Sophie Marceau talks about her discomfort at the idea of exposing her body

If we know Sophie Marceau the actress, we know her less author. And yet, she has just published a collection of short stories and poems called La Souterraine, published by Seghers. In full promotion of the book, she was received on the set of the morning of France Inter where she confides that writing "is a face-to-face with oneself" and that it is not "playing the role of others". Léa Salamé questioned her about her relationship with the body and being exposed to cinema. Indeed, as the journalist notes, the artist gives a great place in his book to the female body: "The body is very present. (...) You also talk about the difficulty of showing the bodies. You say, 'I didn't like my body.'"

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This offers the actress the opportunity to return to her difficulty in exposing her body on screen. And on how the actress Marie Laforêt, on the set of Joyeuses Pâques (Georges Lautner, 1984), taught her to undress in the cinema - "you have to start from above" - "She was very intelligent, she knew the camera better than me at the time, because she had a little more experience. And frankly, she saved my life that day. Mary was beautiful, beautiful and I was happy to be able to observe her. But hey I felt like a little girl. She had an assumed femininity that I did not yet have since I had not learned what it was to be a woman. »

In pictures, a look back at Sophie Marceau's appearances at the Cannes Film Festival

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In pictures

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View slideshow31 photos

Then, Léa Salamé also evokes the passages where she writes on the chest. "There is very sensual news, you talk about women's breasts." A sensitive subject for Sophie Marceau since in 1997, she did not hide her anger when Julien Clerc took the liberty of talking about her breasts in one of his songs. "Must rounds, need curves, chestnut merchants, rue Lecourbe. We need balloons, hoops and Sophie Marceau's breasts." In May 1998, she confided to Elle magazine: "I was excruciatingly embarrassed by this record. When I received it at home, I hid it. I was afraid that my entourage would fall on it. I was bad, as if I had done something stupid. As if I was showing my breasts on the radio. Breasts are intimate, erotic, sexual. I felt undressed." While the singer had said "found it cute" on television. Two years later, it was Alain Souchon's turn to quote them in his piece Au ras des pâquerettes.

A feeling of being stripped naked that the actress must have felt more than ever during her dress incident on the red carpet of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes. Indeed, Sophie Marceau had then unveiled a breast while her strap had slipped from her shoulder. An incident that she had, however, taken with a smile, at the time. She had also returned to this episode in Cannes in the columns of the Journal du Dimanche in 2021: "It lasted only a quarter of a second, fortunately. It was an accident, that's what makes things emotional. But it happens every day in the world."

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