“I find it hard to understand this fascination with police investigations”

“The less prepared I am, the more I will take hits and the role will leave its mark.”

Playing a policewoman is familiar to you…
Yes, and I was a little tired of this kind of role. I have trouble understanding this fascination with investigations in France. In “L’Éclipse”, this policewoman grew up in the countryside, she knows the people who live in her area very well… It has nothing to do with the extremely bureaucratic world of Parisian cops and, for once, she didn’t have a dramatic personal trajectory. I found that interesting.

Your character has two children, one of whom a teenager, like you (Claire Keim and Bixente Lizarazu are parents of Uhaina, 16 years old, Editor’s note). Did you draw things from your personal life?
Not at all. I forbid myself to do so for my health. Unfortunately it is sometimes irrepressible, I have played things that were so traumatic that it was impossible not to project them into my life. I now try to compartmentalize the spaces. When I startedI was panicked at the thought of the emotional scenes I had to perform. I searched my life, I turned my heart upside down and I turned my head to access what I considered to be sincerity in the scene. It took me years to progress and finally be moved by the reality of my character. Experience protected me. The more I work upstream, the less I hurt myself on set. The less prepared I am, the more I will take hits and it will leave marks.

Are there any roles that have left their mark on you?
There are roles that still live a little with me. For example, the one in “La soif de vivre”, a TV movie about alcoholism, really affected me. I loved it but I wasn’t yet in a process of protection. I left little bits of myself. There are also characters that are still in me, with pleasure.

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“I hid my name from all the news”

Your character’s children and Anne Charrier’s are on the front lines surrounding the disappearance of young Nour. How far would you be willing to go to protect your children?
You really want me to talk about my real kids? I want to leave them alone. […] I can’t stand having mini-sentences taken out of context anymore. You’re going to write something but it’s going to be picked up by 67 newspapers who are going to make headlines like “I’d do anything to defend my daughter”. It’s not possible. I’ve hidden my name from all the news. I can’t stand rereading articles about me anymore, it makes me sad. It’s not possible that people read them and think that I said that. I don’t talk about anything that touches on my life anymore. So, we talk lukewarm because we know that as soon as we say something interesting, unfortunately it will be taken out of context. I would like to answer you by giving you lots of precise details but I can’t because my words will be distorted.

There are a lot of young actors in the cast. How did the filming go?
They found incredible people. I totally fell in love with them. It’s super exciting to see great young actors starting out. Even if it’s not our fault, we still feel like we’re there, that we’re witnessing something.

“I can’t help but binge-watch. You can’t make me wait a week.”

Do you watch a lot of series? Do you have a favorite?
I spend my life watching series. I waste years of my life watching seasons and seasons. I watch everything! Tell me a series you liked, we’ll see if I haven’t seen it.

If I say to you “The Fever”
I loved it! It made me feel good when it happened. I needed to hear that we are aware of what is happening. As for French series, I loved “D’Argent et de sang”, but also “Sambre” and “Les Sauvages”. I can’t help but binge-watch. They can’t make me wait a week. It’s impossible! I don’t sleep much. I started watching series around the time of “Six Feet Under”, the first one I put in my Pantheon. I also watch a lot of documentaries. The France Télévisions and Arte platforms are my friends.

“I don’t dare talk about ecology anymore”

You are very committed to the environmental cause…
I was…

Where are you at?
Twenty years ago, in an interview, I raised awareness about the threat to biodiversity in the Morvan. After that, I was asked to be a patron of the Hulot Foundation and I accepted. Today, I am very angry. I feel like I participated in a smokescreen operation against my will. We know very well what needs to be done to reverse the trend. We have the keys, the means and the skills. These are political decisions! If they are not taken, it is political! I am angry because I participated in this kind of green washing saying “turn off the water while brushing your teeth, recycle your rubbish, don’t take planes, don’t do this…” I participated in this operation to make people feel guilty. I believed it when I did it, because I myself told myself that I could improve. I have changed things in my life, and so have most of the people I know. We can clearly see that this is not enough. It is useless if in the end we are not able to protect marine areas; if taking the train remains more expensive than the plane, if we are not able to put real taxes on polluters… I don’t dare talk about ecology anymore because, for me, I’m participating in a smokescreen business. I don’t want to do that anymore! Today, I tell myself that my words have only served to save time for the people who exploit the planet, for those who pretend.

What if we offered you a political role on the subject?
Today it doesn’t seem possible to me, especially to join a party. On the other hand, I realize that many things I do in my life are political. When I do mini-actions locally to try to improve things, it’s politics.

Isn’t there still a little touch of optimism?
Our only way out is optimism. It’s a disaster but there is still a lot of hope. We hear the trees falling but not the forest growing. I know plenty of people who create ways to clean up and reduce our impact. My pessimism makes no sense, it is destructive, vain, useless and serves no purpose. What inspires me are optimistic people. I see great figures in Ecology who say “we’ll get through this, there are solutions”. Man has fabulous capacities to reinvent himself. The only wisdom is optimism.