Monday November 4, Sara Forestier was the guest of Daily on the occasion of the release of the film Three friends. A return to cinema for the actress who explained her absence: slapped by an actor, she decided to move away from the sets to “rebuild“.
It's a story that goes back 7 years but seems to have left heavy traces on Sara Forester. The actress, very popular in the early 2000s, notably winning a César for Most Promising Actress and especially a César for Best Actress in 2011, suddenly disappeared from film sets over the last three years. It must be said that on a personal level, she had experienced a painful ordeal: in 2020, while she was promoting the film Girls of joy which addresses the subject of violence against womenshe reveals that she herself was a victim of domestic violence. “It turns out that when I read this script I was with a boy who hit me and the character experiences the same things” she confided in It's up to you. An experience which is however not the only one experienced by Sara Forestier, since her professional life has caught up with her love life.
“We often joke about damaged women saying that they are crazy”
In 2021, she reveals in the columns of Paris Match to have been slapped by actor Nicolas Duvauchelle 4 years earlier on the set of the film Good man. A version diverted by rumor, which says that it was she who slapped the actor before leaving the set, on which she was replaced by Ana Girardot. But Sara Forestier, undermined by the turn of events, made a strong decision: slam the door to the film sets and away from cinema for more than 3 yearsas she explained this Monday evening to Yann Barthès in Daily. “I needed to take a few years to rebuild myself because I had been hit by an actor (…) We talk very little about it but there is everything afterwards, you have to rebuild yourself, so I took this time” she explains on the occasion of her return to the cinema with the film Three friends.
A necessary period after experiencing dark moments: “Trauma involves things: not sleeping, having had suicidal thoughtsthat means we are damaged” she confides on the verge of tears. “We often joke about damaged women saying that they are crazy (…) you have to take the time to rebuild yourself, refocus on yourself, rediscover the pleasure and I really waited to find a project with people who were caring” she adds. A long wait which took more than three years, and a bowl of strawberries left on the table during her audition for the role…
