Welcome to Magnifique Marion Cotillard - your English online resource for everything about the Oscar winning French actress. She's best known for her award winning performance in La Vie en Rose - but you might also recognize her from movies such as Love Me If You Dare, Big Fish or A Very Long Engagement. Following her Oscar win she starred in Public Enemies, Nine, Inception and the French Little White Lies. In 2011 she became a mother and was seen in Midnight in Paris and Contagion on the big screen while she filmed scenes for The Dark Knight Rises and for Jacques Audiard's Rust & Bone. In 2012 she will play a Polish immigrant in the period drama Low Life. Not stopping at movies, Marion Cotillard is also exploring her musical talents as a member of the French rock band Yodelice. All the while, she is never too busy to lend her time and name to causes she believes in! Enjoy your visit keep checking back for all the latest news!
You are viewing the archive for August, 2010. Show all posts
As posted earlier, Marion Cotillard travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo in the first week of June and Greenpeace realized a 7-episode documentary of her travels through the rainforests. Travelling by pirogue (a small wooden boat), she witnessed the destruction caused by logging first hand. Many of the episodes are now available with subtitles:
Coming down with something like the flu made me rewatch some old Marion interviews and I realized that there were 3 more La Vie en Rose interviews missing in the video archive – ‘Luch with David’ actually being my favourite Marion interview ever! Enjoy!
Earlier this week I added HQ scans of the August Interview issue – including the full interview. I also added scans sent in by Kelly and Mariana. Many thanks for these!
Kindly do not redistribute the magazine scans at another Marion Cotillard fan site as they were scanned exclusively for ‘Magnifique Marion Cotillard’. Thank you.
PurePeople posted more details about Marion Cotillard’s upcoming special performances in Jeanne au bûcher.
The dates are now November 28 & 29, 2010 and it will be staged in the Salle Pleyel at the famous Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Apparently, the previously mentioned choir of 100 children will be accompanied by the Prague Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Serge Baudo). As we know Marion will play the 19 year old heroine Jeanne d’arc who is remembering important events from her life while awaiting to be burned at the stake. Xavier Gallais will play her brother Dominique.
Jeanne au bûcher is an oratorio – a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. There is generally little or no interaction between the characters, and no props or elaborate costumes. See pictures of Marion taking part in the same oratorio back in July 2005 in Orléans.
To simplify the url to the gallery now that the old video archive has become redundant I moved the whole gallery installation to the root of marion-media.org. All links to the gallery here on the main site have been successfully updated! Except those in the old section of the site which are still pointing to the very first gallery installation. In due time, they too, should get updated.
New pictures of Marion Cotillard and Owen Wilson on the set of ‘Midnight in Paris from Wednesday night (August 4) have surfaced. Apparently, that was Marion’s last day of filming, as the last 2 pictures show where she’s holding flowers and wiping away tears.
Additionally, I’ve added more pictures from July 7 & 30. This means we now have 299 photos of Marion on the set of the Woody Allen pic. The filenames indicate which day the photographs are from.
You may remember that a while back we posted about the rumour of Marion Cotillard filming in Veracruz, Mexico. A new article in Imagen del Golfo from Wednesday is possibly revealing more about this.
A movie based on the French story ‘Marsupilami‘ will be acted, directed and produced by Alain Chabat and will be shot in the regions of Catemaco, San Andrés y Santiago Tuxtla, Xalapa, Coatepec, Xico and Jalcomulco. Marion is in talks to do that movie and it would be shot in October, November and the first week of December. The production company is Pixel Films and the movie has a budget of $6 million Euros.
• translated & summarized by Giovanna
Already set to star in this partially animated comic adaptation in addition to Alain Chabat is Lambert Wilson.
Some stills and on set pictures from ‘Les Petits Mouchoirs‘ (Little White Lies) have surfaced online. Also, the movie’s runtime is 2 hours 25 minutes. This may seem long but industry sources are saying they are happy with the result and have no troubles with the length so that’s good news!
