Many thanks to Lindsey for sending in the first still from ‘Midnight in Paris‘ featuring Marion Cotillard. The movie will open the Cannes Film Festival next month.

001 Midnight in Paris (2011) > Stills

ComingSoon.net just reported Warner Bros. Pictures’ announcement from earlier today that Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have – after much speculation – officially joined the cast of ‘The Dark Knight Rises, the epic conclusion to the Dark Knight legend helmed by Christopher Nolan. This will be quite the ‘Inception‘ re-union since both Marion and Joseph as well as already confirmed cast members Michael Caine and Tom Hardy were directed by Christopher Nolan in that movie.

Cotillard will appear as Miranda Tate, a Wayne Enterprises board member eager to help a still-grieving Bruce Wayne resume his father’s philanthropic endeavors for Gotham.

Gordon-Levitt will play John Blake, a Gotham City beat cop assigned to special duty under the command of Commissioner Gordon.

The Hollywood Reporter has this quote from Christopher Nolan:

When you collaborate with people as talented as Marion and Joe, it comes as no surprise that you would want to repeat the experience. I immediately thought of them for the roles of Miranda and Blake, and I am looking forward to working with both of them again.

Le Journal du Dimanche asked Woody Allen yesterday about who of the ladies from ‘Midnight in Paris‘ are to be expected at the Cannes Film Festival. Rachel McAdams is coming but it he doesn’t know about Carla Bruni. He hopes so but all depends on her schedule and he’ll only know a few days before the festival. But what about Marion Cotillard?

“Marion is expecting a happy event which is very imminent – it’s a matter of weeks, days maybe… So I don’t know. I’d love her to be there because in Cannes people have always extended an exceptional welcome to my work. “

• Source: leJDD.fr

from LittleWhiteLies.co.uk / by Zara Miller

(full version of the interview on which the article published in their March/April issue is based)

The French actress talks about returning to her roots for her latest role in Guillaume Canet’s Little White Lies.

From skipping girlfriend to scorned wife, Marion Cotillard’s roles have mirrored her maturing process as an actress. Starring alongside some of the biggest names in Hollywood she has, nonetheless, managed to retain an umbilical connection to France. For her new role in Guillaume Canet’s Little White Lies, Cotillard has rubbed the stars from her eyes, appearing with an all-French ensemble. Marion plays Marie; the name alone being an indication of the transformation expected. LWLies met with Marion in Paris back in January to discuss how she feels about being the latest in a long line of French actresses to cross the sea and charm the world.

LWLies: In your career you’ve played lots of roles that could be considered as quintessentially French. From Edith Piaf to a French cafe owner in A Good Year. Do you treat these roles as honouring a sense of patriotism?

Cotillard: I’ve never thought about those roles that way really. Well, of course, with Piaf, she’s a very, very strong figure. But even though she represents a very big, a very important part of French culture, when you do a movie and when you play a character you’re connected to, if you’re lucky enough, you’re connected to what’s inside this person and not what this person represents. So I never had these questions in my mind or these thoughts.

We’re really interested in your transition to Hollywood. Often when actors and actresses move across seas, in between films, it’s quite a mystery what goes on in the middle there. What was your initial impression of Hollywood?

I had the best experience there. My initial impression of Hollywood is more given to me by my experience during Awards season than doing a movie. Because when you’re doing a movie it’s not Hollywood that you see, it’s people working and people involved in the same direction; to tell the same story.

So when you first started working in Hollywood productions, did any one expect you to change?

Oh no, I don’t think so, I’m not sure I’m able to change. I’m very lucky to work there and all the directors I’ve worked with expected me to be who I am and be able to give what I can give as an actress. I don’t even really know what it means, because of course when you are a character you’re not entirely yourself, or you may be more than yourself.

So you didn’t have to undergo the sort of harsh judgement Piaf experienced: the way it’s depicted in La Vie en Rose? Because Piaf wasn’t glamorous, in the conventional Hollywood way.

