Noémie Merlant: "For a long time I believed that you had to be perfect, which locked me in"

Discreetly, gently, silently.

Thus, Noémie Merlant has established herself in French cinema.

Despite her reserve at the time of hypercommunication and ultravisibility, the actress, Louis Vuitton muse, has been able to dig her furrow through hard work, high standards and audacity.

While many directors have made her shine over the past ten years (Jacques Audiard in

, Nathan Ambrosioni in

r, etc.), it was the directors who were the first to detect in her the romantic impulse, the modern breath and the strength of the game, hidden under an apparent fragility.

After

the director Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, her cinema mother, her “pygmalionne”, imagined her as a young girl engaged in jihad in

then a trans man in

Céline Sciamma offered her a springboard by choosing her to embody desire and lesbian love in

Going beyond borders, the aura of the film has made it noticed abroad.

The cult Todd Field has appointed her for a major challenge: giving the reply to the immense Cate Blanchett in

portrait of a despotic and brilliant conductor, Lydia Tár, suspected of having abused one of her "proteges" before being rejected by her milieu.

Noémie Merlant, the cover story

In images, in pictures

See the slideshow06 photos

See the slideshow06 photos

Tornado without filter

With the precision of a Stradivarius, the Frenchwoman plays the maestro's assistant, a young woman who dares not verbalize her ambitions, her frustrations and her anger.

A tailor-made role for the 30-year-old who, by her own admission, is often afraid of words.

“My character is trying to occupy the space, but she's very restrained.

I recognize myself in her”, explains the one who, however, has never let doubts guide her choices.

However, she had to do violence to play Louis Garrel's best friend in

An exceptional role, a tornado without filter and without complex which definitively freed her.

Only in part, if we are to believe his recurring excuses during the interview.

She doubts, fears not to be intelligible.

“I believed for a long time that it was necessary to be perfect, which locked me.

I am taking care of myself, but expressing myself outside the sets is not my favorite exercise.

In video, the Olympics

trailer

Read alsoLouis Garrel: "When my mother got married in prison, I was not allowed to attend"

My character is trying to occupy the space, but she's very restrained.

I recognize myself in her

Noemie Merlant

She prefers to defend her convictions through her roles (soon with André Téchiné) and her own achievements.

In

mon amour, her first film, she highlighted the Roma community, which is often discriminated against and caricatured.

Today, it is the caregivers she wants to show with a documentary about her mother, who accompanies her disabled father and her partly dependent sister on a daily basis.

Empathy is part of his background, his education, his DNA.

No doubt this is the key to his talent for incarnating the lives of others with such accuracy and humanity.

In video, the trailer of

Mi iubita

Cate Blanchett, the model

“Shooting alongside him in

is a dream come true.

To be at the forefront and witness her creative process, to see her enter the skin of such a complex character was an extraordinary opportunity.

A live

lesson !

I play an aspiring conductor who looks up to Lydia as an example to follow.

I saw an obvious parallel with me, Noémie, observing the great Cate.

I was very anxious, intimidated, panicked at the idea of ​​losing my English, but she put me at ease.

She is very focused but nonetheless human, attentive to her partners and the technical team.

A model of benevolence.

Right of way

“What overwhelmed me in the film was the complexity and ambiguity of the female characters, starting with Lydia Tár.

As a woman, she fought to find her place and keep it within the patriarchal world of conductors, but she lost in humanity, in empathy, in respect for others.

The film never says if she was really predatory, if she slipped up with her young "proteges", but choosing a female character to embody the idea of ​​control, tyranny and abuse is very audacious.

It's a way of putting gender at a distance to focus on perverting power dynamics.

Most violence today is perpetrated by men against women, but the

would the opposite happen if women were in power?

The film has the intelligence to ask these questions without providing a clear answer.

Most violence today is perpetrated by men against women, but would the reverse happen if women were in power?

Noemie Merlant

Abuse

“At 17, my first modeling experience was excruciating.

My agency sent me to the apartment of a listed photographer who showed me his photos to give me confidence, because he wanted me to pose naked.

At the end of the shot, without asking my opinion, he put his hands on my chest and in my mouth.

I was paralyzed.

Leaving his house, I immediately alerted my parents and my boyfriend, who ran home in a rage.

When he came back, he said to me: "We had a coffee, he's sorry."

My parents, scandalized, called the agency, which gave me a soap: I was making a fuss for nothing, all I had to do was refuse to pose naked... I ran into this man a lot afterwards and, though I never doubted he misbehaved,

I responded to his smile with a smile.

Deconstructing all the mechanisms rooted in us is a long process.