Ever since ‘Le dernier vol‘ (The Last Flight) was released on DVD & Blu-ray I’ve been capping the movie on and off. I’m afraid I’m still not done but as a kind of preview I finished the screencaptures of the 2 lovely featurettes! There are some incredibly gorgeous shots of Marion – including the moments when she was playing with the children on set – as well as the desert among them so be sure to check them out! Stay tuned for the screencaptures of the actual movie.
Her performance as Édith Piaf in La Vie en Rose won her an Oscar. But becoming the first French actress in a generation to survive—and thrive—on the international stage might be Marion Cotillard’s most daring role yet. Enter the Great One
It’s a rare actress who can skip the ingénue stage and enter Hollywood as a full-fledged star. But that’s what Marion Cotillard did when she appeared out of nowhere (to American audiences, at least) as the living, breathing, singing, and boozing embodiment of Édith Piaf in 2007’s La Vie en Rose. That passionate performance won her an Academy Award for best actress—only the second time a performer has received the award for a non-English-speaking role (the first was Sophia Loren in 1962 for Two Women, 1960). By the time Cotillard took to the stage that night at the Oscars, she had already become a major Hollywood commodity. But the fact that she has managed to make such a fast stake in American cinema when the careers of so many gorgeous, talented foreign actresses have faded after a few accent-heavy roles is a testament to something larger at work. Unlike the only other comparable French import, Catherine Deneuve, the 34-year-old Cotillard doesn’t rely on a glacial seriousness, but instead projects a penetrating, almost wounded sensitivity in her characters, as if she’s thinking about them as having lives, histories, and disappointments that go beyond their time on the screen. Her versatility is evidenced in two prime performances in 2009—first as Billie Frechette, a mobster’s moll, in Michael Mann’s John Dillinger biopic Public Enemies, and then as Luisa Contini, the malcontent wife in Rob Marshall’s Nine (where Cotillard once again got to put her singing voice to use).
Cotillard’s seemingly endless range may have something to do with her upbringing: She was raised by actor parents in Paris and the outlying countryside. Today, the actress still considers Paris her home—not that she’s there very much anymore, with a full docket of roles ahead of her. This summer she appeared in Christopher Nolan’s recently released nightmarish thriller Inception, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, and she has just signed on to play a doctor in Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion. But the role Cotillard is probably most excited about is leading her back to her native city—this summer she begins filming Midnight in Paris with Woody Allen. For all of her outside projects—she works closely with Greenpeace, is the face of Lady Dior, and lately has taken to dressing up like a man and performing under the name Simone with the French rock act Yodelice—Cotillard still comes across as quiet, innocent, and sweetly optimistic to the point that it’s hard to imagine her capable of channeling the stormy, self-destructive temper of a woman like Piaf. Perhaps that’s because acting is only part of what gives her life meaning—and Cotillard wants to find meaning. She recently reconnected with her Nine co-star (and fellow Oscar-winner) Nicole Kidman, to discuss the mysteries of life, death, deforestation, learning to love what you hate, and how to curb the wasteful nature of craft service on a movie set.
NICOLE KIDMAN: Marion!
MARION COTILLARD: Nicole, where are you?
KIDMAN: I’m in Nashville. Where are you?
COTILLARD: I’m in Paris.
KIDMAN: But weren’t you just in the Congo?
COTILLARD: I was until two days ago. I was in the Congo for a week because I’ve been working with Greenpeace for a while and I’ve been wanting to do a documentary about the forest there. It’s one of the most ancient forests in the world and I met all of these amazing people who are trying to fight against the timber industry cutting down the trees there. People were telling me all about their lives and how they are trying to survive in a country where there is so much corruption. I even slept in one of the forest villages. I really connected to the people there—their hopes and despair and struggles. It was an intense and beautiful trip.
KIDMAN: Are you hopeful that this forest can be saved?
