from AFP (UK)

Marion Cotillard has revealed her life is “magical” since she won an Oscar and her career took off.

The French actress scooped an Academy Award for playing singer Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose and said: “My life started to change when the movie was released and I had those beautiful opportunities to work with Michael Mann, to work with Rob Marshall.

“And I never thought, maybe it was a deep desire, but I was not aware of this desire of doing American movies – I so love it, I am so lucky and so happy to be able to work in a country where movies are such a marvel I would say, so I feel very lucky.”

Marion, who stars in new movie Public Enemies with Johnny Depp, says she still gets a thrill from acting.

“Every day is a magical day and I’m really aware of it and it’s still magical,” she gushed.

“I think when it’s taught to be like, ‘Oh yeah, well it’s just another day’, I think I would do something else. I think I would have to think about something else to do because this job has to stay magical.”

:: Public Enemies is out now

from MoviesOnline (Canada) / by Michael

To understand Billie Frechette, Mann spent a good deal of time uncovering the history of the woman who became the singular love of Dillinger’s life. “I tried to figure out the life of Billie: what she was about, what she was doing and how she got by in the Depression,” he states. “She worked as a hatcheck girl at The Steuben Club; she was an ambitious young woman from a small town making her way in Chicago. What also is very significant is her upbringing. As a Menominee Indian, she was very much a second-class citizen, an outsider.”

Marion Cotillard, who won an Oscar® for her brilliant portrayal of chanteuse Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, was cast by Mann for the part. “After I saw La Vie en Rose, we met. That was it,” says the director.

As part of her preparation, Mann asked her to meet with a variety of gangster wives, girlfriends, strippers and bar girls to listen to the women’s stories of unfailingly standing by their often-violent men. “He wanted me to understand the feeling of being a convict’s wife and not knowing exactly what the next day would bring,” explains Cotillard.

As Frechette was French and Native American, the actress spent extensive time with a dialect coach and visited the Menominee reservation to learn about the world from which the gangster’s girlfriend came. There, Cotillard met with members of Frechette’s extended family and discussed the life and primary love of their ancestor. She was quite moved by what she learned about the woman…as well as about the man for whom Frechette went to jail and never betrayed. “It was very emotional,” she relates. “When you live a passion, a love like that, you will not turn your back at all the fear that comes from any situation to be with a man who’s a gangster.”

“The skills of Marion are extraordinary. The commitment, the absolute total commitment to the moment. How deep and thoroughly she would live the truth of a small gesture, a glance,” says her director.

Her on-screen Dillinger was one of many on set moved by her performance. “I was profoundly impressed by Marion’s commitment to Billie,” commends Depp. “She took so much care in playing her properly and giving Billie her fair shake. Marion worked unbelievably hard on the accent and was profoundly committed to the part. I like her very much, both personally and as someone to get in the ring with.”

from The New York Observer (US) / by Sara Vilkomerson

I saw Public Enemies last night—and plenty of critics have already weighed in about how cool and beautiful and entertaining the movie is (Rex Reed called it “one of the best movies of the year”). But here’s what I took away from it: my total and unabashed girl-crush on Marion Cotillard is still going and stronger than ever.

The 33-year-old actress (and, hooray to her being born in the mid-’70s!) first got noticed by sharp-eyed American audiences in Tim Burton’s 2003 Big Fish, and then again—by the very few people who saw it, anyway—in the Russell Crowe bomb A Good Year in 2006. She’s beautiful in that classic, old-fashioned way, with fine delicate bones (so French!) and coy kitten eyes. Of course, there has never been a shortage of beautiful women trying to make it in Hollywood. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, came La Vie en Rose and her incredible performance as Little Sparrow Édith Piaf. Everyone loves to to poke fun at how all a beautiful actress needs to do to win awards is to ugly themselves up a bit (see The Hours, Monster, Monster’s Ball), but Ms. Cotillard’s performance went beyond the cosmetic: The New York Times’ Stephen Holden wrote, “Marion Cotillard’s feral portrait of the French singer Édith Piaf as a captive wild animal hurling herself at the bars of her cage is the most astonishing immersion of one performer into the body and soul of another I’ve ever encountered in a film.” Agreed! And for those who never got around to seeing the film—which, considering it only made a little over $10 million in the U.S, is probably most of you—all one needed to fall in love with Marion Cotillard was to see her sweep through last year’s Oscars, pristine in a white and silver Jean Paul Gaultier mermaid gown, to win the Best Actress statue and give one of the more charming acceptance speeches in recent memory: “Thank you, life … thank you, love! It’s true there are some angels in this city.” (For added charm, check out her singing in the press room of the Academy Awards.)