Yeah, but on the other hand, they were touched by what she had to give and it took time because you don’t relate right away to a woman who’s from a different culture who sings with a very strong French accent. Because she always had a very very strong French accent, even when she sang in English. But then, behind this you have the emotion she could give and that’s what touched people. And it took a little time for them to get used to this weird looking French energy.

Just to clear up, we weren’t suggesting in any way that you look like Piaf…

No! And I wouldn’t compare myself to her, ever!

From becoming the face of Dior to travelling to dream worlds in Inception, how did it feel to do Little White Lies; a story that is very much more grounded in normality?

It was very different because for a few years I had travelled: from the ’20s to the ’60s with Piaf; and then to the ’40s with Public Enemies; then to the ’60s with Nine; Inception was… out of time. And then, suddenly, I can wear jeans, I can talk my own language. So it’s at the same time relaxing and really scary.

Scary in the sense that you had to put more of yourself out there?

Yeah, but then sometimes I had to take me back in. And I didn’t really want to do that, but it’s what worked. When you have like a structure of having to speak like they did in the ’40s, in the ’60s, it was a different language, and then you have to think about how to speak. So you really create a structure for your character in a world that he will be at ease in. I didn’t have to create a world for Marie because I know this world, I live in this world. So sometimes I was kind of lost because I didn’t know exactly how to create my structure.

So it was almost as though you were too used to being Marie?

No, no, no it was not about that. A few years ago I could have been that character, not entirely because on many levels we are different, but I met this girl before in many people, I met her. And I met her as she looks. I could’ve met some people who look a bit like Billie in Public Enemies but it’s like little flavours, it’s not the entire person; someone I can have a dinner or lunch with, or drink a beer or something. So it was really weird that she was so close from my world after all the experiences I had before where it was a world I don’t know anything about before starting to study how it was in Chicago in the ’40s.

Ladies certainly wouldn’t have drunk beer in the ’40s.

Yeah. But I think it’s easier for me to create a whole thing and to have a structure where I know where to go from, and then suddenly I had to use my voice because it was better, my own voice, than creating something.

In terms of accent?

No, in terms of ways to behave. And when I saw the movie for the fist time it was horrible! Because I could see things of myself that I can’t usually see, because I’m not watching myself when I live. But something that I could feel was mine; a little expression, a way to move my head, and it was horrible. It was horrible! And suddenly it’s as if someone is showing you like a holiday movie with a little camera and you see yourself and most of the time you hate it!

It must be a surreal experience; that feeling that someone’s watching you, but then you’re watching you too…

But not all the time, because I created a character for Marie. But there are some tiny expressions. It’s tiny, tiny but I can see it and even though it works for the character I can’t stand it.

Now, the elephant in the room: the film’s called Little White Lies…

Yeah, when I saw this on the schedule I was like, I don’t get it, there’s actually a magazine called Little White Lies?

But something changes in the translation from French to English doesn’t it? The French is ‘Les Petits Mouchoirs’, so the English adds the ‘white’. The whiteness seems so important to the meaning in English. It’s what makes telling the lie seemingly harmless, innocent on the surface, a clean lie almost. Is this sense of innocence retained in the French?

It’s more something that you will hide, pretending it’s not a big deal to hide this thing, because you can live with little lies here and there without being totally torn apart yourself. But then it’s there. Les petits mouchoirs, the translation would be… it comes from an expression, like, you have a problem and you keep thinking about it and the expression would be like ‘just put it aside’. So you put it aside so there’s no resolution of this problem, but it’s still there. Or it is something that you will put aside because you don’t want to face it, you don’t want to see what’s real, you don’t want to see the truth, and you will deal in a way with it, but without facing it.

So it’s from an expression not an expression in itself?

Yeah it’s from an expression. We say ‘les petits mouchoirs’; ‘the little handkerchief’. So you put a tissue on this, like you’re going to put the dust underneath the carpet. So it’s clear, but it’s dirty underneath. And it’s still there if you don’t clean it, and if you don’t face that’s it’s disgusting underneath it’ll be there forever. And you can transform it into a naïve thing but a lie…

Is a lie?

Yeah.

And for your character, Marie, what little white lies does she tell?