COTILLARD: Well, the situation is pretty dire. The civil war there lasted for almost a decade, which in an odd way actually saved the forest from being destroyed during that time. But now that the war has ended, it’s easier for those who want the trees—businesses from Europe to China—to come in and take the riches of the country. There are really no rules about doing that. For a pack of smokes and a few beers you can gain the right to cut down the trees. So through the first days of my trip the problem seemed really dark. But when I started talking to people, I realized that there was some hope—they want to get their power back. That made me feel like there was hope to make things right. Hopefully I, along with the people at Greenpeace, can be a witness to what is happening over there.
KIDMAN: And serve as the international voice. How did this become your passion, this desire to protect the Earth?
COTILLARD: I think it comes from my family—especially my grandmother. I remember when I was a little girl at her house in Brittany. When she cooked, she wouldn’t waste anything. And my parents always raised me to believe that the most important thing was respect. Respect the place you live, be aware of the impact that you have on things. I was lucky to have this education growing up. I was born in Paris and raised in the suburbs and then lived in the countryside. We had a beautiful house with a huge garden. When I moved to the country, I was really connected to nature and the seasons. So when I finally went back to Paris, I had a very hard time connecting with the city again and the way we waste so much. I started to read and teach myself about the environment—and why it was not organic and natural to be living in the city.
KIDMAN: It’s a beautiful upbringing to have had because it was even before it became so politically correct to be environmentally concerned. It was just ingrained in you from day one. Where we live now, in Nashville, we support the little local farm up the road. We get them to give us vegetables and fruits that are in season and that’s what we eat. But you did that as a child.
COTILLARD: Yes. I’m very happy with what’s happening now and how the awareness is spreading. Because 10 years ago my mind-set wasn’t really normal for most people. I sounded like a crazy person talking about the environment. People saw me as a hippie who wanted to make my own cheese and live with animals in a house without electricity.
KIDMAN: [laughs] I wouldn’t mind doing that.
COTILLARD: Yeah, just maybe not all my life. It’s a paradox to be an actress, living in the city, taking planes all the time, trying to find the right balance in this life, which is not so eco-friendly, and still try to respect the environment.
KIDMAN: The worst part is probably flying. But I have to say for how you were on the set of Nine, your awareness rubbed off on the people around you. It rubbed off on me. I mean, you changed the way—
COTILLARD: Oh, the trash bins! [Cotillard supported a campaign for recycling on set] One of the crew members wanted to be the guard of the garbage!
KIDMAN: I remember everyone on the set said the same thing about you. I know Rob [Marshall] said it on Nine: that you’re otherworldly, that it seems like you come from another planet—and I mean that in the most beautiful way. And yet you are the most Earth-based of all of us. That’s a very strange paradox. You have this fairy quality, like you’re flitting through trees and stars, and then at the same time, you’re really grounded. It’s very hypnotic . . . You don’t have to respond to that. I’ll say that!
COTILLARD: [laughs] I think the Earth and everything around it is connected—the sky and the planets and the stars and everything else we see as a mystery. I think we connect when we accept that the mystery is also taking place here on the ground. We live on Earth and have jobs and interact in society, but we still exist because there is a moon rotating around us, and a sun we rotate around.
KIDMAN: I greatly believe in surrendering to the mystery—it’s not trying to solve it but just saying it is because it is.
COTILLARD: Yeah. When I see a magician, I don’t want to know how he does his tricks. I just want to be thrilled and amazed by them. The mystery is the beautiful part of it.
KIDMAN: I think they demystify films now—and even performances—by giving away too much information. This is why I’m not going to ask you anything about your performances, because they don’t need to be dissected. There is just way too much infrormation about all of that now, and the illusion is what makes it work. How do you feel about that?
COTILLARD: I remember when I was a student and we had to dissect poetry—French poets like Rimbaud or Baudelaire. I love that we each have our own interpretations and feelings about what they’ve written. I don’t think I can really explain what I do any better than I can explain a poem. I think acting is more a matter of just trying to connect with the human soul when I start working on a character. I don’t need to explain it—I need to understand it. Who is this person and what drives her? Maybe understanding and explaining are the same things.
