This February 28, 2020, even before Adèle Haenel flees the Pleyel room in her midnight blue dress, all eyes are on her.
The controversy that she arouses that evening by leaving the Caesars after the prize awarded to Roman Polanski, accused of rape, comes after another earthquake: her own speech, a few weeks earlier, concerning a case of sexual harassment aimed at the filmmaker Christophe Ruggia, with whom she filmed as a teenager.
Already the holder of two Césars, the young woman, 32 years old this year, is also named for the fifth time at the ceremony.
Since her debut at the age of 12, Adèle Haenel has gone from being gifted to that of muse, then a sure bet in auteur cinema.
The actress then just shone at the Cannes Film Festival with three films, including the incandescent “Portrait of the young girl on fire”.
In this month of February 2020, the actress of “Naissances des pieuvres”, “Les Combattants”, “120 beats per minute” or “In freedom!
»Has even signed with an American agency which counts as foals Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio or Beyoncé ...
A piece of theater at a standstill
Today, however, while, according to our information, new auditions should soon take place in the investigation of Christophe Ruggia, the actress has still not found the sets.
In November, she declared to the "Financial Times" that she had no film project: "It is not a career choice, it is a choice of life", assured the one who did not respond to our request. 'interview.
VIDEO. Césars 2020: "Adèle Haenel did well to leave the room"
In recent months, at the Théâtre National de Bretagne and at the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, Adèle Haenel has rehearsed "L'Étang", a dreamlike play in which she plays, in front of an actress and fifteen dolls, a beaten young boy who simulates suicide.
Scheduled for 2019, this show was postponed following the death of Adèle's initial partner, struck down by an illness, then because of the closing of the theaters.
It should be played when the theaters reopen.
Adèle Haenel has therefore not given up on her profession, but has not toured since the end of 2018. She reserves her public appearances for activist acts or speeches.
In March, then in June, she walked the streets of Paris during Women's Rights Day, then to denounce police violence alongside the Committee for Adama Traoré.
Activist on all fronts
Even on the occasion of the release of the drama "Heroes never die" at the end of September, the actress made political remarks on France Inter, qualifying as "very, very problematic" the appointment as Minister of the Interior of Gérald Darmanin , accused of rape.
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Did Adèle Haenel voluntarily put cinema on hold in order to campaign?
Or are they offered fewer films than before?
This second hypothesis, the interested party herself imagined when accusing Ruggia: "If this has to stick to my skin all my life, if my film career has to end after that, so be it. », She exclaimed.
About her activism, "awakened" since she denounced the abuses of which she would have been the victim, she assured in "Liberation": "I do not know what will be the consequences on my work.
What is certain is that I will never regret it.
"
PODCAST. Polanski, the Caesars, and the "great family of French cinema": the story of a fracture
“After Adele's political positions, a natural selection was perhaps made among the filmmakers, analyzes Aïssa Maïga.
For having spoken about it with her, it is something that she assumes with a lot of freshness.
"The actress however advances the argument of the health context to explain the" withdrawal "of Adèle Haenel:" Many shootings have been postponed.
This certainly also plays a role for Adèle, who is also a very selective actress ”.
"By becoming iconic, Adèle can unconsciously intimidate certain filmmakers"
Director of "En Liberté!"
", Pierre Salvadori thinks that" by becoming iconic, Adèle can unconsciously intimidate certain filmmakers, make them fear that what she embodies interferes with their character, parasitizes the project ".
But the filmmaker judges these absurd and provisional reservations: “When you hire a star, it's also to play with her image, either to upset her or to amplify it.
And all this will not last: one role will be enough for the actress and the figure to live together again.
"
Adèle Haenel boycotted by the film industry?
Manager of Sofica, which finances the production of feature films, Hugues de Chastellux does not believe it either: “Many actresses take public positions, that does not prevent them from making magnificent careers.
Look at Marion Cotillard!
"
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Director of "120 battements ...", Robin Campillo would offer "without hesitation" a new role to Adèle Haenel: "She has an incredible palette, a shimmering game.
He is an exceptional personality in the cinema ”.
Pierre Salvadori, he even wrote while thinking of Adèle Haenel the story of a young girl who makes a widower painter believe that she can put him in touch with his deceased wife.
“We haven't spoken for a while, but I would be super happy to work with Adèle again because she's a great actress,” he says.
She could be there at the next Caesars, this Friday
During a debate on “the new anti-racist transfeminist wave” at the Center Pompidou in October, Adèle Haenel offered some leads.
She slipped that she would be "very interested" in the idea of creating a theater school where the actor would be "absolutely able to know if what he is doing is right" without anyone exerting "violence" on it. him.
She also mentioned "the political issue of representations in the cinema": the one who had already reworked her character in "Le Daim" to make him more feminist could therefore link her choice of films even more to her fights ...
Also involved, Aïssa Maïga knows this “gymnastics” well, she who has always considered scenarios “through a reading grid that corresponds to (her) values.
While she "hopes" to see her friend soon in a film, Robin Campillo does not imagine Adèle Haenel giving up the cinema.
Pierre Salvadori either, he who saw the actress "happy to do her job" to the point of "dancing to go on the set".
In the meantime, the next Caesars are Friday.
And it is rumored that she could be there ...