She needs protection. She thinks she’s strong enough to live by herself and she lies about what she needs really. So she runs away, she tries to understand human beings behaviour on the other side of the world, when she cannot understand how she works.

And what important truth do you think the film tells?

Well the truth is, if you fear something, I don’t think it will do good to escape or try to hide what you are afraid of. But if you face it, eventually, it won’t hurt you. For example, in friendship, you have a relationship with someone and you won’t tell this person something that you need to hear from a friend, because a friend is also there to tell you things that sometime you don’t want to see. But you will not tell your friend what he should hear because you don’t want to be the one who lifts the carpet because it can destroy your relationship, you think it can destroy your relationship. You think you can be abandoned by this friend because he will not accept what you said and so you stay in this state of dealing with things that could be solved and that could take you further with yourself in a relationship, but you wont move anything because you are afraid that the movement could make your relationship collapse.

The film also deals with grief and coming to terms with loss. Do you think it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

Well, loss is a part of life. And a life without love? I don’t see how it’s possible.

There’s a scene in the film where you’re water skiing and you’re character gets really upset that the boats going too fast. Do you always feel in control in your career?

I’m not trying to control things because I don’t feel I have to. Things are happening, beautiful things are happening, and I just live what’s happening and try to live it entirely.

In 2009 you starred alongside Sophia Loren in Nine. Loren was the first actress to win an Oscar for a film in a language other than English. You were the second. What do you hope to achieve by the time you are Sophia Loren’s age?

Simplicity. And being able to cook pasta like she does. No, simplicity, because she…she has this way to be simple with people. She’s an authentic beautiful woman.

So do you think that simplicity is something that comes with age?

Experience, I would say, with experience.

from AskMen.com / by Anne Brodie

Marion Cotillard has been heating up the screen with her Gallic charm, but now she’s taken on a very different role – one that hits close to home.

Quick Bio

Oscar-winning French actress Marion Cotillard has an unusual approach to her work. While many actors say they enjoy studying human psychology for their roles, Cotillard says she thinks of herself as an anthropologist, taking into consideration her characters’ origins, physical characteristics, institutions, religious beliefs, and social relationships.

It’s an ambitious starting point for a performance, and is clearly working well for Cotillard, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in La môme (retitled La vie en rose in the U.S.) in 2007 and went on to star in prestigious films like Johnny Depp’s Public Enemies, the all-star musical Nine and the landmark sci-fi film Inception. Her acting savvy and classic beauty also landed her a spot on our Top 99 Most Desirable Women 2011.

Guillaume Canet’s Little White Lies, originally released in France as Les petits mouchoirs, gave Cotillard the chance to play a riskier character than any she’d portrayed before — a version of herself. Canet even wrote the part specifically for her.

The film, which was one of the biggest box office hits in French cinema, has been set for release in the UK on April 15.

We spoke with Cotillard in Toronto about this unusually intimate role.

You worked with long-time boyfriend (and French movie heartthrob) Guillaume Canet who wrote the part for you. Would or could you have done the picture if you two hadn’t known each other so well?
Marion Cotillard : That’s hard to answer. I thought the script was amazing, and I’ve always wanted to work with him as a director. I don’t know if I would have done this movie without him. I don’t think it would have been possible.

A group of friends on a weekend getaway is struck by tragedy, but they carry on, unable to process what happened. What was your character’s response?
MC : I think her relationship with all of them drives her behavior, and she’s trapped and lost between what she wants and what she does. She has a very strong relationship with this boy who has an accident, but it’s also a tricky relationship, because they’ve been together back and forth, and it’s this group of friends, and she really cares for all of them, and she is totally lost in this situation. She doesn’t know how to be there for everyone. I think in friendship, you want to be there for your friend, and sometimes you just don’t know what to do or the relationship you have with them is not clear enough for you to know what to do.