KIDMAN: No, I don’t think they are. You are also approaching it subjectively, whereas the audience is approaching it objectively. When you’re in it, the patterns and the behavior all have to be fluent, so there needs to be an understanding. There is no right or wrong—and everyone is going to receive something different. This leads me to another mystery I want to ask you about, and it’s one I don’t think is discussed enough in Western culture: Death. I was wondering what you think happens to us after we die. It’s a big unknowns. I wonder if you have any ideas.
COTILLARD: Different things come to mind. When I was a child, I was told that we are more soul than body and that our souls start way before us and last way after and that we are part of the energy of the universe. I don’t know if we have many lives or if I will be reincarnated into a next life, but I really do think that when you die, it doesn’t stop. I think we’re part of the same energy. It’s funny because when I was working on La Vie en Rose, I connected with an energy that was not entirely mine. I’m not saying I connected with a ghost—
KIDMAN: But it just came to you.
COTILLARD: Yes. So I really think that we are more than just a body with a brain, heart, and soul that lives for a set amount of time. There are other cultures that don’t see death the same way we do in the West. We face death with different levels of fear—and I think in the West we face it with a very high level of fear. When I was a kid I was afraid, like most kids, of dying. But now I don’t know if I’m afraid. I don’t think it’s the scariest thing, to be totally honest. My grandmother is 101!
KIDMAN: She is? That’s amazing.
COTILLARD: And she’s still really sharp and healthy.
KIDMAN: She is the one with the garden in the countryside? That’s an extraordinary example of living.
COTILLARD: Yeah. She’s told me many times, “I want to die. It’s my time. I’m done with life.” Sometimes I think she’s telling the truth and yet I feel like she is happy to live. I don’t know if she’s afraid. I mean, you are never prepared for it, even if you are waiting for it to happen. Will I be fearless when it does? I just don’t know.
KIDMAN: I do think about it a lot. I suppose I try to live my days in a place leading to what I hope would be a peaceful end – if that makes sense. I don’t want to be frightened or panicked or have a conscience that isn’t in a place of peace, so I make decisions in life based on that. It’s probably my Catholic upbringing … Anyway, for some reason I’ve been thinking about it lately and I don’t know why. So I asked you.
COTILLARD: But thinking about that is just a way of trying to find bliss in life. And it’s totally part of life. And it’s all probably because you want to have a peaceful life—
KIDMAN: Yeah, I want that bliss. I think also it happens when you suddenly meet somebody who changes you. I met someone who I want to continue my life with for as long as I can. It saddens me so much to think of not having him, my love, in my life. Goodbye becomes a thing where I just think, Oh, please no – for him and for my children … How did we get into this, Marion? [laughs] I led us down this path!
COTILLARD: I think searching is a beautiful thing. There is this thought that goes, If you search and search and stop searching, then ultimately you’ll find what you need. But I think maybe if you don’t search you wouldn’t have the experience of searching and then won’t find it at all. You have to search first, if you know what I mean. It’s the experience of living. We can have one experience that can change our whole lives. I saw a documentary recently about a guy who was attacked by a shark. He was very injured and almost died. After this, he went all over the world killing sharks. Then an even bigger fear entered his mind: “I have killed so many of them. If I go on killing sharks, maybe one day they will all disappear.” The fear of his being responsible for the extinction of sharks made him change, and he then became a defender of sharks.
KIDMAN: Wow.
COTILLARD: I always remember the image of him on a boat. He had been protecting sharks for years but had never had another physical connection with a shark since the day of his attack. He’s standing there and a shark specialist tells him, “Sharks aren’t monsters. You can touch them.” A shark came and he touches its nose and gets very emotional. It’s a great image of how life can suddenly change and you can connect with the very thing that you were trying to destroy.