When I started in the cinema, I also had bad experiences.

I lacked confidence and it was also necessary to support this diffuse mental load linked to the influence of the masculine on the feminine.

A load that parasitizes everything.

How indeed to believe in its legitimacy when you think you have been chosen for the wrong reasons?

Awareness

“It was the encounters, the experience, the benevolence of people like Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar that helped me overcome the difficulties.

Later, turn

also opened my eyes: Céline Sciamma talked about sharing power and creating with respect for others.

This film changed my perception of the world and of the profession, and influenced my way of behaving in a patriarchal world.

MeToo was essential to the liberation of speech, but we do not change the functioning of predators and manipulators overnight.

I recently refused advances on a shoot and they made me pay for it.

I could no longer do my job as I wanted, giving the best of myself.

I would have liked to be able to say: “Stop or I break”, but I was blocked, in a state of amazement.

Very often, when I say things, I am not heard because I do it shyly, with an embarrassed smile.

As if my voice didn't come out loud enough.

Cancel culture

“

raises a question at the heart of the cultural debate: should the work of an artist whose ideas or behaviors not be in step with the times always be heard?

I have this conversation regularly with people in the business or with friends.

And if there are so many cries and anger on this issue, it is because there is obviously real suffering, injustices, privileges, a form of impunity.

Personally, the more I think about it, the more I say to myself that we must focus on today's artists, in tune with progress.

And, concerning the past, I prefer to discover female artists that I did not know.

Social networks

“They are part of the game but the power of the image is formidable.

She can condemn, as in

or on the contrary convey great virtues when it denounces, gives courage and hope, as in Iran.

Social networks have enabled invisible people to make their voices heard or movements to emerge, but they also force people to give an opinion in the moment, without taking the time to reflect.

It's dangerous.

I'm on social media because actors are asked to, for promotion purposes.

But it's also because I don't want to be disconnected from the world.

It's stressful, sometimes hurtful, so I don't share much because I'm afraid of not using the right words, of being misunderstood or of having misunderstood the other.

But we waited so long to be heard that I also try to use this speaking space when it seems relevant to me.

Social networks are part of the game but the power of the image is formidable

Noemie Merlant

Freedom

“

by Louis Garrel, such an intelligent comedy, changed the perception people had of me.

I did not trust myself at all in the cinema as in life.

I've always been afraid of overdoing it, of skidding, of hitting.

I had a few comic roles, in

by Laurent Tirard, for example, but in

I gained confidence.

And it reflects in my life.

We give of ourselves to our characters, but we also often keep a trace of them.

This role redrew a path that I no longer allowed myself to take, it revived a lighter color that I had put aside.

I added a bit of pink to my palette!”

We give of ourselves to our characters, but we also often keep a trace of them

Noemie Merlant

In video, the trailer for

The Innocent

Career

“It's like a call to the universe: by dint of thinking positively about issues of representation of women, nice roles happen to me!

The planets align.

There was also a before and after

which made it easier for me to identify abroad.

From the beginning, I tried to find an agent in the United States to broaden my horizons, but the machine accelerated after him.

Hollywood is not an end in itself, I am fulfilled by my roles in France, but it is a way of opening up to other cultures, other cinemas.

Hollywood is not an end in itself, I am fulfilled by my roles in France, but it is a way of opening up to other cultures, other cinemas

Noemie Merlant

idols

“I grew up with

which I saw about thirty times.

This is the film of my adolescence.

Kate Winslet is one of my idols and I recently had the chance to star with her in

a film about photographer Lee Miller.

It's a small role, that of Paul Éluard's wife, but I would have accepted an extra to work with her.

When we met, she took me in her arms, thanking me for being there.

And me, I stammered, unable to tell him my admiration.

I relaxed because she is a very funny woman, disconcertingly simple.

A great pro too, all the more invested in that she produced the film.

This film is a gift, because I also give the reply to Marion Cotillard, a woman and an artist who is just as admirable, deeply generous, altruistic, sincere.

Director

“When I started writing and directing, I didn't think politics, representation of the feminine.

I just wanted to tell my cries, my pains, my doubts.

But we quickly realize that the subject is universal.

I'm working on my second film,

the story of three friends in Marseille who observe their neighbor, the object of their fantasies.

A dystopian, comedic and bloody tale.

A genre film.

Violence or blood, this cathartic form allows me to free myself from certain things.

In the cinema, I don't hesitate to show myself to be radical, even if it means disturbing.

I want to be able to allow myself everything, in the same way as a man who realizes.

from Todd Field.

Released January 25.