When told that her character, Sylvie Grateau, has eclipsed that of the heroine in the series Emily In Paris, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu has this elegant answer: "Sylvie does not exist without Emily, and vice versa. They are two characters who balance each other, evolve in contact with each other." Still, the 60-year-old French actress has gained international fame by interpreting this vacharde but sensitive communication agency manager. The role (after that of a neglected but dignified wife in Dix pour cent) gave Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu's career an unexpected second wind. On May 23, she was the guest of a talk Women In Motion, Kering, an initiative to promote and defend women in the film industry.
To discover
- Join La Fabrique Littéraire Madame Figaro, between writing workshops and exclusive meetings with prestigious writers
Building your own path
Born to an actor father and a mother working in fashion, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu had to find her place very early in the middle of these two "strong personalities". Her first role came in Roger Vadim's Surprise Party in 1983. But here too, instinctively feels that she must build her own path: "After this film, I understood that it was not necessary to remain in a position of "small sexual object". My meeting with Coline Serreau, the director of Trois hommes et un couffin, a feminist and demanding woman, was decisive." Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu nevertheless remembers the castings of the 80s, where actresses were asked a little too often to undress: "I refused. Just say no. And not to believe that our career will end if we say no."
In video, the guests of the Kering dinner on May 21, 2023 at the Cannes Film Festival
Healthy break
Her participation in Trois hommes et un couffin, a popular success of 1985, launched her career: "It was a very modern female character, she went to the castings by hiding her stroller under a staircase," she says. "I loved the idea of playing an unworthy mother." Which it will not be. In the 90s, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu moved away from film sets: "It was part of my freedom: you also have to live things. I fully experienced my motherhood, I went to Brazil... I wanted to give my child something other than my neuroses." Today, she refuses to talk about crossing the desert, but "crossing an inner forest": "It allows you to know yourself, to meet your demons and to know how to keep them on a leash." Doubts and flaws whose depths she will put at the service of the character who will make her enter the light again.
" READ ALSO "Do not do too many things to your face": the advice of Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu to women who are getting older
Feminine singular
When Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu passed the casting of Emily In Paris in front of its creator, Darren Star (Sex and the city, Melrose Place), she immediately had the feeling of "knowing" Sylvie Grateau: "Darren has a crazy talent for writing female characters. I had observed them in the fashion world, where my mother worked. Powerful, self-confident and vulnerable." Traits that she shares with Emily's boss, who also brought her a lot: "Sylvie Grateau's character allowed me to learn to channel my fear, not to turn it into anger."
Powerful, rebellious, desirable and desired: Sylvie Grateau was originally designed to be 35 years old. Thanks to a wise casting director, who proposed to Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu to pass tests, the character has imposed a new face in the world of current fiction. The actress emphasizes that she is not the only one: "I predict that soon, wrinkles will be a thing of total sex appeal. In this movement that shines a light on 60-year-old women, to which Michelle Yeoh also belongs, I am not an exception, I am part of a wave." She also stresses that Sylvie Grateau's attitude, "which supports above all the feminine", reflects her conception of current feminism: "It is a question of a rebalancing between the masculine and the feminine. We will accompany each other, not step on each other. It's a feminism of reconciliation."
" READ ALSO "OK, you do not have the role, you are too old": Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu tells how she almost never played in Emily in Paris
While waiting to shoot the next season of Emily In Paris, whose production is at a standstill due to the writers' strike in the United States (which the actress, and the entire team of the series, support), Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu intends to deploy her game in other territories, literally and figuratively: "In France, I am labeled "Emily In Paris". I hope the directors will have more imagination than that. Because the important thing for an actor is to speak several languages." The message got through.