from The Toronto Star (Canada) / by Richard Ouzounian

Actress takes time for her own reality as she works to understand the roles she is playing

NEW YORK–A piece of advice: if you value your life, don’t confuse the real Marion Cotillard with the characters she plays onscreen.

When I did, the sweetly smiling doe who had been gazing at me in an elegantly faded hotel room turned into the raging tiger she becomes in the climactic musical sequence of Nine, her latest film.

“When people ask me how I am like Edith Piaf, how I am like Luisa Contini, then I become very mad,” she declared, eyes blazing. “I am an actress and they are characters I am playing. Why is that so hard for some people to understand?”

After five minutes in her presence, you not only understand her point perfectly, but you wonder how anyone could make the mistake.

Cotillard took the world by storm as Piaf in La Vie en rose, winning an Oscar for her performance as the decrepit, drug-addled “little sparrow” who scorched the concert stage with her self-destructive songs.

And now, she is exquisite in Nine as the liquid-eyed Luisa, suffering through the infidelities and humiliations that her husband, internationally acclaimed film director Guido Contini, keeps publicly inflicting on her, until she can take no more and strikes back in a fantasy striptease number of unparalleled masochism.

But she’s neither of these women. Nor is she the mischievous Fanny from A Good Year, the battered Billie Frechette from Public Enemies or … well, you get the picture.

“What I love about my job and why I’m doing this is the desire to understand someone else. And you don’t have to be someone to understand them.”

She tilts her head to one side and smiles. An artist who wanted to paint the true Cotillard would find himself using colours like dusty rose or aubergine. There’s an almost palpable warmth emanating from her, but it’s not coupled with the usual empty cheerfulness found in many Hollywood stars.

“Look, if you work all the time, if just do movie after movie, you’re playing another person more than you’re being yourself and the real you can get lost that way.

“If you don’t live your real life, then you become empty and the only place you can find authentic inspiration is in reality. That’s where the truth is.”

To play Luisa, she went for her inspiration to a pair of real directors’ wives.

Because Nine is based on Fellini’s autobiographical 8 1/2, it’s always been understood that the long-suffering wife who gave up her acting career for a while was inspired by Fellini’s spouse, Giulietta Masina.

“Yes, part of my inspiration was her,” says Cotillard. “If you look at the films she made for Fellini in their early days together, you can see a great artist who was also a very fragile woman.

“But I found even more material in the documentary film called Hearts of Darkness, about (Francis Ford) Coppola shooting Apocalypse Now. His wife Eleanor had to endure the most blatant infidelities on the set, much like Luisa does with Guido, but yet she remained so dedicated to him until he finally pushed her too far. Just like Guido does with Luisa.”

Cotillard has slipped into a world where the real Giulietta and Eleanor have taken equal footing with the fictional Luisa and you begin to see how her art is formed.

“When you understand someone, you can love them no matter how terrible they seem to be. She knows that Guido, as an artist, as a director, lives in a world where his desires are all fulfilled. I want this set, I want this costume…” She stops, with a catch in her throat. “I want this actress. So you take them all.

“Luisa can deal with the physical infidelity, even though it is painful to her. What she finds unforgivable is the lie.”

She slips into one of her songs from the film, “My Husband Makes Movies,” whispering a few lines softly in her endearingly husky tremolo.

“Singing with Guido all night on the phone … long ago, someone else ago.”

Then she looks up suddenly and Luisa has vanished.

“Rob (Marshall) told me he wanted to make people feel Guido ought to be with Luisa again. That was my job. Where do I find it all? In my character. Never in myself.”

Her voice rises again. “I will never, never use something from my own life. I feel it is too dangerous.

“If you wake up an old pain, for example, because you have to cry in a scene, then how do you put that pain back to sleep again?”

But where did Cotillard find the depths of degradation she needed to allow a room full of men to paw her as she stripped in front of her husband in the fantasy song “Take It All”?

“I found it in Luisa. She carried me through it. It’s such a gift for an actress to find a character who will enable her to free herself that completely.

“You can’t find it in every part you play, but when you do, you say `Yes, I am free! Thank you, my friend!’”

from The Baltimore Sun (US) / by Liz Smith

“THE LAST time I went to look at dailies while I was making a movie, I almost had a breakdown. It took me 10 days to arrive back on set, and all the while I was thinking, ‘What are you doing here? You are such a bad actress, a fraud!’”

That, believe it or not is the divine Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard, who simply will not look at her work before it is finished and ready for an audience. “Someday, I hope I’ll be more confident,” Marion told me. Then she paused, and laughed a little. “Maybe not. I think maybe it’s better to be insecure, actually.”

