Interview met Valéria Bruni-Tedesch

5x2 is based around five moments in the life of a couple, Marion and Gilles, told backwards in time. What do these five moments mean to you?
They are the different stages of a love story. And at every stage, I feel that Francois was able to direct us to the heart of what mattered: the heart of what it means to meet someone, to get married, have children, separate. Stephane Freiss and I play concrete human beings who are also archetypes. He is Man. I am Woman.

How does one go about playing a character who is also an archetype?
I might have felt in some sense abstract, because we were not given much detail about our characters` lives, their pasts. But really, I felt we were Man and Woman, beautiful, mean-minded creatures. I felt I had to work on paring myself down, on eliminating the impurities. Francois was asking me to change physically and psychologically. As if, at every stage, it was only a few notes of the melody which were required.

How did you meet Francois Ozon?
He said, “ I want to offer you the part, but I need to ask whether you will agree to look beautiful. That’s the condition”. Which was a bit odd, a bit crude as a question, but I didn’t mind. To look beautiful basically means allowing oneself to look beautiful. Not hiding, not being ashamed. Not staring at the floor. Holding oneself upright as one walks. I’ve often had to play characters who felt in some way victims of neurosis, or the prey of unkind men. Francois removed that crutch. I wasn’t going to be victim in this movie. I was going to be woman, with normal, human needs and a huge appetite for happiness. I felt that very strongly in the few pages Francois gave us at the beginning. It is what really made me want to make the film. The dynamics of the part fitted with what I was looking for in my work, in my life at that point. The music was right, it was what I wanted to hear. I wanted to make the film in the same way Marion wanted happiness.

Were you apprehensive at all?
Yes. You're apprehensive because it is something you haven't done before, you're not used to it. But 5x2 is one of the films I had no hesitation in accepting. I might have felt that François thought I was ugly if he'd asked me to lose weight or dye my hair blonde. But I didn't because he saw me affectionately. He saw me in a way that made me feel right. I felt as if even my defects were interesting, my emotions were welcome. I was given a place to be. Not a particularly large or particularly small place, but one which was mine, which was right for the character and right for the film. François has a particular aesthetic which enables him to film everyday life without superficiality. I find that agreeable. I love the way he frames his shots. When I saw UNDER THE SAND, I was looking for a cameraman and DP for my own film. I immediately wanted to contact François' DP. The trouble is that he frames his own shots! Usually, I am not particularly aware of how shots are framed, but as someone watching François' films, I find his shots moving. And as an actress, I feel well-framed, as if I was in a painting.

Is his direction very firm or does he let you find your own space within the frame?
Both. He let us come and find our way round the shot, find our positions and our pacing. But he needs to find his own. We each need to adapt to the other, without ever feeling constrained.

Had you seen his other films?
Yes, I was interested in his work. I find his determination that each film should be different brave, almost reckless. I enjoy the way he works with actors, the way his camera looks at people. He allowed Charlotte Rampling to express something deeply human. I totally identify with her in François' films.

And the idea of having Italian songs to provide a kind of punctuation to the film? Is that a homage to your origins?
Not really, I cannot claim that. There's something romantic, something kitsch and ironic in those Italian songs. It injects some humor into the film, and provides a different way in. There is also a great deal of hope in those Italian songs, a longing for love and being loved. That desire for love, that naiveté were another reason for my accepting the part. From the start, one feels Gilles and Marion married not opportunistically, nor out of boredom but because physically, they suited each other: they fell in love, like a proper couple, dreaming of a bright future. They are in no way cynical. Whatever the setbacks, the harshness of experience and all the negative examples, the film says that it's right to launch out into the Utopian folly of love, in the belief that it can work. This film is quite the opposite to films about love stories that go wrong. This one is about love stories that start out well.

There was a five month pause in the shoot. How did you feel about that?
It gave me time to lose weight and alter, physically. It gave me time to work on looking different. Those are strong alterations that I should not have been able to accomplish in two months. Still, it felt a bit long. I was scared I'd fall out of character, that my life would move on, my mind would be on something else.

Did you see the rushes of the first part before shooting the second?
No, I didn't feel like it. Even though I am working on my appearance, the alteration is mental. Now I have made my own film, I had to spend four months staring at myself from every conceivable angle at the cutting-table, rushes are not much of a problem any longer. I have had time to feel quite sane about seeing myself on screen. But it doesn't serve any purpose.

Did François Ozon ask you to view any films for inspiration?
We saw part of Meryl Streep's wedding in "The Deerhunter" and an extract from "Once Upon a Time In America" with Robert De Niro and the dancer in the car. But François wasn't really telling us to view this material. He is not authoritarian in that way. It's not his way. As for me, I spent a lot of time thinking about the women in François Truffaut's films, I don't know why. They are the most beautiful women in the world to me. They are sexy and very real at the same time. So sometimes, I'd pretend I was in a Truffaut film.

It was the first time you went back to acting after directing your own film. Did that make a difference?
Yes. It made it even more pleasurable. I enjoyed the luxury of being there "only" to act. As an actress, my job was no different, but I became more aware of the fun side of acting. And François' energy is joyful and fun too…

What about acting with Stephane Freiss?
On set we fell into friendship the way people fall in love. I'm very fond of him. We were pleased to see each other every morning. When we ran into trouble, we'd discuss it, we'd try and help each other out. We had acted together in a TV drama directed by Alain Tasma, a few years back, but we didn't know each other. On 5x2, we became intimate very rapidly, as if we'd known each other a long time. You could see us in the street, walking or in a car or stopping for a coffee and you'd think we were a real couple. Or two people on very good terms. It's alchemic. Mysterious.

Is that why François Ozon cast you as the couple in 5 x 2?
Yes, I think there was something very obvious in the screen tests we did with a scene taken from Ingmar Berman's "Scenes From Married Life". We were asked to play a man and a woman angry with each other, but still connected by a shared past and a long history of love. The couple is at war, in the process of separating, and yet you feel "Maybe they shouldn't separate." Which is true at the beginning of François' film too.

Gilles seems more fragile than Marion. Do you think that's true in most couples, is it something that relates to our times?
I can't answer that. I don't know how to make generalizations and I understand nothing about how couples function. In my personal experience, perhaps men are more cowardly than women, more cowardly and less able to take the initiative, to take the bull by the horns, confront things, to speak and be there when things turn difficult. It's true that men have a horrible habit of running away. At the same time, I feel slightly artificial saying that. I feel like I'm saying what one's meant to say, but at the same time I'm not so sure. And I certainly didn't set about my work in that perspective. I didn't set out with theoretical considerations about love, I set out to serve the story. With one basic premise, which is that Marion wants to be happy. That was my starting-point.

When you saw the film, what was your reaction?
The film seems more sentimental and melancholy than I expected. I played sentiment, but I didn't know that François was as sentimental as I am. But he is and this film, like Sous Le Sable, shows that about him.

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