In Public Enemies, it’s 100 percent believable that Johnny Depp’s John Dillinger would risk imprisonment and death just to be with her (see the movie for the hottest come-on line in recent memory) and, not for nothing, the high-cheekbone quotient onscreen is rather overwhelming when they appear together. Plus, there’s just something about Cotillard, an understated and intelligent elegance that seems to belong in the turn of a different century. Is this the reason why she’s not part of the Us Weekly cycle of starlets? Whatever it is, it’s an appreciated whiff of fresh air, away from the interchangeable uber-toned, fake-breasted and extension’d brigade that seems to make up the heft of those glossy pages.

She’ll next appear in November in Rob Marshall’s highly (and I mean highly) anticipated Nine, with Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman and Sophia Loren (if it’s half as good as this trailer, we’re all in for a treat). Next year will have her starring in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight follow-up, Inception, co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, and Michael Caine. So, three cheers for the rise of Mademoiselle Cotillard!

from Collider.com / by Steve ‘Frosty’ Weintraub

Currently playing in theaters is director Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies”. The film is set during the Depression-era’s great crime wave and it’s the story of the government’s attempt to stop legendary criminals John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd. This operation transformed the FBI into the first federal police force. By now you’ve seen the trailers and commercials, so you know the cast is filled with famous faces like Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Channing Tatum and David Wenham.

Anyway, to help promote the film, our partners at Omelete sent me to cover the international press day and I was able to participate in a small press conference with Marion Cotillard. While Marion doesn’t have a huge part, she absolutely holds her own against Johnny Depp, as she plays his love interest Billie Frechette. After the jump is what she had to say about the movie and a lot more. Take a look:

Question: What did you learn from Michael Mann in contrast to the other directors that you worked with?
Cotillard: I think I knew it before, but when I had to work on this Midwestern accent and it was really hard for me and part of my brain and my heart were always focused on this accent and I know he works on details and that’s what I love about him. I really wanted him to be happy with my accent so I worked hard. But knowing that it would never be a hundred percent perfect because I’m French I started learning English when I was twelve and it’s already late to really have a perfect accent and plus I started to learn English with a French teacher and it was more like, ‘Ze cat iz in zee garden -’ and ‘Chrees iz very happy to see you today.’ I mean it was really bad English. So, a Midwestern accent, before I wouldn’t know if this was Midwestern or southern. Now I kind of know where it is and even between British and American I didn’t really know. Now I really know. He was the one, because I was so focused on the accent all the time, to tell me, ‘You really have to let it go now. You worked hard and enough, but now you have to give heart and soul and flesh and emotions to Billie [Frechette] and then the accent will follow.’ I was sure, my brain was sure that if I would totally let it go and if I didn’t think about it would not be good. He was right, actually. It was when I really let it go, when I didn’t think about it that it was the best for everything. The character was there. She had flesh and bones and emotions. Also, a better Midwestern accent with a little flavor French [laughs].

