Already in your childhood, you were confronted with a “different” world.
“My parents, I mean my mother and my stepfather, were quite pioneers in Belgium: they launched a center in which they received philosophers, authors, shamans, leaders in the spiritual field, people They came to talk to the house and often stayed to sleep. My brother and I were accustomed to listening to these personalities: an alchemist explained his life to us, a swami told us how he had lived in the forest. several months… The menu, which seems ordinary today, was special: we ate sprouted seeds. We were very happy.”
Actress, you chose as your artistic name that of your mother, née Cleenewerck de Crayencour.
“My mother is the great-niece of Marguerite Yourcenar. At school, all the teachers knew this relationship: the French teachers expected a lot from me in the editorial offices and… they were often disappointed. The great author is is her, I don’t have the writing genes. Well, I believed that until I wrote this book, “The Golden Butterfly”. But I will obviously never compare myself to her.”
Jérémy Ferrari, Baptiste Lacaplin and Arnaud Tsamere, soon in Belgium for a hilarious trio: “Jérémy is the most stressed of the three” (VIDEO)
There is still a connection…
I write from the heart. To be honest, I’m not an intellectual. I read his books, probably a little too young to fully understand them: “The Memoirs of Hadrian” or “The Black Work”, for example. I was touched because it evokes the alchemy between two beings, a concept that speaks to me a lot. I like when she talks about freedom, about truth: it makes me think of my brother. Marguerite Yourcenar also addressed ecology a lot before the word even existed. She is, in my genealogy, an inspiring figure.
Death was already present in your life.
“I always had a great drive for life. I was very optimistic, I made a lot of noise, I tried to attract attention. My brother was more interior and asked himself, at a very young age, a lot of questions. I probably gave the impression of someone very light, but I still had this terror of death within me. I looked at people and said to myself: “Do they know that they are all going to die?” wasn’t good at school, my brother wasn’t more He had major problems with dyslexia I am not here to question the current schooling model, but I find that we ask a lot of children to be within the standards and that we often do not. take into account their differences. It’s dangerous, because they spend a lot of time at school. My brother lost confidence in himself because he functioned in a different way.
You quickly left the family home.
“At home, it wasn’t easy with my father. After my secondary studies, I went to Paris where I stayed for seven years. I wanted to shine. The choice of acting as a profession did not was driven by a sort of passion for the French language, a desire to explore the texts: I wanted to exist, to be loved, to be known. It’s perhaps surprising to want to have a career. for the wrong reasons. But Paris made me dream.”
The beginnings were not easy, but you quickly crossed paths with Éric Rohmer.
“Often, when you arrive in Paris and you say that you are an actress, you are answered: “Ah, which restaurant do you work in?” But chance did things well: I actually met Eric Rohmer. J I would have wanted, for many reasons, to meet him later, because at that time, I did not have the sensitivity and intelligence of the heart to understand his work, who he was and what he wanted of me in “Les Amours d’Astrée and Céladon”, a film he had dreamed of making for thirty years. He just asked me not to take acting lessons, not to get my license, not to go skiing, to stay there, reading texts with him over a dry biscuit and a little coffee I thought: “But what a funny guy He was looking at me, scrutinizing me as if I were already his Astrée, a shepherdess!” 17th century. had never filmed anything. The other actors were used to taking the light, to pose in front of the cameras. It wasn’t easy. Some scenes were in old French, there was only one take each time. Eric liked that, the spontaneity. I felt worthless and ugly. I wrote it to him. He replied to me in a sublime letter: “Thank you for being the Astrée that I wanted, thank you for having embodied her to perfection.” He had emphasized “to perfection”
Where are you now in your career?
“I filmed with Pierre Richard, then in “Les Visiteurs” 2 and 3. It’s still crazy to have played with Christian Clavier, Jean Reno and all the others! More recently, I played the leading role feminine in the series “Platane” by Éric Judor I don’t know if it’s the idea of being 40, the wisdom that comes with time, if it’s the fact of being a mother, probably a. little all that, but I I said to myself: “You deserve better than this job.” You always have to depend on the opinions of people, of producers, of directors, of directors, and in fact, for some of them, they are people. with whom I wouldn’t even go for coffee, because we don’t share anything in life. However, you have to be validated by these people. I asked myself the question: “Aren’t you tired of it? Stephanie? Tired of waiting for validation all the time, of being in this state of mind of frustration, of doubt?” So I changed. I no longer wanted to go to castings. I accepted a small role in the latest film by Guillaume Canet And we are still on the spot with “Lundiindigo” by Nicole Palo, a scenario evoking obsessive-compulsive disorders.
