At the turn of the year, HeyUGuys were lucky enough to head to Paris to interview some of the biggest stars of the French film industry, ahead of theatrical releases in the UK across the year. One interview, with talented actress Anaïs Demoustier, actually covered two bases, as she was promoting both SMOKING CAUSES COUGHING and NOVEMBER. Two films that couldn’t be more different from one another. Naturally we discussed the diversity of roles, and her ambitions in the industry. And she also talks about how Lara Croft became an unlikely inspiration…
The very fact I am speaking to you today about SMOKING CAUSES COUGHING and NOVEMBER is symbolic of your diverse choices as an actress, a performer who is difficult to define. Is that something you do consciously, trying to find different roles, and different projects, or do you just follow the best stories, and see where it takes you?
Thank you, it is very important for me to be diverse in my choices. The first thing, when I make a choice, is a director. If the director wants to make a tragedy, I follow them, if they want to make a comedy, I follow. It’s very important for me, I talked about this with my agent for a long time, to make it surprising for the audience, and for me. I see actors who always play the same roles, in the same films, and I think that is very dangerous. I have different pleasures when I am making a film like November, which is an incredible experience, very intense, and when I am making Smoking Causes Coughing, it is another kind of pleasure, a different acting pleasure. Comedy and tragedy is not the same way of working, it’s not the same place of work.
Smoking Causes Coughing is eccentric, and unique. It’s the sort of film, in the wrong hands, it would be easy for it be made in a bad way. But Quentin does a wonderful job. When it comes to making a film like this, is trusting your director very important?
Yes, of course. You have to trust the director totally. I trust him. I’ve made four film with him now, we just finished the fourth one. I absolutely, totally trust him, in his writing, he is an author. More than a lot of directors I have worked with. So I am very confident with the text and I am very confident about the way he films things. He has a very precise aesthetic sense. His movies are very beautiful. I was totally confident. But you have to let go also a little bit, because you really don’t know what the move is going to be like. It’s a surprise, until the moment you watch it.
You must’ve been standing there, in the outfits, thinking…. This better be good. Because, and for use of a better term, it can look quite silly.
We felt totally stupid, but at the same time it created a cohesion in the collective. We were five superheroes… so okay, let’s go have fun. Because we didn’t know each other. But it was immediately fun between us.
Quentin is another example of the fantastic directors you have worked with. Do you have any ambitions to get behind the lens, and do it yourself one day?
Yes I would love to, for me it is so important, and I wouldn’t do it without having the right story to tell. It’s easy for some actors to make movies, because we know the sets well, it’s a good thing to have acted yourself to then direct other actors, and by being identified as such you can obtain money more easily to make a film, but you still have to be very careful, because it is too important for me. There is a lot of pressure to be a director.
Earlier you mentioned acting pleasure – I just did an interview with Ana Girardot and she spoke about the value of just having fun when you do your job. But when you make a film like November, which is about a very real event, that is still very sensitive in France – is it hard to have “fun” on a set like that?
Fun is not the right word, but there is still pleasure. Because the director is so interesting and he is a virtuoso director, so it was very new for me to work like this, with a big crew, sometimes three cameras, it was a different set than the sets I am used to in France, with small crews, and low-budget. It was a bigger project for me which was very pleasant. It’s a topic that put us in a place where we needed to be careful, and serious, to not tackle the subject in just any old way. We were very careful to keep a distance and respect the subject itself.
When you play a cop, or anyone in law enforcement, do you do much research into the real world of police officers and detectives, or has the character of a detective become so ingrained into cinematic storytelling, that can your reference points be other characters from other shows or movies?
I looked more into real life, I did an internship in an investigation service, at the police station in the Parisian suburbs. I really watched, I listened to the pace, and this is what fed the character. I don’t know why, but I thought about Lara Croft. There was something very physical about this character, somewhere Lara Croft was there. But otherwise it was the real law enforcement.
I want to watch it again now and look for Lara Croft…
[Laughs] She is very hard to find!
The incident we know is real, but was your character based on anyone real, did you have someone you could use as a case study?
There was no real person of reference. But I had the terrorist prevention brigade, who after the terrorist attack at Charlie Hebdo, recruited young people who wanted to be in investigation but were really on the ground. Young women who were used to office work in investigation, were confronted with this, all after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. But I invented a lot of things also, things that I thought were right. I wanted her to be ambitious, to make her committed to her job, and how the work can take a certain place, and I wanted her job to be very important to her, to have a central place.
Was that something you could relate to? Taking your job seriously, and excelling in your job? Could you relate on those terms?
Yes, absolutely. I really look for things that touch me, the fact of wanting to do things well, to do them right. To be rigorous at the job, and on an emotional level as well. It’s a bridge between the character and the film.
My first question was about your choices, and you’ve got to this stage in your career where you have the ability to choose your projects. I wanted to ask about what a luxury that is, because I guess when you first start a career, exposure is an aspect, you want to put your name and face out there. Do you remember when you reached the point where you felt like you had the freedom to choose?
It’s strange, but I have always chosen. Even when I began, I was very young and I remember I had a part offered to me in a series, and I read the script and I said to my parents, it’s not well-written so I turned it down. The casting director called me and she said I was crazy to refuse this big part in a series, but I couldn’t do it, I knew I wasn’t going to be right for this series. So I had this sense already, I preferred to choose not to make something I didn’t like. I always had the luck to shoot regularly, without an explosion, like a burst of fame from one film that made me famous all of a sudden. I worked very hard, and regularly, and for 20 years now. I am aware of this chance I have, and I am present, I have precision in the choices I have made, and I show patience as well.
Smoking Causes Coughing is out in cinemas now. November will be released later this year.