Question: Did working with Johnny Depp help you as a French actress?
Cotillard: I don’t know. How can I answer this question? What exactly is your question actually? Is it that it helps that he knows French women? Maybe. I don’t know. How can I answer this question? I will try. I mean, he’s a very, very nice person. He was very nice to me because I was very stressed out. It was my first movie after two years. It was my first movie after ‘La vie en Rose’. It had been two years and I was very stressed out. I’m always very scared when I start a movie because I never know if I’m going to be able to do a good job or do a very bad job. He was very nice. That’s what I can say. Actually, we never spoke French because I really wanted to stick with the English, like I told you before, so that it was really getting into my brain. So I would not allow myself to speak French even with my boyfriend, my mother, my brothers. It was really weird but it helped me a lot. Even with some of my friends that have really, really bad English it was better than French.

Question: Aside from the accent, what were the other challenges in creating this Midwestern American woman when you’re French and the French are supposed to be very sophisticated? Can you de-sophisticate yourself to play this woman?
Cotillard: I don’t think that I’m that sophisticated. Maybe I’m not aware of it, I don’t know. I wouldn’t say that it was a challenge, but it was so interesting. I never thought that I would have to play an Indian, well half French, but an Indian woman in my life. I got to discover Native American history and American history. So it was more like I opened a box with a lot of treasures about a culture that is not mine, but that is so interesting. I met these people from Menominee Tribe and it’s an amazing culture. I met with really amazing people. I was very lucky to be in a situation that I had to be one of them. I had to be one of the American history which is amazing for a hundred percent French girl. But I would say that the only big challenge for me was definitely the accent and that the rest of it was…it was the accent and also, I mean it was the biggest challenge to let it go and not think about it than to actually work on the accent. I think that when you work you can get somewhere. But all the rest was just a joy.

Question: What do you love about acting and is there a particular moment in this film where you can really see that passion for acting?
Cotillard: I can answer the first question. The second, I don’t know how to talk about myself like this and say, ‘Look, there you can really see that I love acting!’ I wouldn’t be able to say that. But I think when I finally found this way to express myself it was a relief because I didn’t know how to do it before that. I’ve always known actors because my parents are actors on stage and so I lived in a very creative environment when I was a kid. All my life. When I was young and my parents job was to tell stories to people, that’s how they fed us. It was amazing. They would travel around the world, I remember. My dad was a mime and then he had his company and created plays for children and was very successful with it. So he went all around the world. They would come back from Peru with Peruvian clothes and I mean it was magical, traveling and telling stories that make people laugh or cry, having emotions. I’ve always wanted to do that. When I started and felt that it was my way to express myself and if I needed someone else inside of me, which is a character, to express myself that it was okay. Voila.

Question: Would you like to work more here in the states or is your heart still in France mostly?
Cotillard: My only goal, if I can put it that way because it’s not really a goal but more of a desire, is to work with great people and in a way to tell good stories. I don’t plan things. I’m so lucky to work in the United States and do American movies because when I was young my heroes were Gene Kelly, Charlie Chaplin, The Marx Brothers and they were all American. I mean, I watched French movies, too, but it was really that my culture of movies was American. I never thought that I would work here one day. I’m so happy that I’ve had the opportunity to do that. But I’m also French and I love French cinema, but I’ll not say that I have to do a French movie and then an American movie and then do another French movie. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I really want to live in the present time and I hope that I will have beautiful offers but maybe in Japan, too. Why not? I think you’re where you have to be and I’m not a person who wants to control things too much because I love surprises.

Question: How did you identify with Billie Frechette in terms of your own personal views of love?
Cotillard: On love. Maybe it’s related to what she lived, how she loved. But where I can relate with her…it’s not about love, what I’m going to answer, but it might be related in a way. She had a very tough life. She went through very tough things. The first thing is that she was Indian and at a certain point she was at that boarding school where people told her that it was bad to be an Indian, that it was bad to have this language she had, that it’s bad to be who you are. I think that’s surreal for a child. It might be really hard to understand and it might be kind of a trauma. Then she had a very bad wedding with some very bad gangsters. I mean, he was even bad at being a gangster actually. But she always looked at the positive side of things and she was full of life. I don’t know if you have this expression here with the glass half empty or half full. She would always see it half full. I think that’s a strength especially in that era, the ’30’s in Chicago, The Depression. It’s a very, very tough life that they had back then and in this area. So I can relate to her. I really have an amazing life compared to what she had, but to try to see the positive things in bad things. Then I see it related to love in many ways. She was in love with a bad guy even if I think he was not that bad, but she loved him.