I spoke with Marion last week, before she left New York for Christmas with her family in France, and then a vacation in Africa. Word had just come of her Golden Globe nomination for the Rob Marshall/Harvey Weinstein dazzler, “Nine.” In this spectacular, ravishingly sexy and poignant musical, Miss Cotillard is the film’s breaking heart and soul.

She plays Luisa Contini, wife of troubled — and unfaithful — movie director Guido Contini (Daniel Day- Lewis) She must make the decision to stay or go. Her scenes are the true emotional center of the film. (And she has two of the films best numbers, “My Husband Makes Movies” and “Take it All.”) The elusive, usually intense and serious Daniel Day-Lewis matches her. (In “Nine,” Day-Lewis — loosely channeling the sprightly charm of Marcello Mastroianni — is almost adorable.)

Marion said of her co-star: “He is so committed to what he does, he is such an amazing actor. He is very easy to work with, because his involvement is such that it doesn’t feel like work, or like acting at all. I came to feel I was Luisa and Daniel was Guido!”

And working with “Nine’s” other fabulous females — Sophia Loren, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Stacy Ferguson, aka Fergie, Kate Hudson?

“Well, unfortunately, none of us really have scenes together, except for one number. But we all had to rehearse together for weeks. And that was an incredible experience. We shared everything, especially our anxieties. Some people worried over their singing, some over their dancing. So we were just in it together, going to dance class, vocalizing; an awesome ensemble of women. It’s so rare, and it made me very interested in working with an all-female cast, all of us acting.”

Marion credits director Rob Marshall for allaying fears and encouraging the best from his ladies. “Rob gave some of us the confidence we didn’t have, the courage to go to places we didn’t think we could. To say he is a genius would be a terrible understatement.”

I second that understatement. And I say again, don’t be put off but any iffy reviews. This is a fabulous entertainment and more than worth the hard-earned money you plunk down at the box-office.

Oh, and if Miss Cotillard isn’t nominated for an Oscar, I’ll be stunned. (Fergie’s already legendary handling of “Be Italian” is so spectacular I wouldn’t be surprised if she nabbed a Best Supporting nomination!)

from The Arizona Republic / by Bill Goodykoontz

Marion Cotillard won an Oscar for playing Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose,” so you’d think starring in a musical would be old hat for her.

Well, maybe. Cotillard, one of a boatload of Oscar winners in “Nine,” (the cast includes Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench and Nicole Kidman), still had to rehearse. She spoke recently about that experience, as well as what it’s like working with Day-Lewis and trying to act while still carrying a tune.

Question: Did the cast sit around and compare Oscars?
Answer: (Laughs.) No, no, no. We spent a lot of time together during the rehearsal and we shared a lot of things, but not Oscar stories.

Q: What was it like working with such a notable cast?
A: I think that a lot of actors share the same feeling. … It’s like it is for the first time. You go back to that point where you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen the first time. We were like a theater company arriving two months before shooting on set for the rehearsals. We were all so nervous about the singing, the dancing. We were all there to work and to try to do something good. You know, I don’t think an actor is a confident person. So we shared the same feelings of excitement, of anxiety, and we really support each other.

Q: The women didn’t have a lot of scenes together.
A: Yeah, that’s why it was an amazing time during the rehearsal. We got to know each other and to work together. I had a lot of singing lessons with Penelope and Nicole, and dancing lessons also. It was really an amazing time to share our joy, to be part of this project with (director) Rob Marshall.

Q: Daniel Day-Lewis is well-known for his intensity. You play his wife. What was he like to work with?
A: He really carries you, the way he works, the way he’s committed and how generous he is. It carries you to a very high level of joy in your work.

During the rehearsals, I remember one day I was working on (the song) “Take It All.” I was going over the choreography, over and over and over again.

And suddenly he enters the room without saying a word. He took a chair and he sat in front of me. I did “Take It All” two or three times with his eyes on me. Then he just left. I mean, it was an amazing time, because suddenly it became more than technical that day. I had to forget, not what I was doing, but all the technique and put some emotion in it. Actually it pushed everything higher, even the technique was better because he was there and he was looking at me and he was giving me (his character) Guido’s look that I needed at that point in the rehearsals. This is how generous he is.

