Vou have undoubtedly noticed his fine features and determined character in films as diverse as The Girl from July 14, The Law of the Jungle, Bécassine! or How I became a superhero. Actress with an atypical career, almost eccentric but in any case totally free, Vimala Pons spawns with a genre not so common in her filmography with The Beautiful Role. Vimala plays Nora, author of shows in a relationship with the actor who plays in her plays. Their blue sky will soon darken when Henri ends up being hired in the cinema…
The director, Victor Rodenbach, screenwriter on the series Plane tree et Ten percentsigns here his first feature film and comes away with honors by stringing together hilarious sequences during the implosion of the couple. On arrival: here is a successful feel good movie, tinged with melancholy when it questions the feeling of love. A rom com unstoppable, which is based on the cinema couple of the year: the indispensable William Lebghil and, therefore, the magnificent Vimala Pons. The opportunity was too good to meet this muse of cinema arty for almost twenty years, who definitively asserts herself here as an absolutely essential actress, including for the general public.
Le Point Pop : You are an author, performer, high-level athlete, guitarist, tightrope walker, circus performer, actress… Do you have other strings to your bow?
Vimala Pons: Let’s start again. I am a show author, I played classical guitar when I was little, I compose the music for my shows but I do not consider myself a musician. For sport, I did competitive karate and tennis. A tightrope walker, it’s true, and even though I am a trained circus artist, I don’t find that my shows are circus strictly speaking. And actress, of course, even if I could have done better (laughs).
You were born in India. Was your father really a snake charmer?
It’s true (she bursts out laughing). My parents met there, they were hippies and they were trying to find meaning in their lives. My father followed a snake trainer for a few months and played the flute alongside him.
It’s true that as a teenager, you wrote a screenplay for Hook 2the sequel to Spielberg’s film?
Yes ! At 13, I wrote a treatment of Hook 2 but then I discovered an article at my dentist’s office where Spielberg declared that he would never work with children again. And so, I didn’t send it to him. I’m mad at myself because I wrote a great cover letter. As a teenager, I also wanted to be a landscape gardener, then a screenwriter or work in special effects. I love watching people in this industry work, it’s magic. At 18, I made a short film that I never edited, or even edited. I started theater to meet actors, I loved it, and I joined the free class at the Florent course, and I had the Conservatory competition. Everything came together…
You started out in fairly radical films, pure auteur cinema with Paul Verhoeven, Christophe Honoré, Alain Resnais, Bertrand Mandico… And your latest films seem to indicate a more general public orientation.
At the beginning, I made a series of arthouse films without seeing further than the end of my desire, I had no strategy. And I was categorized as arthouse cinema, in a certain type of universe, therefore a little marginalized. I try more realistic things, like Mikado or The Beautiful Rolewhich I see as both a feel good movie and a very realistic and heterosexual comedy (laughs).
But on a very small budget…
Yes, we had less than thirty days of filming for a budget of 1.5 million euros, which is very small. But it’s a very mastered film, really very funny, much more than I would have imagined when reading the script, in particular thanks to the actors, William of course, but also Alexandre Steiger, Bruno Podalydès, Antonia Buresi, Jérémie Laheurte…
I once hurt myself when a rock was blasted on my head
Did you collaborate on the script?
No, but two weeks before filming, I realized that the script had changed and that the play that the actors were rehearsing was no longer Platonov by Chekhov more Dom Juan ! Dom JuanI find it stupid, it’s the story of a guy who only thinks about seducing maids. In short, it crashed the film because we no longer understand why the character of Henri stays with this company which wants to set up a dusty old thing, instead of going to the cinema. I am a passionate person and when I have ideas, I share them and the part in the film is now Ivanovwith magnificent words about love by Anton Chekhov.
On your Instagram or in your shows, you carry some pretty staggering things on your head, including a motorcycle or a (fake) car weighing around thirty kilos. What are you looking for with these huge objects you carry on your head?
It’s my obsession, the feeling of balance makes me happy. It’s a means of transport in India, in Africa, people carry things on their heads. This also refers to concepts of imbalance and balance which can apply to different areas. It’s very metaphorical. I injured myself once with a rock that was dynamited on my head, but the charge was too strong, a real bomb…
What are your projects?
To Discover
Kangaroo of the day
Answer
I’m rehearsing my next show, which I will perform in September in Geneva, then in October at the Odéon, for two and a half weeks. I’m stressed… At the cinema, you’ll see me on February 19 in Attachment by Carine Tardieu, with Pio Marmaï and Raphaël Quenard, then on April 9 in Mikadowith Ramzy, and finally in the Belgian film.
The Beautiful Role of Victor Rodenbach. In theaters December 18