Question: What were your expectations of working with Johnny Depp before you started shooting? Then once you started production did he surprise you in any way or exceed your expectations and did you learn anything from him? How was the whole experience?
Cotillard: I think that you always learn something from working with good actors. I had seen a lot of his movies before I worked with him. I think he’s an amazing actor because he can do so many different things and be authentic in each of those things. He’s a very – I think I always say funny guy, but funny guy means more weird. I should say fun guy. Yeah? He’s a fun guy. He really likes to have fun on set. When I say he’s a simple person it doesn’t mean like he’s…it means he’s really easy to talk with. He’s the same person with everybody which is an amazing quality when you have a special life like the life that he has. He’s a real gentle man. I didn’t know anything about him except his work. Most of the time I don’t expect things. I don’t project, like, ‘Oh, maybe he’ll be like this or like that.’ So it’s not about surprise. It’s just about discovering someone who’s a very nice person and a great actor.

Question: You have some very heavy emotional scenes in the film that look hard to do. How do you handle that type of scene?
Cotillard: Well, it seems weird, but I love it. I know that it’s weird to imagine that someone can find pleasure in feeling really deep pain, but I think it’s a way for me to express myself. I wouldn’t know how to explain it and I don’t think it’s really a need. It’s better to do things than to explain them. There are many people who can explain it. When I did ‘La vie en Rose’ there were many, many emotional states. She was very emotional and there were a lot of scenes that were very painful and I loved it. Not that I’m a masochistic person. After these kinds of scenes you feel empty and full at the same time and for me it’s an amazing feeling. I don’t know if I answered your question.

Question: How did Chris Nolan approach you for ‘Inception’ and who you play in the movie?
Cotillard: I can tell you that he called my agent and wanted to see me, a very simple way. But you know that I can’t tell you anything else [laughs].

de Metro (france) / par Jérôme Vermelin

Marion Cotillard est une actrice heureuse. Quelques heures avant l’avant-première à Paris de “Public Ennemies”, le nouveau film de Michael Mann dans lequel elle interprète Billie Frechette, la fiancée du gangster John Dillinger, incarné par Johnny Depp, la comédienne française a tenu une petite conférence de presse auquel Metro a assisté.

A propos de Michael Mann

« C’est un immense réalisateur, quelqu’un qui tourne des films d’homme dans lesquels les femmes ont toujours une place particulière. » (…) Je l’ai rencontré pendant la saison des prix qui précède les nominations aux Oscar. Mon agent américain m’avait expliqué qu’il m’avait vu dans « La Môme » et qu’il m’y avait beaucoup aimé. On s’est vu une première fois, puis une deuxième. La troisième fois, il m’a reçu avec Johnny Depp et il a pris des photos de nous ensemble. Lorsque je les ai quitté, je ne savais pas si j’allais avoir le rôle. En partant, l’assistante qui m’accompagnait au eu du mal à sortir la voiture du parking si bien que je me suis retrouvé nez à nez avec Michael et Johnny. Michael m’a fait venir et m’a alors dit que j’allais faire partie de l’aventure. Le même jour, j’apprenais que j’étais nominée aux Oscars… »

A propos de Johnny Depp

« Johnny est un vrai gentleman. C’est quelqu’un qui a trouvé un équilibre dans sa vie de grande star américaine. Il est simple, facile d’accès et en même temps très créatif avec une espèce de folie. Sur le tournage il m’a beaucoup soutenu et je lui suis gré d’avoir fait parfois 30 prises de la même scène parce que je n’étais pas à l’aise avec mon accent. »

Le personnage de Dillinger, joué par Depp :