Q: The songs are eventually dubbed, but you still have to sing while shooting. Is it difficult to act while singing?
A: I think that music brings a lot of emotion. I’ve always loved to sing, and I think in a way when you forget about the technique and you’re just into the scene and into your character, I find it kind of, not easier, but it’s a different level of emotion. The music carries a lot of emotion. I used to work with music even when not in a musical, because there’s something about the music that makes you dive into something deep. I wouldn’t say it’s harder. I would say it’s different and it’s definitely really exciting and really emotional.

from USA Today / by Donna Freydkin

NEW YORK — Nicole Kidman is in a bit of a rush, noticeably eager to wrap up a late-afternoon interview at the Plaza Hotel, as her husband Keith Urban and daughter Sunday Rose, 1, wait in the next room.

She has a hot date with Penelope Cruz and Marion Cotillard, who have converged on Manhattan from their home bases of Madrid and Paris, respectively, to promote their Golden Globe-nominated song-and-dance extravaganza, Nine, which opens wide on Friday.

“Penelope, Marion and I were meant to be going lingerie shopping after this,” says Kidman. “We’re all still very good friends.”

In fact, anyone searching for spats among the A-list cast had better look elsewhere.

“You’re expected to vie with people, but there was none of that. Sophia (Loren) said we’d either kill each other or like each other. We liked each other,” reports Judi Dench, who plays a costume designer in the musical, which stars Daniel Day-Lewis as a philandering director suffering from writer’s block and dealing with the many ladies in his life.

Cotillard, who plays Day-Lewis’ wife, established a “beautiful friendship” with his mistress, Cruz, she says.

Seductress Fergie clicked with Vogue reporter Kate Hudson, because “we’re the California girls,” she says. “We went to the Madonna concert, Penelope, myself, Marion and Kate. Kate and I went out one night and Marion came. Sunday Rose was there on set. I always wanted to go talk baby talk to her.”

The biggest diva in the group? Kidman’s grinning daughter, who points and demands to press shiny elevator buttons while her mother holds her and waits for the lift to arrive.

Here’s how each of the ladies soared on set.

Marion Cotillard

The bereft bride

Cotillard, 34, won an Academy Award for playing French chanteuse Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose but lip-synced in the film. This time, she belted out two tunes herself — and earned another Golden Globe nomination.

Singing, she says, “is an amazing experience. I’ve always loved to sing. When I was a kid, my favorite musicals were American.”

She had to fight for her role in Nine, having three separate auditions — eight months before she took home the Oscar. With endearing honesty, Cotillard gets emotional when asked how the golden guy changed the course of her career.

Without the Oscar, she muses, “I wouldn’t have worked in this country like that. I’ve always wanted to be an actress, I’ve always wanted to tell stories with amazing people. It makes me so happy, how I am welcomed in this world of cinema here.”

Cotillard can relate to her Nine character, a woman coming to terms with the end of her once-passionate relationship. “She’s suffering. She wants to be happy with the man she loves, but mostly, she wants him to find his way. She tries to help him, but the problem is the love that made the connection is lost,” says Cotillard.

In real life, Cotillard is in a long-term romance with French actor/director Guillaume Canet. Had she been in Luisa’s shoes, says Cotillard, “Can I say, if my lover, if my husband cheated on me, I would — I don’t know. I just hope it would not happen.”

It has been a busy year for the actress, who starred in the Johnny Depp crime drama Public Enemies this summer and just wrapped the Christopher Nolan thriller Inception. To her, selling out “would mean that I would put dirt on my dream. That’s really what I feel,” says Cotillard. “I’m so fortunate, so lucky to have these beautiful opportunities. I will never do a movie for a bad reason.”

Nicole Kidman

The golden goddess

Six weeks after giving birth to her daughter, Kidman found herself in London at singing and dancing rehearsals on a soundstage for Nine director Rob Marshall.

“Rob kept saying to me, ‘She has to be a goddess,’ ” says Kidman of Claudia, the star of Guido’s non-existent movie. “I decided to give her a Swedish accent. At that time, in cinema, there were very famous Swedish actresses. I thought that would be a nice flavor mixed in with all these Italians.”

Kidman, 42, is no stranger to musicals, having earned a best-actress Oscar nomination for 2001′s Moulin Rouge!. But Nine, she says, proved a different experience. “It’s an ensemble. The sensibility is different. It’s sexy and painful and sad. It runs the gamut of emotions. I’d call it a psychological musical,” she says.

She didn’t get to keep the full-length frock she wears during her number. But she has her daughter to thank for her curves. “I was wrapped into that dress. I was!” says Kidman. “That’s when I had big boobs from the milk. That’s the benefit of the breast-feeding.”

For the Oscar winner (The Hours, 2002), leaving her baby at home in Nashville, where she lives with her country singer husband, Keith Urban, wasn’t an option.

