Olivia Colman: "I was a cleaning lady and a secretary, I look back on this past with tenderness"

Interviewing Olivia Colman is earned.

Exercise does not fascinate her, and those around her, aware of her reluctance, impose their share of demands.

Also, when the hour of the interview rings, by interposed screen, an apprehension arises, increased tenfold by the postponements of the appointment and the wait.

But the fears fly away when finally appears the broad smile of the actress, delighted to defend

of Sam Mendes.

At 49, imperial, the English actress plays a cinema manager who struggles with her schizophrenic disorders and gets closer to a young black colleague in an English coastal town.

A strong and complex role, which, implicitly, also evokes racism in England in the 1980s.

In video,

Empire of Light

by Sam Mendes, the trailer

The choices of the actress are not those of commitment or politics, but above all a matter of emotions.

Olivia Colman says she does not intellectualize the roles, and also apologizes for not always knowing how to talk about it.

This is not entirely true.

And she compensates with a very British courtesy, coupled with a rare humility.

She is one of those actresses without

, aware of the privilege she has of exercising a profession that she cherishes solely for the love of acting, without narcissism.

No doubt this is the prerogative of courses placed under the sign of patience and perseverance.

The Englishwoman from Dorset started more than twenty years ago, but the first years were difficult, between figuration, third roles and odd jobs to make ends meet.

In 2011,

in which she played a battered woman, offered her a success of esteem in her native country, and allowed her to land, two years later, her first key role in the detective series

.

She never stopped working (

,

…), but struggles to be identified.

We will have to wait until 2019 and two sovereign roles to reshuffle the cards.

That year, she won the Oscar for best actress, the interpretation prize at the Venice Film Festival, a Bafta and a Golden Globe for her incarnation of the capricious Queen Anne of England in The Favorite

Then she takes over from Claire Foy in

on Netflix, as iconic Queen Elizabeth II.

The discreet took revenge.

Projects are flowing.

Daughter of an Anthony Hopkins with Alzheimer's in Florian Zeller's

, again nominated for an Oscar last year for

, we will see her in the Marvel series

and the film

, opposite Timothée Chalamet.

Despite the success, she assures her: her life is the same, with a writer husband and three children aged 18, 16 and 8.

She always flees social events, fame, the press.

One thing, however, has indeed changed: no one is unaware of his name anymore.

Miss Figaro.

– How challenging was

 ?

It was a huge, exciting and nerve-wracking challenge.

I have never experienced any psychological problems, apart from the torments of adolescence, this latent blues that we all know more or less when we are under construction.

So I could only rely on my empathy and my imagination to play Hilary, and on Sam Mendes, who accompanied me all the way: the woman I play was partly inspired by her mother, who raised alone as she struggled daily with bipolar and schizophrenic disorders.

Sam was my benchmark and my first source: he had annotated the screenplay with information links on these diseases or on the 1980s, even going so far as to send me images of the types of candy then sold in cinemas.

Today, films fit in our pocket, but nothing will ever replace the memories that the cinema experience provides.

Olivia Colman

The film features a romance between a middle-aged white woman and a young black man.

Is it important for you to move the lines through the characters you play?

I'd love to tell you that's the case, but to be honest, I don't choose my roles that way.

I have no plan, no method, no political vision.

I walk from the heart.

I had even accepted the role before reading the screenplay, simply because I wanted to work with Sam Mendes.

That said, of course, the scenarios frozen in archaic representations do not interest me.

And there are.

Inequalities persist, if we are to believe the statistics: while they represent 50% of the population of this planet, women are still underrepresented in our fictions,

In the film, the cinema is an escape, a cocoon.

What power has he had over your life?

Sam Mendes tells here what he lived: the cinema was a lifesaver in a troubled daily life with his mother.

Me, I had the chance to grow up in a loving family: we went out in the dark and the cold to go and curl up in the warm enclosure of a cinema.

I loved hearing my loved ones laugh and cry on the same stages as me, feeling connected to the public… It's an incomparable feeling, even when it's shared with strangers.

Today, films fit in our pocket, but nothing will ever replace the memories that the cinema experience provides.

Besides, for my children, going to the cinema with the family is a party.

Which films have left an indelible mark on you?

In my youth, I discovered French cinema, and I have very strong memories of

and

whose story and actors had marked me.

As a drama student, I was also moved by

, to the point that I don't think I can see it again today.

I wanted to be Emily Watson, the actress in the movie.

Was it this love of cinemas that made you want to do this job?

No way.

I didn't even know I could allow myself to dream of being an actress until I starred in a play in high school at 16.

I was not a good student, and there, I finally found something that opened out to me and in which I was not too bad.

Being on stage, on the boards, do you miss it?

Not for the moment.

It is difficult, demanding.

Maybe I'll be more ready when my kids leave the nest.

For now, I don't want to sacrifice the time spent with them.

“Cinema is a window on the world”

Do you think cinema can change mentalities?

Deeply.

When I discovered

in which Susan Sarandon plays a sister who accompanies a prisoner sentenced to death, I wondered for the first time about the death penalty, which, in Great Britain, is no longer in force. since the end of the 1960s. The film opened my eyes to what could happen in other Western countries, with which we think we share so much.

The cinema is a window on the world which often brings down the blinders, and makes it possible to understand that one cannot judge what one does not know.

He contributed enormously to my thinking.

Did you learn from each role you took on?

Before shooting

, a film about domestic violence, I sometimes made sweeping judgments about battered women.

I was like, “Why are they staying with this guy?

That does not make any sense."

I will never say that again.

Unless confronted directly, no one can understand the level of terror and threat hanging over these victims.

“No one is going to give you the life you want.

It's up to you to build it."

Do you believe in this replica of

It is sometimes essential to be pushed into a corner.

Nobody fought for me when I started, and looking back, I don't regret it.

My parents wanted me to be happy and supported me, but they also feared that I would break my teeth over this acting dream.

I struggled for quite a few years.

Instead of discouraging me, it increased my desire tenfold, reinforced my tenacity.

To fill the fridge, I was a cleaning lady and a secretary – I was atrociously useless, by the way – but I look back on this past with fondness.

I know today that I am doing this job for the right reasons.

For love of the game. I do

Read alsoOlivia Colman's surprising anecdote about Prince William

Do you still have the feeling that you have to fight today?

I'm at a comfortable point in my career, but I'm not representative of actresses over or under 50.

I am one of a handful of actresses who work, and I do not live in ignorance of what many of my colleagues are going through who are considered "outdated" or uninteresting.

Things are changing, but let's not be complacent: this environment is no more exemplary than any other.

Empire of Light

by Sam Mendes.

Released March 1.