Guillaume wrote it with you in mind. Did that affect your work?
MC : The first time he wrote the script, he didn’t think of any actors, and then quite quickly he thought of actors. She’s very natural, and I wanted her to be natural, so I thought that the best way would be to not create a special voice or behavior. I used myself. I was kind of weirded out when I saw the film for the first time. There were things that were so me. The way that she moves, even when she takes a glass of wine or something. You don’t really see yourself doing things, of course, but you feel. And then you see yourself doing these things on-screen, and it’s another character, but you feel that these things belong to you. And it’s very disturbing. When you see yourself on video, you and your friends spending time on vacation, and they take a video, and then you see it, it’s really disturbing.

What was the level of difficulty in finding her/yourself?
MC : I find it easier to play someone who is so far from me because you create someone — you build this person based on the story and the script, with the director. And it’s like you enter a room you’ve created, and there’s no confusion between you and this room, because it’s really not you. Here it was really different, not just because she looks like me, but because there were a lot of common points — not just the fact that we’re the same age, and the fact that I had almost no makeup on. She had a totally different haircut; she is dressed like I could be dressed. I was inspired by a very close friend, my best friend, actually. So, sometimes, it’s not that it’s totally confusing, because I have a sane brain, but to find the boundaries or to not find the boundaries, to try and let go and think, “OK she’s going to have my voice, and have some gestures of mine.” This is something that I don’t really like. I like to have a character and create the whole thing and not let go of something from myself, and when I saw the movie, you have to understand, it is unbearable.

Yes, I think that in some of your best-known films, like Public Enemies, you’re so different from the characters.
MC : Yeah! And it’s totally different because it’s in the 40s or the 60s. Or even Inception, which, even though it’s contemporary, the genre of the film is so weird that it really makes it easier for me to do because it’s so far from me.

I have never heard that expressed before. That’s really interesting. You’ve had some amazing landmarks happen in your career, particularly at such a young age.
MC : Oh, yeah. I’m grateful that I am able to live my childhood dream.

And for such rewards: winning an Oscar, acting in Public Enemies and Inception. Just incredible what you have been able to draw to yourself.
MC : Yes. And I had never thought that I would work in the United States, with directors like Michael Mann, Tim Burton, Ridley Scott, Chris Nolan, Rob Marshall, and to do a musical, when it was my dream as a child! And I think the biggest thing, when you’re French and want to be an actor and you want to tell stories and do some theater or some French movies, is that my dreams became reality.

You didn’t dream about Hollywood?
MC : No, but on the other hand, I never thought it was possible. But because of that, I never thought about the obstacles, so if you don’t think about it, then you don’t send the message to yourself that it won’t happen or it’s impossible. So you let the door open without knowing it. I really relate to American movies because my first memories of a movie when I was a kid were American movies — The Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin films, of course E.T. and Fantasia. It helped me to build my imagination. My imagination was full of American cinema and images. I remember we were shooting Inception on the set. One of my favorite movies when I was a kid was Singin’ in the Rain with all those big sets, and I never got used to it. Every morning [on the set of Inception], I was, like, entering the door thinking, “Oh, my god! Oh, my god! Oh, my god! I can’t even believe it!” even after two months of filming. It was like that all the time, arriving on a set that I had seen before in one of my favorite movies.

Well, like you said, you left the door open.
MC : Yes. I think that when you don’t see the boundaries, you cross them without even knowing they exist in the first place. I don’t see myself as an accomplished actress. I think I have a lot of things to learn, and I think you always are learning things when you are an actress, because you are studying human hearts and souls. And I hope to never achieve everything there is to know about it.

from EFE / by Florencia Maldjian

In which way is this film more personal that what you’ve done before?
Because there is a lot of myself into the characters. I put a lot of myself because some of the scenes in the film are some of the scenes that I’ve lived as a human being, or I saw those scenes in my friends’ life and so it’s, yeah, it’s quite close to me, very personal to me.

I’ve heard it’s a very good film but some people say that it’s very long. Why did you make the decision of not cutting more?
Because the film is like this and it was really difficult to cut more than this. It needed this time. When you see it, you’ll understand.