“I just can never be away from her, so she comes wherever I go, as you see. Have baby, will travel. She’s OK (on planes), but honestly, we stay in Nashville a lot. That’s why I don’t work that much,” she says. “It’s harder now to pack to her up. At 16 months, it’s a different type of traveling. When they’re 6 weeks, they’re easier to travel with. And you’re breast-feeding, so it’s easy to feed.”

Penelope Cruz

The sexy spitfire

The darkest story arc in the film belongs to Cruz, whose performance as Carla, Guido’s lover, has earned her Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations. Cruz says that even though Carla experiences the depths of doomed love, “she wanted to be a lady for him, but she’s not. She’s a lady, but a different kind of lady. She’s tried to become a hundred different women for him.”

Carla is both downtrodden and fiery, accommodating and demanding. Cruz, who won the best-supporting-actress Oscar for Vicky Cristina Barcelona this year, has been in a long and low-key relationship with actor Javier Bardem, so she looked for acting inspiration in unexpected places: most notably, the Pink Panther.

“He was sexy in a goofy, strange way. That was the image naturally coming to my mind,” says Cruz, 35. “I always saw something a little bit peculiar and goofy about Carla’s personality. I found her very attractive to play. Also, I liked exploring the type of obsession she feels for Guido, because she has the hope that she will have a perfect, stable, happy life with him. It’s her drug.”

Even more challenging than singing and dancing on-screen — and dealing with bleeding hands from her signature ropes number — was ditching her Spanish accent to play an Italian sexpot. “I had to do my Italian accent, and I was very obsessed with that. Every day, I would watch hours and hours of all the Italian actors who did movies in English,” says Cruz.

Kate Hudson

The brassy vamp

Long before she started acting, says Hudson, she sang for fun. And this is the first time she got to do both on-screen.

“I never had the confidence to perform in front of people. I’ve always been a little nervous. When I was younger, there was not a shy bone in my body. But when I hit high school, that part of me shut down,” she says. “I was more interested in film. You’re no longer so outward. This was like going back to being a little girl, that feeling you get when go onstage and project. Being able to express outwardly is so fun.”

And brutal at times.

“We would take our bustiers off and just have scrapes from the crystals. Bright red little scrapes all over,” recalls Hudson, 30. “We all had our war wounds. Fergie had sand in her eye. Penelope had her bleeding fingers and calluses. I had scrapes and bruises on my knees.”

Hudson says her son, Ryder, 6, takes after his dad, musician Chris Robinson. “He loves to sing. He loves to dance. You get a guitar on him, and he’s mimicking a real guitar player,” she says. “Ryder dances to the beat of his own drum already.”

Hudson won’t discuss her relationship with New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez, which the tabloids have subsequently reported is over.

But she will address other rumors, including stories that she’s desperate to have more kids: “Contrary to what every tabloid writes, that’s not in the forefront of my mind. But I look forward to having more children.”

Fergie

The beach babe

Ultra-fit Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie, 34, had “a blast” playing Saraghina, the prostitute who seduces a young Guido. That’s because she got to indulge her love of fattening grub.

“Physically, Saraghina is not about working out or dieting. It’s about being Italian and loving food,” says Fergie, the last star cast. “So basically, I ate everything I wanted and stopped working out. I ate a lot of fish and chips and frozen enchiladas, and there was this French cheese at the hotel. It was kind of like a Brie. I would eat the entire thing before bed.”

Because her song-and-dance number takes place on the beach, Fergie was covered with “sand burns and tambourine bruises — it sounds like a country song!” she says with a laugh.

Which Fergie does her husband, Transformersstar Josh Duhamel, prefer — svelte or zaftig? “He loves everything about transforming. That might sound wrong because of his movie. No pun intended!” says Fergie. “He loves me either way. For him, it didn’t really matter.”

Judi Dench

The no-nonsense friend

For Dench, lending Day-Lewis an ear as his costume designer and close pal Lilli wasn’t much of a stretch. “We’re old friends. I played his mother in Hamlet, so I know him well. He’s adorable. We had a very nice time, especially in the bar of the Eden Hotel in Rome,” says Dench, 75.

Who partied harder, Dench or Day-Lewis? “Daniel could write a book on cocktails,” she retorts.

Dench got inspiration from her colleague, Nine dressmaker Colleen Atwood.

“The part was written for someone with a dry sense of humor, who’d known Guido since he was a little boy. Colleen has quite a way about her,” says Dench.

Dench, an Oscar winner for 1998′s Shakespeare in Love, shows her flashy side in a dance routine at the end of the film.

