Carefree and laughing behind her auburn bob framing a face the color of hawthorn and the light eyes of a Siamese cat, Fleur Geffrier inevitably recalls the face of Emma Stone, from the
Crazy, Stupid, Love
era .
Unless it evokes the false candor of Julianne Moore in
Short Cuts
or the mineral coldness of Jessica Chastain in
Ava
.
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This timeless, available beauty allows actress Fleur Geffrier to play with the whole range of feelings.
She takes off the hood of her hoodie, slowly removes her LA cap, sits between the photo of Arletty and that of Louis Jouvet, and enjoys a little black while listening to a languorous lament by Miles Davis at the bar of the Hôtel du North, immortalized by Marcel Carné and his film of the same name.
Is it a coincidence to find yourself there or by design?
“It’s probably my unconscious talking.
Since I discovered while rehearsing a text by Pagnol at school, at the age of 10, that you could become someone else by acting, I ardently wanted to become an actress.
At the time, it was a fantasy.
» A fantasy fueled by his parents' cinephile.
“At home, we watched a lot of films as a family.
My father loved Star Wars,
Indiana Jones
,
Jurassic Park
, but also
Les Barbouzes
and
Les Tontons flingueurs
.
My mother introduced me to Monty Python, and I had a weakness for
Jour de fête,
by Jacques Tati, which I watched over and over in my room in Rabastens, the small village in Tarn where we lived.
Fleur Geffrier: the beauty of the game
In images, in pictures
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See the slideshow10 photos
Hunger for theater
His father is a chef for private clients, including the Countess of Ribes, whom he follows everywhere on his travels.
“It made me dream of receiving postcards from New York, Gstaad or Houston.”
In Rabastens, Fleur Geffrier is a little bored.
“The endless countryside and sky were wonderful, but in the long run this immensity became a little distressing.
I wanted the city, the theater, the cinema, the entertainment..." After her baccalaureate, she went to Nice to study art history for three years, then spent a year in Lyon where she tried her hand at directing at L'Etoile royale, a small fifteen-seat theater, while working at McDonald's to pay his rent.
“I wanted some.
I was 22 years old, and I told myself that we had to get down to business.”
Direction Paris.
First, the Vitry-sur-Seine conservatory, “where the students were hungry for theater.”
At the same time, she prepared to enter the Cours Florent, where she was accepted after presenting a monologue from
L'Été Murderer
.
“I was then 25 years old.
I was received.
I felt dubbed by the institution.
I finally felt legitimate.
I was told yes.”
The training is demanding.
“Learn texts, think about scenography, costumes, lighting.
Our teacher, Jean-Pierre Garnier, asked us to come with suggestions for staging.
When I delivered Hamlet's famous soliloquy
, To be or not to be
, I began by sadly singing
Happy Birthday
while lighting the candles before sticking my head in the cake.
It was my way of telling Hamlet's tragic relationship with time.
We weren't afraid of anything.
We dared everything.
We were asked to be bold and not to doubt.”
This is how she builds a shell to face what she calls her entry into real life: looking for castings, preparing for them, taking them, waiting for a response, considering a refusal.
“It can be overwhelming.
You have to learn not to question yourself, to let go, to take the exercise in stride.”
She began with television series, obtained her first major role in the cinema in
My Angel,
by Harry Cleven, then in
I am Karl,
by Christian Schwochow, which describes the rise of extremes among European youth.
And then, one day, bingo, she received the script for the series
Les Gouttes de Dieu,
an Apple TV+, Hulu Japan and France Télévisions co-production.
“I experienced it as a miracle.
The more I read the script, the more I told myself that the role of Camille was for me.
At that time, I was filming in Bayonne, and my friend at the time had me rehearse my scenes over the phone.
I can never thank him enough.”
A Franco-Japanese duo
The first contact with director Oded Ruskin was via Zoom.
Two days later, he asked her to come to Paris for another interview, and called her the next day to tell her she had the role.
The Drops of God
is a series very freely adapted from a manga of 44 volumes.
Fleur Geffrier plays the role of the daughter of a French oenologist, opposite Japanese star actor Tomohisa Yamashita.
“With me being unknown to the public and him being a Japanese superstar, this duo had a good average,” she comments.
The role earned her a nomination for Éclats, a prize which rewards the revelations of the year at the Séries Mania Festival.
At Cours Florent, I was afraid of nothing, I dared everything
Fleur Geffrier
In the months to come, Fleur Geffrier will continue to deploy her talent in series, and establish herself as one of the faces that counts.
She is expected in
The Spies of Terror
(soon on M6), a series with Rachida Brakni and Vincent Elbaz which returns to the hunt for the sponsors of the attacks of November 13, 2015. She has just finished the very physical filming of the series
Rivages
, directed by David Hourrègue (for France 2), in which she plays an oceanologist.
“I had to get my diving experience and my boat license.
We were in the water all the time.
It was exhausting but exhilarating.”
When she is not filming, Fleur Geffrier does climbing and yoga, and celebrates these hollow moments which leave her open to the world and free to think about the continuation of her career, which she would like to be international.
“With Apple TV, which broadcasts The Drops of God
throughout the world
, I have taken a step forward, right?”