Guest on the show A Sunday in the Country on France 2 this Sunday, November 10, 2024, actress Sandrine Bonnaire returned to a traumatic story experienced at the start of her acting career. Coming from a working-class background, she learned the hard way that her social origins would always be difficult to carry into the world of cinema.
Sandrine Bonnaire did not always have the glamorous life we know today. The 57-year-old actress, muse of the greatest directors, from Maurice Pialat to Jacques Rivette via Agnès Varda. She is currently appearing in Eventuallythe latest feature film by Claude Lelouch, alongside Kad Merad and Barbara Pravi, which will be released in theaters this Wednesday, November 13, 2024. On the occasion of the promotion of her new film, the actress got naked in A Sunday in the countrysidethis Sunday, November 10.
Faced with journalist Frédéric Lopez, Sandrine Bonnaire looks back on her childhood, spent between Allier and the Paris suburbs. The seventh in a family of eleven children, from a working-class background, she reveals that she did not grow up in luxury. “It’s not to be my Cinderella”she begins as she remembers the years spent in a chalet in Montlhéry, “without water and electricity”. “We were a little gypsy, a little gypsy. We only washed once a week, my mother washed us in a tub, there were 4.5 of us in it… We didn’t cope very well. At school, people knew we lived like that. But at the same time, we remained dignified, my parents were very courageous”she explains. When she moved to a HLM apartment in Grigny, she admits to having the impression of a “absolute chic”.
The story of the lost bracelet
Modest origins which will be felt from his debut in the cinema. After an appearance in The Boomshe obtains recognition in the film which will change her life and allow her to obtain her first César: To our lovesby Maurice Pialat, released in 1983, and a role obtained thanks to his sister Lydie. While she is enjoying her first hours of glory, Sandrine Bonnaire is having a bad experience, which she recounts in this Sunday’s France 2 show. While peeling potatoes for dinner, the actress recounts an anecdote that marked the first years of her career, when she lost a bracelet that a brand had lent her. “I take photos for Paris Match. There is a jeweler who lends me a bracelet for the photos, and I am told that I can keep the bracelet for the ceremony,” she begins.
Except that on returning home, the young Sandrine Bonnaire realizes that she no longer has the jewel: “I think someone stole it or it fell out”, she explains. “I called my agent the next day” she continues, before the latter responds to her with a sentence that she still remembers perfectly today: “He told me it was better if I paid it back, because ‘given the background you come from, you’re going to look like a thief’”. Despite her disappointment, she complied and took out a loan from the bank to reimburse the lost item. A debt of around 100,000 francs that she had to pay over several yearsand a trauma for the one who today admits to having refused for a long time to wear real jewelry for ceremonies.
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