THESE STARS FOR WHOM LOVE HAS NO AGE
She's back. After a period of absence due to maternity leave, following the birth of her second child, at the age of 46, Virginie Efira, also the new face of Lancôme, is back at the forefront of the scene. In preparation for two films, Privacy by Rebecca Zlotowski and The Embers, by Thomas Kruithof, she found the time to confide in an interview given to Madame Le Figaro. Addressing both her current relationship with cinema, her motherhood, but also her assumed femininity.
“I hope women find me sexy too”
Iconic figure of French cinema, recognized for her immense talent, but also for her great beauty, Virginie Efira is unanimously acclaimed. “Men find you sexy and women love you“, begins Madame Le Figaro to evoke this femme fatale side which characterizes the Belgian actress so well, which did not fail to make her react: “Isn't this vision a little outdated? Imagining that women are necessarily in a rivalry relationship… (…) That said, I hope women find me sexy too“.
Clearly, although after having had two children, the last of which, her 15-month-old little boy, Hiro, born from her union with the actor Niels Schneider, 10 years her junior, Virginie Efira is delighted to return to the cinema , for roles from scripts that seem relevant to him. But a very important notion for her, it is to accept and assume one's femininity as an actress, “But should an actress create a character for herself? (…) I don't think so“.
Virginie Efira, mother and voluntarily free woman
Another point noted in his interview, uninhibited sensuality, “Yes, sexuality interests me…“, assured Virginie Efira. Indeed, the actress has never hesitated to explore more voluptuous roles. In 2018, she answered questions from Paris Match on the place of her daughter, then five years old, facing such roles: “I just made Verhoeven's film and I was told : “But it’s so daring, aren’t you afraid that your daughter will blah, blah, blah?”, she remembered. Oh no! I would have found it sad to do a job just to earn a good living“. Proof of the assumed character of the Belgian actress.
In the same way, Virginie Efira therefore wanted to impose her idea of a free, voluntarily seductive woman. “It is not because we are a woman with exaggerated femininity that we lose our rights, our dignity, and that we submit to the man for that reason. We've long since moved beyond being a sexual object, so why not become one if you want to?“, she argued before adding, “The fact that a woman inspires desire is in no way degrading“.
Nudity in films
If Virginie Efira has today established herself in these femme fatale roles, a status that she fully assumes, this is not where we most expected the actress to be. “When I started acting, I mostly acted in romantic comedies“, she explained, “I had a bit of the cliché label of the girl who is going to marry, with a wise sexuality“. It is through certain meetings, notably with directors, that she declares having felt the desire to emancipate herself towards other horizons, in particular those of Justine Triet or Catherine Corsini. “They had I wanted to explore something else in my game. And I never thought that exploring meant diminishing,” said Virginie.
“The main question when shooting nudity scenes is the trust placed in the director (…) The pseudo-feminists who think that I got naked because the director was a man are completely wrong“, she assured. For Virginie Efira, being an actress is a profession of passion which can only work when each of the people participating in the creation of a film believe deeply. Thus, “In cinema, if the body tells of an intimacy, it’s yes. If it's only illustrative, it's no“, she defused.
Sources used:
Madame Le Figaro
Paris Match
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