For a long time, cinema saw her as a child woman. It must be said that Ludivine Sagnier started young, very young even. At the age of 6, she started acting and at 9, she made her first appearance in the cinema. But it was François Ozon who revealed it, in the early 2000s, in “Drops of water on burning stones” and, above all, “8 women” and “Swimming Pool”. It is also he who, today, reinvents her as an embittered and ungrateful mother in “When Autumn Comes”, in theaters from October 2, 2024, which marks their reunion.
You haven’t toured under the direction of François Ozon for twenty years. How have you changed?
When I met him, I was 19 years old. I was a young woman, even a young girl. He offered me very different roles which transformed me and conditioned my career in a rather favorable way. Twenty years have passed since then, but when I found myself on the set of “When Autumn Comes,” I had the impression that we had left each other the day before. Our complicity is always intact, in life as on a movie set. We know each other by heart.
And has he evolved?
I don’t think it’s that different. Maybe a little less worried because he has gained some confidence in himself. That doesn’t stop him from always being the same on set: impatient, playful, listening to the actors. Of all the directors I have met, he is the only one who is also a camera operator. It is therefore he who comes to collect our breath, our hesitations, our gaze. He’s the closest actor I’ve ever gotten to know.
You said: “At 30, it’s more fun to be an actress than at 20.” And at 40, what’s it like?
(Laughing.) It’s even better. Because I built a lot of things, had three children, accumulated life experience, a lot of emotions, matured and above all, aged in the right way. People always tell me that I look younger than my age. However, this characteristic is double-edged. Between 30 and 40, it was a bit complicated, I wasn’t given credit for playing 35-year-old women, because I still had this status of a child woman that stuck to me. Today, when I turned 40 (editor’s note: 45), my maturity is finally visible on my face.
“When Autumn Comes” talks a lot about the weight of the past. How do you not let yourself be parasitized?
I did five years of analysis, it taught me to step back and deconstruct. It helped me a lot, I recommend it. Valérie, my character in the film, she, is incapable of being happy, of forgiving her mother and of giving love to her child. It says that without forgiveness, there is no future.
What did you learn by observing Hélène Vincent and Josiane Balasko, your partners, who are more experienced than you?
I don’t have any footage with Josiane, unfortunately. But I met her on the set and she is a woman that I admire enormously for her personality, her culture, her generosity. As for Hélène, I was amazed to see that she no longer has anything to prove, so she lets her character pass through her, like a conductive material without any parasite. It’s a sobriety to which I aspire.
Would you like to still be an actress at her age, 81?
I hope so!
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