KIDMAN: People can change. I hate hearing that terrible expression “A leopard never changes his spots.” If that’s true then we’re doomed. I don’t believe we are doomed human beings—or living in a doomed world.
COTILLARD: I believe in human beings absolutely. Sometimes I’m just a little disturbed by how we rule the world. When I was a teenager I was so angry. I was asking questions like, “Why am I here? Why are we alive? What am I doing?” Now I’ve stopped searching for those answers—which I might never get. I think it’s more important to feel connected. When I was in the Congo I couldn’t speak the language. But I could understand what was happening by looking in someone else’s eyes.
KIDMAN: That’s a wonderful ability, Marion. And I love that your grandmother is 101! I find it sad in this day and age that we don’t value our elders the same way we used to. In most cultures they were the ones who had the wisdom and the power, and that’s gotten lost. I’m trying to teach my daughter, Sunday Rose, to have that respect for older people. I’d love to see that come back.
COTILLARD: How old is your daughter?
KIDMAN: She’s turning 2 next month. She was about four weeks old when she was on set with us . . . Just a tiny little thing.
COTILLARD: Yes, I remember she was such a cute little baby.
KIDMAN: And she eats out of the garden. We just planted our vegetables for the summer and all we have at the moment is lettuce. I’m hoping the corn will be beautiful, because I love eating corn out of the garden. And we just bought some alpacas. They are sort of the cousins of llamas, which I’ve always wanted because of their long necks and eyelashes. Anyway, we should talk about all the films you have out. Inception—I saw the trailer in a cinema in Nashville the other day. Everyone in the audience responded to it.
COTILLARD: I love the story because it has a beautiful balance between an action movie and a movie about dreams. I have a very busy nightlife in my dreams. [laughs]
KIDMAN: It’s about being able to enter people’s dreams and control them, isn’t it?
COTILLARD: Cobb [Leonardo DiCaprio’s character] is a specialist in entering people’s dreams. He tries to steal things out of them and manipulate the dreamer’s unconscious. It’s really an interesting idea to enter someone else’s dreams. I would love to be able to do that.
KIDMAN: I couldn’t bear it if anyone was privy to my dreams. It would be like reading my diary.
COTILLARD: You know what? I would love to go into an animal’s dream—like a lion’s or a cat’s. I’m sure that’s pretty awesome.
KIDMAN: I love that feeling when you wake up after a nightmare and go, “Oh, it’s not happening,” when it’s been so vivid and so real. I love that moment when you realize it was just a dream. Then there are those, which I had a lot of when I was young, where you wish that the dream had been real.
COTILLARD: Like flying in dreams . . .
KIDMAN: Yes, like those kind. You’re also about to work on a film with Woody Allen. Is he filming that in Paris?
COTILLARD: Yes, which I’m so happy about because last year I was away from home all the time. I loved being on the road and having the opportunity to travel all over. But I’m happy to be able to be home and asleep in my bed after a day of work. Usually when you work, you make homes everywhere. I’ve made homes in Chicago, London, Africa . . . When I was in Los Angeles shooting Inception, I rented a beautiful house. It was home for a while, but I was aware it wasn’t mine. It might actually be a challenge to get into a character while being in my own place.
KIDMAN: It’s different because you aren’t removed from your regular life. But Penélope [Cruz] loved working with Woody, didn’t she?
COTILLARD: She loved it. And so did Naomi Watts.
KIDMAN: Yes, Naomi said it was the best film experience that she’s ever had.
COTILLARD: He’s a maestro. I still can’t believe I’m going to do a movie with him.
KIDMAN: I met him once when he was playing jazz at the Carlyle Hotel in New York. My sister and I went to see him. He plays on Monday nights. I think it was right around when Sean Penn had been working with him, and we went with Sean. We sat at a table and just listened to him play and then briefly met him afterward. My sister and I were like, Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe this! I love that he continues to play music. You play guitar, right?
COTILLARD: Well, um . . . [laughs]
KIDMAN: Yes, you do!
