Adèle Exarchopoulos: “I want to tell myself that my lover is my best friend”

Photos: Pepe Lobez / Director: Tania Rat-Patron

You seem to have formed a great bond with Mallory Wanecque, 18, who plays teenage Jackie. Do you give him any advice for evolving in the film industry?

Before meeting her, many people told me that we looked alike. But people don’t often say things like that to me. When I met him, I understood what they were talking about and it really touched me. She is someone who marvels at everything she is experiencing, who has something very instinctive, who has a crazy purity. Everything she does is sincere, even when she has to play something immoral.

Experiencing the Cannes Film Festival with her was enjoyable. She comes from the North and she’s trying to go down to Paris to work, I see her taking flight in relation to her family, it’s ultra-touching… I like spending time with her, she’s my friend.

Of course, there is something naturally protective about it, because starting early in the profession can have a “poisoned chalice” side. I want to tell her to enjoy, not to let herself be conditioned by people who will encourage her to pose this way or that, but at the same time, she needs to experience it. I can recommend people from my professional circle to him, but above all I tell him not to listen too much to advice.

When you started out, did you have protectors yourself?

Lou Doillon, with whom I started at 13 in Boxes (2006, by Jane Birkin, editor’s note), meant a lot to me. She took me to eat not far from where she lived, in Paris, she invited me to her parties, she always had the same childhood friends… My father came to pick me up at midnight, I was too ashamed because as he returned to the apartment. With Lou, it was very healthy. But when you hang out with healthy people, you don’t really need advice.

The hardest part was going from the adult world to the children’s world when I went back to school.