not for long. ““I don’t think we kept one line out of it… It was
not appalling. It was interesting but I think the look at the princess was not
good. The writer was describing her as a femme fatale in a film noir and for me
that was the opposite.”
The fact
that Tavernier was not familiar with the original short story by the 17th
century writer Madame de La Fayette, allowed him to interpret the title
character, the Princess Marie de Montpensier, as he saw fit. He divulged, “I
read first the screenplay, then the short story and I had absolutely not the
same interpretation. I saw her as a victim not somebody who wanted to seduce
the men. If I have that, I have a very ordinary character.”
He
continued, “If I have somebody who is trying to survive, trying to be faithful
to her husband, who falls in love with her, which was not expected. And then
when she meets men, the men are seduced by her – by her beauty, by her
intelligence, her wit. But she doesn’t try to seduce them. She’s pleased maybe
to be looked at but she never tries to seduce. Then I have a character which is
very interesting and very complex.”
Casting an
actress who embodied all of those qualities was not an easy task. Travenier
discussed the first of his issues. “It was a challenge because Marie had to be
beautiful, stunningly beautiful. But also she had to look good in period
costume, which not everybody’s good in that. For instance, you have a great
actress Sigourney Weaver, when she played the Queen of Spain, she looked
completely disguised… So I had to have somebody who didn’t look disguised in
costume.”
The
director also had to discover a multi-faceted talent. He remarked, “I had to
find somebody who had all the colors of the part — the sensuality but also the
teenager, the fact that she’s a very young girl, who likes to flirt, who is
trying to make fun of her teacher, like a young kid in school. And in the next
minute, she becomes class conscious and aristocratic. And she goes from being a
wounded woman to somebody who is full of pride to somebody who is ready to make
love now with de Guise. And she’s fighting against that.”
He
ultimately cast French actress, Mélanie Thierry. He described the qualities
that helped her land the role. “To have all of those colors, all those kinds of
emotion, and Melanie was incredible because she goes from one to the other and
you never see the homework. You never see the transition. Really she was like
flying from an emotion to another.”
Tavernier
had nothing but praise for his young starlet, saying, “I know actors. And I
love actors. And she’s one of the best I’ve ever worked with. She was
confronted to a dialogue, which was complicated and she was making it organic.
She told me first that she had been intimidated because she went to see me at
the beginning and I have spent many moments with her, she said, ‘Bertram, I
must tell you I have no education but I want to learn. So I want to read the
screenplay with you. I will tell you the words I do not understand. I will tell
you the expressions I do not understand. And she was like Marie. She was
exactly like Marie. She wanted to learn.”
Tavernier
also spoke highly of the rest of his cast, including Ulliel who plays Marie’s
love interest Henri de Guise. He noted, “None of the actors, never made any
mistake in that dialogue. I don’t remember one shot which I had to redo because
they had forgotten an adjective. Never… They are possessed by the dialogue. And
everything becomes completely organic.”
Ulliel
revealed what drew him to the role of the Henri. “I like this character because
I was able to show different things from what I've shown in other films. And
also the physical appearance, the look, was different from my previous parts in
other movies, too. And it was a mixture of physical scenes, like action scenes,
and at the same time some more complex and deeper emotional scenes.”
He also
gave high marks to the script. He added, “I also really liked the whole story
because I think it had so much strong themes, really modern in some way and
actual, that would have some resonances with present time.”
Ulliel was
also excited to be working with a large ensemble cast of his peers. “I also was
thrilled with the idea of working such a big group of young actors. Because I
started quite young in this industry and I always tended to be working with
people that were older than me and that's the first experience for me where I
was really able to spend a lot of time on a set with people around my age.”
The actor
had one other co-star, that became very important to him — his trusty steed. He
confessed, “I'm really thankful to the horse himself, because he was so well
trained and so easy to ride. In fact those horses are especially trained for
cinema and they always tend to be ridden by actors. And actually you could just
whistle and this horse would stop. I was just so impressed by those horses. So
I think the horse made it a bit easy for me."
Unfortunately
Ulliel isn’t having as easy a time transitioning into mainstream Hollywood films.
In 2007 he starred in the Silence of the Lambs prequel Hannibal Rising, playing
a younger version of Anthony Hopkins Oscar-winning Hannibal Lecter role. But
his star did not immediately soar in the U.S.
He denied
rumors that he’ll appear in the post apocalyptic trilogy The Hunger Games. But
there’s no doubt the handsome and talented star will find fame in Hollywood
before long.
The
Princess of Montpensier opens on Friday, April 15 in an exclusive Los Angeles
theatrical engagement at Laemmle's Royal Theatre, as well as in New York. On
April 20 the film will be available via Sundance Selects’ video on demand
platform. The movie will expand into theaters across the U.S. on April 29. For
more information visit the official The Princess of Montpensier website.
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