How do you feel directing your best friends?
It’s complicated. Sometimes it’s really nice because it helps you to be understood, to say exactly what you want and because they know me very well and they know exactly what I wanted to say, what I wanted to express. But at the same time it’s really difficult because it has allowed them to say things that they won’t say to a director and the same for me. If they joke around on the set and have fun I want them to be focused. I would tell Gilles “shut up!” and he would be like “What? How are you talking to me? I’m your actor!”. So it changed a little bit the relationship.

So you got mad at them for being playful…
Yeah, exactly.

It must be very hard, actually, you can’t be playful…
No, I can’t. I can’t be part of it, I have to get the bad role.

How do you handle working with yuor partner as well? It’s spending all the time with the same person, at work and at home.
Yeah (he smiles). For me that was good, for me that was ok, because I was really focused on my films. But for her, I’m sure it was more complicated because when you come back home from work. I mean, for her, I imagine that she wants a break and to be able to talk about something else, but for me I was still focused on my film, on the dailies, watching the dailies, thinking about the scene of the day after so there was no pause.

But I suppose that at least she could be some kind of help to you.
Yes, but it’s difficult for her. When you wanna get some rest at night, you know, you don’t wanna have all the problems of the director.

So basically it’s easier to act with her than to direct her. Because I’ve seen you joking around in the footage of ‘Le Dernier Vol’.
Yeah, that’s easier for sure.

What do you like best? To direct or to act?
I really like both. I think that now that time is passing I prefer directing but I really need to work as an actor too because if I were only a director it would be too frustrating for me. I need to express myself phisically and not only being a director, psichologically, you know.

So, do you have any…? Apart from parenthood – he smiles, bows his head, I think this is super nice – which… I think you are gonna be great parents, the both of you… (N/A: I seriously needed to say this)
(Smiles) Thank you.

What other projects have you got?
I have a film that I wrote with James Grey that I wannadirect next year. And I have a film that I’m gonna shoot in september about Jappeloup. I don’t know if you know, It’s about a horse and a horse rider that won the Olympic games in 88 so it’s a story about horses. And I have some other project that I’m working on as a director.

Any international projects?
Well, I have “Last Night”.

I’ve seen you in Last Night.
Did you like it?

Yes, I thought it was quite good.

We speak a bit more, nothing important. He eats his chips, we laugh, we take a picture and that’s that. A nice guy, Guillaume Canet.

from The Guardian (UK) / by David Thomson

When Marion Cotillard played Edith Piaf in Olivier Dahan’s La Vie en Rose (2007), she amazed most of us with the intensity of her impersonation and physical commitment to Piaf’s desperate fragility. She didn’t actually sing the songs, but who noticed? The response to Cotillard was automatic and heartfelt: she won a Bafta, a César, a Golden Globe and the Oscar – the first time that prize had gone to a player in a French film. Somehow, she became confused with Piaf. It was taken for granted that Cotillard was herself a powerhouse and an international star in the making. But it has all turned out very differently, to such an extent that one marvels all the more at the ferocious resources she laid hold of for Piaf.

For what has been revealed in her films since 2007 is a proclivity for pain, suffering, patience and a curiously passive intensity. It’s not that I’m unappreciative. For some of us, a little Piaf goes a long way. I found Cotillard far more interesting as Mal, the spirit of the dead wife in Christopher Nolan’s Inception. She seemed to grasp the submerged, latent or imaginary level of being Nolan was seeking. She was reproachful, unyielding, baleful, slightly sinister – as well as attractive and endearing. She made a great deal of what was not much more than a sketch in the script: the ghost of a suicide wife who keeps trying to draw Leonardo DiCaprio closer towards his own demise. I admit that I like Inception more than many people, and in part that’s because of the way Cotillard provided an emotional basis for what could have been a very technical exercise. But she has eyes – we know now – that seem always on the point of weeping. Piaf was famous for regretting nothing, but Marion Cotillard has a gaze that suggests nearly everything she can think of is tinged with grief or regret.