COTILLARD: Well, actually, when I was in Los Angeles last January, a friend called me up who is an amazing singer who goes by the name Yodelice. He said, “Would you come to the studio? I would love for you to sing one of my songs.” So I went down and ended up going from a background singer to being in a duet. Then my friend said he was playing at the Olympia in Paris. The Olympia is one of the most famous places in Paris for concerts. Édith Piaf played there. The Olympia was very close to bankrupt and Piaf saved the place several times. So he asked me if I would sing with him there and I said, “Oh, yeah, of course.” I went to rehearsals with them and he asked me, “Would you play bass guitar?”
KIDMAN: [laughs] Oh, my gosh!
COTILLARD: I had never played bass guitar before. I was like, “Are you out of your mind? I’m not a bass guitar player!” But it has always been my dream to play bass guitar. He said, “Just try it for a few songs.” I took the bass guitar and suddenly it was so organic. So he said to me, “Would you play piano on this song?” I said, “I don’t even play piano!” He told me to try. I took piano lessons when I was like 5 or 6 but that was a long time ago. I stopped when I was 13. But suddenly it was very organic when I started playing it. So he said, “How about playing the drums?” He made me try, and it went on and on like this for a week. I was part of the band, playing all of the instruments. One day I arrived at rehearsal and my friend said, “Okay, now that you’ve done everything else, how about singing a song by yourself alone?” I said, “Man, you are way out of your mind.” But we did it and I ended up on tour with Yodelice for two months, traveling around to shows in different cities in France and Belgium. I changed my name, of course. I said, “I can’t be Marion Cotillard.” We ended up using Simone, which is my other grandmother’s name. She passed away many years ago but always wanted to be a singer. So sometimes Simone appears with the band.
KIDMAN: What a great guy to do that. I want to see Simone!
COTILLARD: [laughs] I love being Simone. I’m waiting for my schedule to open up in a month or two so I can pick up with the band and be a musician again.
KIDMAN: Being a musician is a very different life, isn’t it?
COTILLARD: Yes. But I love being one of the musicians in the back. The light is on the singer and I’m in the band. I love that.
Nicole Kidman is an Academy Award–winning actress whose upcoming films include Rabbit Hole and Just Go With It.
Blood Ties (2012) Character: Monica Director: Guillaume Canet Filming since April 30, 2012 in NYC Info •
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Official Site
Low Life (2012) Character: Sonya Cybulski Director: James Gray Filming wrapped mid March 2012 Info •
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Official Site
De Rouille et d'Os (2012) Rust & Bone Character: Stéphanie Director: Jacques Audiard In theatres May 17, 2012 (France) Info •
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Official Site
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Character: Miranda Tate Director: Christopher Nolan In Post-Production In theatres July 20, 2012 (US) Info •
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Official Site
Contagion (2011) Character: Leonora Orantes Director: Steven Soderbergh On DVD & Blu-ray January 3, 2012 (US) Info •
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Official Site
Midnight in Paris (2011) Character: Adriana Director: Woody Allen On DVD & Blu-ray December 20, 2011 (US) Info •
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Official Site
Les petits mouchoirs (2010) Little White Lies Character: Marie Director: Guillaume Canet Available on DVD & Blu-ray Info •
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Official Site
In development / Rumoured
- une (R)évolution (info)
- Jeanne au bûcher (info)
- Vivre c'est mieux que mourir (info)
- Arthur And Lancelot (info)
Other Projects
Lady Dior - L.A.dy Dior (since 2008) Print Campaign: Steven Klein Short Movie: John Cameron Mitchell Released in December 2011 Info •
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Official Site
Yodelice (since 2010) Pseudonym: Simone Album: Cardioid Joining the 2010/11 Tour sporadically Info •
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Official Site
New post at Magnifique Marion Cotillard, Marion Cotillard, "comme une petite fille qui déballe un gros cadeau" - tinyurl.com/73pu7dy • tweeted 17 hours ago
August 9, 2010
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