« Je ne connaissais rien du personnage avant de lire le scénario, puis le livre qui a inspiré le film. C’est un pur produit de l’Amérique des années 1930 et de cette période qu’on appelle la Grande dépression. Un homme qui pour une erreur de jeunesse a passé dix en prison et lorsqu’il en sort, a essentiellement appris à braquer des banques ! Il avait beaucoup de charisme, il se souciait davantage des gens que beaucoup de gangsters. Il était très protecteur avec Billie Frechette. »

Son rôle, Billie Frechette, la fiancée de Dillinger :

« Michael Mann m’a fait rencontrer des femmes de prisonniers pour que je comprenne ce que ça fait d’aimer quelqu’un qui est hors la loi : l’attente, la peur de ne jamais se revoir… C’est devenu très vite très émouvant si bien que ces femmes m’ont nourri de leurs sentiments, davantage que de leur histoire. »

Jouer en anglais

« C’était l’aspect le plus dur car je savais dès le départ que je ne serais pas parfaite à 101%. J’ai pensé à Gong Li qui jouais une portoricaine dans « Miami Vice », ou à Jodie Foster qui jouait en Français dans « Un long dimanche de fiançailles ». Même si elles étaient excellentes, il restait toujours une petite touche de leur langue d’origine.

Travailler à Hollywood

« C’est une industrie énorme, une ville dans la ville. En même temps il n’y a pas plus de différence entre tourner un film français et un film américain qu’entre tourner une grosse production français et un petit film français… Chaque film est différent. Si je devais comparer Eric Dahan et Michael Mann ? Ils n’ont rien à voir. Dahan sculpte sur le plateau tandis Mann prépare tout à l’avance et donne vie à la sculpture sur le plateau.

L’empreinte de « La Môme »

Ca reste une expérience complexe. Avec ce film, je suis descendu profondément dans un personnage sans savoir comment j’allais remonter. D’ailleurs c’est ça qui fut le plus difficile : l’après. Je me suis dit que la prochaine fois, il faudra trouver les moyens de revenir à la surface. Avec « Public Ennemies », le tournage a pris moins de temps et j’ai eu plus de plages de temps pour remonter… »

from InStyle (US) / by Julia Kelly

A stunning actress, a striking Morokkan landscape and six remarkable dresses. Marion Cotillard gives new meaning o desert bloom

It’s impossible to imagine the luminous Marion Cotillard blending quietly into the background – after all, the shimmering, mermaid-inspired Gaultier that she wore to the 2008 Academy Awards made an impression as immediate and indelible as the career-changing performance that got her there. But the 33-year-old star, who earned her best actress Oscar by embodying Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, insists that there was a time when she hesitated to dress to impress. “I was afraid to look pretty when I was younger,” she says. “I thought that it was superficial. But now I know that feeling beautiful makes me more confident and that it’s a good thing. I can finally appreciate dressing up.” Cotillard cites both Greta Garbo and Louise Brooks as her style icons – she loves “looks from the ’20s and ’30s reinvented for our time.” It’s a period she visits in Public Enemies as the love interest of Depression-era gangster John Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp. And this fall she’ll appear alongside Penélope Cruz, Kate Hudson and Sophia Loren in Nine. “I get to sing and dance,” she reports. For a girl who grew up watching American musicals, the part is a dream come true. “This,” she says, “was all I wanted.”

White Heat

“Now that I work with Dior, I’ve learned how [John] Galliano uses fabric,” says the actress, who fronted the fashion house’s most recent acessory campaign. “He cuts it in a way that makes the pieces very special.”

Screen Queen

“This dress is very cinematic. I would wear it on the red carpet, or I could see myself in it while playing a femme fatale.”

Before Sunset

“I used to have a lot of fabric from Indian shops,” recalls Cotillard. “It was always pink and gold – I love those two colors together.”

French Connection

“This dress reminds me of the story about Pierrot. He is a sad clown wit big sleeves, a big collar and ruffles with black buttons,” says the Parisian actress. “It’s very French!”

Rainbow Bright

“I don’t know that I’m a fashion risk taker, but I love to be surprised by something that I didn’t think would work for me.”

