As strange as it may seem, there have been no feature films dedicated to Sarah Bernhardt in France. In the United States, only the mysterious Greta Garbo appeared as “The Divine” in 1928, followed by Glenda Jackson. in a Richard Fleischer biopic titled The Incredible Sarah (1976). If Ludmila Mikaël lent her features to the famous actress in a TV film in 2008, we had to wait almost a century after her death to see a film dedicated to Sarah Bernhardt who, however, represented France so well in her time . To take on this legendary character, Guillaume Nicloux chose Sandrine Kiberlain.
Enough to end an intense year of projects, between The Little Mop by Bruno Podalydès and The Barbarians by Julie Delpy. Titled The Divinethe film, which is released this Wednesday, December 18, does not present itself as a classic biopic and will instead focus on two pivotal moments in the life of the actress: her jubilee and her leg amputation, at the end of her life. A role which will undoubtedly mark the career of the 56-year-old actress and which required great preparation.
The role of a lifetime?
Unlike Marion Cotillard in The Kid, The Divine did not require a lot of makeup work for Sandrine Kiberlain, which appears under its own features.
Interviewed by France Info this Sunday, December 15, 2024 on the occasion of the release of the film, the actress who won a Cesar for 9 months firm explains : “In the images we have of her, we see her redhead, we see her brunette, we see her thin, we see her fat. So I didn't get attached to these images, nor to the recordings of his voice, which are too old, and therefore inaudible. And in any case, it was not at all the point of copying her, of aping her”.
Sandrine Kiberlain: “It was long and laborious”
However, getting into the role required despite everything, great preparationas she explains: “The work was first of all to get rid of the text. And that was long and laborious. Two months of working four hours a day solely on the text.”
For this role, the actress benefited from the assistance of a rehearsalwith whom she learned the script, down to the comma. “By heart, to ensure that this language becomes my own language before it becomes the one that I would invent during filming with Guillaume, with the costumes, the sets, with all the information from the script, with everything that I had been able to read everything I had seen of her…”relates Sandrine Kiberlain before concluding, “so, I did my unconscious thing like that, without talking about it with Guillaume, and on the big day, we let the monster come out of me! “. In a good place for a second Caesar?
