French actress Laure Calamy, who was awarded the César for best actress in 2021 for her role in Antoinette in the Cévennes, has become one of the most desired figures in French cinema. While the lively comedy full of fantasy Iris and men is broadcast on Canal+ this Tuesday, October 8, 2024 and that she will be showing in the series A devoted friend, available on Max from October 11, Number looks back at the seven craziest roles of his brilliant career.
Unlike the young firsts, the consecration of Laure Calamy in French cinema is particularly late. But the actress, who received the César for best actress for her role in Antoinette in the Cévennes (2020), is now on the rise. Laure Calamy49, is finally making films and winning awards.
A graduate of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art, she started in the theater then took on supporting roles in the cinema alongside Cécile of France, Edward Baer or even Virginie Efira. Revealed by the series Ten percent, in which she plays a secretary overcome with love for her boss, Laure Calamy embodies a femininity far from clichés.
The best roles of Laure Calamy, comedy star Iris and men and the series A devoted friend
Laure Calamy likes to play daring, emotional women who are often a bit cheeky, like her role in A woman from monde (2021). In Strasbourg, Marie is a middle-class prostitute. Independent and confident, she evolves in the world of pimping without pimps or support… Until she has to pay for her son’s prestigious school. A manifesto in favor of prostitution, this film follows a previous collaboration between the two women initiated in 2014 with The Counter-Alléeshort film awarded the César in 2016.
A year later, she played two of her best roles in Full Time (2022) et Annie Anger (2022) then she becomes the heroine of the lively and fantasy comedy, Iris and menin 2024, which talks about a married woman abandoned by her husband who rediscovers her libido thanks to a dating application.
While the film is broadcast on Canal+ this Tuesday October 8, 2024 and she will be starring in the brilliant series A devoted friendon Max, this Friday October 11, Number looks back at the craziest performances of his career.
1. Laure Calamy as a transfixed lover ready for anything in Antoinette in the Cévennes (2020)
Against all odds, Antoinette in the Cévennes (2020) met with unexpected success upon its release. Between two confinements, the French discovered a Laure Calamy as a schoolteacher in love with the father of one of her students. When the latter goes on vacation to the Cévennes with his wife and child, she decides to pursue him. With her straw hat and her donkey Patrick, who ends up becoming her confidant, Antoinette travels the mountain. At the bend of the hiking trails, the two lovers fall on each other.
It is then that an unusual epic begins. Tender, incredible, Antoinette is a true adventurer who doesn’t hide her game but doesn’t mince her words. Inspired by the character of Delphine in the film The Green Ray d’Eric Rohmer – the director’s favorite film – this lost character is above all in search of herself. Superb, Laure Calamy interprets with finesse the flaws of this luminous and endearing character, constantly on the edge of despair. Between laughter and tears, we inevitably become attached to this very unique Antoinette.
2. Laure Calamy as a clingy and intrusive mother in Ava (2017)
End of August. A 13-year-old teenager, Ava, spends the summer holidays on the Mediterranean coast with her mother Maud and her little sister. During a visit to the doctor, they learn that Ava is gradually losing her sight. While her daughter receives the news with coldness, Maud – played by Laure Calamy – is distraught. In this first feature film of Léa Mysiuswe find the actress in the role of a clingy mother who tries to get along with her desperately elusive 13-year-old daughter. Faced with her child who does as he pleases, Maud – very sexually free – takes refuge in denial by abandoning her daughter for a passing boyfriend.
Laure Calamy plays a stifling, immodest and selfish mother. She embodies the casual and carefree counterpart in the duo she forms with Noah Abita. Despite her role as an intrusive and overwhelming mother, her fine interpretation further highlights the performance of the young actress who was then taking her first steps on screen.
3. Laure Calamy as a shy assistant in love with her boss in Ten percent (2015-2020)
What would the series be? Ten percent without the incredible Noémie? Within the famous Parisian agency ASK, Noémie Leclerc is the assistant and lover of Matthias Barneville (Thibault de Montalembert) his boss. With her colleague Hervé (Nicolas Maury), she forms the essential duo of this series created by Fanny Herrero. In their company, scathing retorts and gossip are rife. Despite her floral blouses and pencil skirts that are sometimes a little tight, Noémie doesn’t hold her tongue in her pocket.
She has a series of sex jokes, nervous breakdowns, clumsiness… From pillow talk to work discussions, her half-passionate, half-professional relationship with Matthias is funny. Ingenuous and sassy, she ultimately brings a little joy of life into the dreary daily life of this married bourgeois and father of a family. When she is not arguing with her secret lover, this outstanding assistant is one of the pillars of the agency. With Laure Calamyyou should never trust appearances.
4. Laure Calamy as an eternal teenagerA world without women (2012)
Two Parisians – mother and daughter – come to spend the summer holidays by the sea, in the Somme. When they arrive, they are greeted by Sylvain (Vincent Macaigne), a shy and awkward thirty-something. With her scarlet manicured fingers, her mini-skirts and high heels, Patrizia (Laure Calamy) wreaks havoc around her. In turn, she is interested in Sylvain then in his friend, a gendarme with whom she has a fleeting affair. An eternal teenager, she gets drunk on holiday romances, flirts at all costs in nightclubs. Laure Calamy is iconic in this role. Claiming her freedom and her femininity above all, she has fun embodying these free, slightly lost women. As attractive as she is seductive, she embraces her role with passion and a touch of humor, which makes her irresistible.
5. Laure Calamy as an ultra-Catholic contender for a reality TV show in The Flame (2020)
Broadcast by Canal +, The Flame parodies reality TV shows whose goal is to find love, such as Burning Love in the United States or Prinkare and Princesses of Love In France. More funny: the television series brings together all of French cinema, from Celine Sallette has Ana Girardot. For nine weeks, in a dream villa, thirteen women compete for one and the same man: the charismatic Marc (Jonathan Cohen), an airline pilot in his forties. Laure Calamy, who appreciates improbable roles, is of course part of it. Made up as an ultra-Catholic and ultra-clichéd pretender, this florist is ready to exchange her love for Jesus for that of the adorable Mark. Lavallière collar, silk shirt… everything is there. Laura Calamy plays this offbeat and burlesque character with unsettling seriousness. A performance to die for.
6. The actress as a serial killer of drivers in Good driving (2023)
The pitch of Good driving (2023) is worthy of a film of Quentin Dupieux or of a yellow. The scenario ? “Pauline has her own method for road safety: a trainer in a points recovery center by day, she transforms into a serial killer of drivers by night.” Behind the camera of Jonathan Barré (Tonight it’s Palmashow), Laure Calamy jubilantly embodies a serial killer – disguised as a trainer/psychologist who is good in all respects) who wants to avenge the memory of her companion, mowed down by a driver, by eliminating the drivers responsible for fatal accidents.
7. A lovers’ eater in Iris and men (2024)
At the start of the year, Laure Calamy found the director of‘Antoinette in the Cévennes in another zany comedy about sex and love: Iris and men. She plays a married dentist and mother of two daughters who, after noticing that she no longer made love to her husband, decides to take a lover. Or rather, lovers. Registered on a dating app, Iris goes on dates and one-night stands with colorful male specimens. Irresistible, unbridled, free and jovial, Laure Calamy makes you smile as much as she moves you. And even tries his hand at musical comedy in an anthology sequence!
Iris and the Men (2024) by Caroline Vignal, with Laure Calamy and Vincent Elbaz, broadcast on Canal+ on October 8, 2024. A devoted friend (2024) by Jean-Baptiste Delafon and Fanny Burdino, with Laure Calamy and Arieh Worthalter, available on Max on October 11, 2024.
