And God…created Julia de Nunez.
Her name is still unknown to the public, but her sulky pout, her sunny blondness and her deep gaze recall one of the most famous faces in the world, that of Brigitte Bardot.
For her physical resemblance, but not only, the 22-year-old actress was chosen to play the icon in
Bardot
, the France 2 event miniseries, signed by Danièle Thompson and her son, Christopher.
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The directors remember that, among the dozens of actresses who auditioned for the role, Julia stood out immediately: grace, photogeny, freedom and acting instinct. A nature.
“To embody Brigitte Bardot, from her 15 to her 26 years, we were looking for an actress capable of illustrating her evolution, that is to say a cute teenager suddenly turning into a femme fatale of a new kind”, notes the filmmaker.
Full screen
Julia de Nunez as Milla Jovovich in
The Fifth Element
by Luc Besson.
Photos Thiemo Sander / Direction Julie Gillet
The game is part of his life
Born in 2000 to an Argentinian father and a French mother, Julia de Nunez grew up in Paris and led a life to the rhythm of her father's 1001 professions.
The game has always been part of his life.
As a child, she put on shows with her cousin;
as a teenager, she invented characters with friends and hosted an amateur radio station.
But it was after her baccalaureate and a disappointing year in letters that she decided to embark on theater and cinema for good.
His reference films?
Those of Jacques Demy and especially the Doinel collection of François Truffaut.
The Four Hundred Blows, Stolen Kisses, Marital Home and Love on the Run
are must-sees, which she watches at least once a year.
Full screen
Julia in Jean Seberg.
Photos Thiemo Sander / Direction Julie Gillet
About his young actress, Christopher Thompson points out: "There can be something overwhelming about the idea of interpreting a real, living and mythical character like Bardot, but Julia always seemed not to be worry about it.
She simply agreed to play a free young woman, in love, but hunted.
It was while playing that she escaped from the model.
Convinced to respond to a casting for a student short film, Julia, then a student at the Périmony theater school in Paris, says that she passed her first tests – and the first casting of her life!
– without pressure.
By making Bardot's emotions exist, they became sincere
Julia de Nunez
It was only later that she realized the magnitude of the role and the project.
From Bardot, Julia knew the emblematic films, but her gaze remained that of the general public.
And it was only by discovering the scenario of the series that she entered into the intimacy of the sex symbol.
As her intention and that of the directors was not to imitate Brigitte Bardot but to seek a true incarnation, she quickly stopped delving into the archives and preferred to slip into her skin through body work.
She took classical dance lessons (Bardot was a trained dancer), but also mambo and flamenco.
The charm very quickly operated on the set, and Julia admits having let herself be invaded by the dramas of BB "I invested myself a lot in this adventure,
and there came a time when I couldn't take a step back.
By making Bardot's emotions exist, they became sincere,” she recalls.
Full screen
Julia as Delphine Seyrig.
Photos Thiemo Sander / Direction Julie Gillet
“This role has put order in my life”
Curiously, she confides that it was not difficult to detach herself from her character.
Brigitte Bardot left her without warning during one of the last scenes shot with Victor Belmondo (who plays Roger Vadim).
Since then, Julia de Nunez has gotten rid of the BB tics that she had accumulated in spite of herself and cut her hair square to get away from it radically.
She analyzes today that playing Bardot, a complex, unstable and hypersensitive woman, who reasoned with her own personality, allowed her to take a step back: "It's weird, but this role has put some order in my life. .
Its instability led me to collect my ideas a little.
It's as if I had followed a kind of analysis that feels good.
Full screen
Julia as Uma Thurman in
Quentin Tarantino's
Pulp Fiction .
Photos Thiemo Sander / Direction Julie Gillet
Head on shoulders, the young woman now wants to continue her theatrical training.
She doesn't know yet if she will miss the camera, but she intends to take her time.
Notoriety does not frighten him more than that: “I have the impression that we live in a time when fame is chosen.
Any stranger can be known, even if he has no job in sight.
And when I think of discreet actresses, like Catherine Deneuve, I find this mystery elegant.
Not seizing the interest of revealing her life to the general public, she kept her Instagram account locked.
A discretion that can evoke that of the recluse icon at La Madrague since the beginning of the 1970s… One last question: did Julia de Nunez meet Brigitte Bardot?
"I know that
to assure her of her confidence, while noticing that all of this was far from her.
Out of elegance and because I think I'll regret it if I don't, I'm considering writing to thank her."
Bardot
, by Danièle and Christopher Thompson, with Julia de Nunez, Victor Belmondo, Géraldine Pailhas, Hippolyte Girardot, Yvan Attal, Anne Le Ny, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing… Soon on France 2.