Michael Mann’s Public Enemies (2009) was not a good film, but see what Cotillard made out of Dillinger’s lover, Billie Frechette. Long before Johnny Depp’s Dillinger seems to realise where he’s headed, Billie has guessed he is a short-lived flame, and her moist eyes light up with threatened appreciation for every perilous moment they have together. When the gangster is actually killed, she is so devastated that we suddenly realise how flimsy or cold-blooded the rest of the film has been. Similarly, in Rob Marshall’s Nine (2009), the natural role for Cotillard was as the betrayed wife to Daniel Day-Lewis’s womaniser, always on the brink of leaving him, victimised by her own vulnerability to love, and heartbroken when she hears her husband repeat words of romance he once used on her to another woman.

So in the English-language films made since her Oscar, Cotillard has stayed subdued, poignant and in support. There’s been no hint of her commanding a film, as she did with La Vie en Rose. That was very much the pattern she had established before playing Piaf: she was lively and fun as Russell Crowe’s French girlfriend in Ridley Scott’s A Good Year (2006); she was a supporting player in Abel Ferrara’s Mary (2005); and just a small part in Tim Burton’s Big Fish (2003). Even in one of her French films, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s A Very Long Engagement, she was playing along in what was Audrey Tautou’s vehicle.

She is 35 now, and has forthcoming roles in American films: she plays a “muse”, apparently, in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, which will open the Cannes festival in May, and she will be a doctor in Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion. In neither project does she seem to have a dominant part. Of course, she is French, with a French career and the actor Guillaume Canet as her companion. She and Canet are expecting a child this spring, and Cotillard has been featured in a fashion ad campaign. It remains to be seen what else she wants, and how important it is to her to insist on something as potent, self-assertive and irresistible as La Vie en Rose.

Last Saturday, French TV station M6 aired an Accès privé special about Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet and how they manage to keep their relationship under the radar – even now, one month ahead of their first child’s birth. Since there isn’t anything new to reveal the special mainly consisted of footage taken during the promotion of ‘Jeux d’enfants‘ (Love Me If You Dare, 2003) when they were just friends and then during the promotion of the movies ‘Le dernier vol‘ (2009) and Les petits mouchoirs‘ (Little White Lies, 2010). Additional footage originated from France 2‘s 2009 Envoyé Spécial about Guillaume Canet, public appearances together at the Cannes Film Festival as well as from an out-of-context film set for ‘Les jolies choses‘.

If anybody knows any more about the non-TV interviews of Marion Cotillard promoting ‘Jeux d’enfants‘ please let me know. These are totally new to me and I would love to watch them in their entirety.

Gallery: 243 Specials > Accès privé (M6) – 02/04/2011
Video: 001 Documentaries > Accès Privé

Another brilliant interview was published in the UK today. This time in The Independent. While none of the topics mentioned are actually new the answers about her work in both French and American movies, her recent career developments as well as about dealing with the media do contain additional insight so be sure to read.

• Marion Cotillard: ‘I’m really normal! Well, not that normal. I’m an actress’, The Independent, April 3

I just wanna do movies. I don’t have a plan. I’m so lucky to have the opportunity to work with some directors and some actors I wouldn’t have dared to think I would work with one day. And now I know that everything is possible. So, it’s very exciting. But I don’t have in my mind whether I do an American movie or a French movie. It’s just [that] the stories come and… if I recognised myself in the story, I wanna be part of it. That’s how it happens.

Talking of stories coming her way, Baz Bamigboye reports in The Daily Mail that Marion Cotillard is on on a wish list of actresses to play Fantine in the movie adaptation of the musical ‘Les Misérables‘ which in turn in based on Victor Hugo’s book. Tom Hooper – fresh off Oscar-winning The King’s Speech‘ – is in negotiations to sign as director. Once the crucial part of lead character Valjean’s been cast filming could start next year, apparently.

In France’s Tétû magazine from March 25, director John Cameron Mitchell is being asked about his connection to Marion Cotillard. Here my translation:

A word about this other experience: a Dior ad where you led Marion Cotillard and Ian McKellen into a “dance erotico” and experimental. It’s an idea of Marion whom I had met before ‘La Vie en Rose‘. She adored Hedwig, so much so that she was even thinking of performing it on stage. Moreover, her friends from the band Yodelice made a brilliant cover of the song Midnight Radio which is from Hedwig. We’ll see if we can continue to work together.