Silver Lining

“I love beautiful things, and I see these dresses as a kind of painting.”

On Location

InStyle followed Cotillard to the Moroccan set of The Last Flight – a French film about two aviators. Our crew took a seven-hour flight and a five-hour car ride to reach her, but as these pages prove, it was more than worth it.

Finally! ‘Public Enemies‘ can be seen in US theatres as of today! Be sure to head out and watch Marion’s first movie since ‘La Vie en Rose‘ (2007). The movie will open in the UK July 3, in France July 8, in Australia July 30, and in Germany August 6 (see more dates).

Check out the many features on the movie’s official site! And read some new interviews:

• Stormy role’s French twist, Journal Sentinel, June 27
• Marion Cotillard is ready for her close-ups, Twincities.com, June 30

Next, Marion Cotillard’s scheduled to promote ‘Public Enemies‘ in her home country France. First, she’ll attend the movie’s premiere in Paris tomororrow.

On Friday she’s the star guest of Radio RTL. In the morning (9.00-9.30 am) she’ll be interviewed during a programm called Laissez-vous tenter and in the afternoon she’ll participate in the programme La tête dans les étoiles together with Laurent Boyer. And in the evening there will be a screening of the movie in Lyon.

As previously announced, there’ll be a TV interview titled Marion Cotillard, la rencontre (20 minutes) airing on Canal+, Sunday 11.55 am.

I’m in and out of town this and next week but I’ll try to update the site as much as possible.

from GQ (US) / by Mark Healy

How Marion Cotillard went from a subtitled French bio-pic about Edith Piaf to starring as Johnny Depp’s moll in ‘Public Enemies’

One way to gauge the seriousness of any newly minted star is to watch what he or she does with all the attention. Two days after accepting an Oscar for her shape-shifting turn as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose—and delivering a speech so adorably gracious it could bump Sally Field from the official Oscar highlight reel—Marion Cotillard ditched the warm glow of Hollywood for a snowbound place where no one cared: a Menominee reservation in Wisconsin, to research her role as John Dillinger’s girl in this month’s gangster bio Public Enemies. The 33-year-old never asked the tribeswomen if they’d seen the Oscars or La Vie en Rose, in which Cotillard conjures Piaf’s fragility and ferocity so unnervingly, even regular Joes were drawn to the subtitled film. She brings the same nuance and energy to Billie Frechette, who was part Menominee, part French, and 100 percent aware of the company she kept. “She knew exactly what she was involved in,” Cotillard says of Frechette, who was married to a convicted robber when she took up with gentleman gangster Dillinger, “but what can you do against love?”

from Empire (UK) / by Philip Wilding

Marion Cotillard hadn’t even seen the Hollywood sign up close until she’d finished shooting the role that would go on to win her an Oscar, Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose.

“We ended filming in LA and that was the first time I’d been there,” says the actress whose credits include A Very Long Engagement and Ridley Scott’s A Good Year. Though it wasn’t until she’d scooped a slew of awards as the doomed diva that Hollywood came calling.

“I was out in California talking to directors and I met Mann. It was huge for me, I admire his films so much,” says Cotillard, calling from New York.

“i knew nothing about Dillinger, didn’t even recognise his name, but Mann is so passionate. May character’s (Billie Frechette, Dillinger’s great love) mother was a Menominee Indian so he took me up to Green Bay to meet the tribe. With someone real like Billie, you see the pictures, you read the things they said, the construction’s already done, but you have to remodel the house and make it yours.”

She’s equally as effusive about her co-star, Johnny Depp, as she is about her director: “He really cared about Dillinger – I think he loves him a little, you could feel that.”

With Broadway adaptation Nine already in the can (“I got two songs to sing!”), sweeping Sahara drama The Last Flight Of The Lancaster is set to wrap days before she’s due to start filming Christopher Nolan’s elusive sci-fi drama, Inception.

“He’s a genius,” she says warmly. “He’s so rich inside, he has so many things to say and tell.”