“My number was just walking about and carrying on in the nightclub,” she says. “I’ve done a lot of musicals onstage, like Cabaret. It was lovely to do it.”

from NBC News Today / Transcript from The Today Show

MEREDITH VIEIRA, co-host:

Eight thirty now on this Monday morning, December 21st, 2009. A lot of the weekend snow is already being scooped up here in downtown Manhattan. Right now, Oscar winner Marion Cotillard scooping up toys for our 16th annual toy drive. We’re going to talk to her in just a bit.

MEREDITH VIEIRA, co-host:

But first, let’s welcome Marion Cotillard to the plaza.

ANN CURRY, co-host:

Hello, Marion.

VIEIRA: She is one of the stars–nice to see you…

CURRY: Hello. A pleasure.

Ms. MARION COTILLARD (“Nine”): Hi.

VIEIRA: …of the new musical “Nine.”

NATALIE MORALES, anchor:

Marion, hello.

VIEIRA: Her performance has already received…

Ms. COTILLARD: Congratulations!

VIEIRA: Oh.

MORALES: They’re engaged!

VIEIRA: And congratulations to you, you’ve already received a Golden Globe nomination…

Ms. COTILLARD: Thank you.

VIEIRA: …for “Nine,” which is very exciting.

Ms. COTILLARD: Yes, it is.

VIEIRA: You won the Globe last year along with the Oscar for your performance as Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose.” Is it still special second time around?

Ms. COTILLARD: Oh, of course.

VIEIRA: Yeah.

Ms. COTILLARD: You know, when you–when you’re able to share it a movie with people and they show you that they like it and they like what you did in it, it’s so exciting.

VIEIRA: Along with two of your co-stars, right, Daniel Day-Lewis and Penelope Cruz also got the nod.

Ms. COTILLARD: Yeah, and Penelope Cruz, yeah.

VIEIRA: So that’s very exciting.

CURRY: You know, you said that–you’ve been quoted as saying that at the very beginning you were a little intimidated working with Daniel Day–which of course who wouldn’t be, I mean, frankly.

Ms. COTILLARD: Yeah. He’s a genius.

CURRY: And you were–and you were…

VIEIRA: Yeah.

CURRY: …playing his wife, which made it even more challenging. So what got you over that intimidation so that you could excel at this role?

Ms. COTILLARD: Well, you know, when you get into the work, and we had an amazing time rehearse–with rehearsals, because when you do a musical, you get to rehearse for it, and we were together for two months dancing and singing.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

Ms. COTILLARD: And when you just dive into the work, then you forget about you know, your shyness and how you–how you were intimidated the first time.

MORALES: Yeah.

VIEIRA: Yeah.

Ms. COTILLARD: So it’s just about the work that–and you get over it.

MORALES: Yeah.

VIEIRA: Yeah, yeah.

MORALES: Now I read also that you were inspired by “Annie” to do an American musical, even though you did “La Vie en Rose.” So now to be able to do an American musical like “Nine,” how was that?

Ms. COTILLARD: Well, when I was a kid, it was my dream to do an American musical. I loved “Singing in the Rain” and “Annie,” and I–and I knew all the dancing and…

MORALES: Wow.

Ms. COTILLARD: …and I would dance in front of my TV. And it really was my dream. And when I got this call from Rob Marshall saying that he wanted to meet me, I was like already jumping and dancing.

MORALES: Wow.

Ms. COTILLARD: And so yeah, it was really one of my biggest dreams.

CURRY: Wow.

VIEIRA: But the dancing in “Annie” is not quite like the dancing in “Take It All,” that’s…

Ms. COTILLARD: No, actually no.

CURRY: And the singing is also very different.

VIEIRA: Yeah. Yeah, you–it was just wonderful.

CURRY: But–and also–but just the talent you have, I mean–because you actually–they used your voice in addition to Edith Piaf’s voice in the movie that you–that’s–no, not that much or…

Ms. COTILLARD: Well, not really.

CURRY: Oh.

Ms. COTILLARD: Actually, they used my voice only a little bit.

CURRY: Oh.

Ms. COTILLARD: But because she’s–in that scene, she’s drunk and she sing like a cow…

CURRY: Oh.

MORALES: Yeah.

CURRY: Oh.

Ms. COTILLARD: …that’s why they used my voice, which is not a really good sign. But…

VIEIRA: Well, I got to tell you…

CURRY: Well, congratulations.

VIEIRA: …when I used to watch Audrey Hepburn in films, she’d mesmerize me…

MORALES: Yeah.

VIEIRA: …because she just lights up the screen, and you have that same quality. You are just so incredible.

Ms. COTILLARD: Oh, thank you.

VIEIRA: I’ve got a little girl crush here.

Ms. COTILLARD: Oh, my.

VIEIRA: So anyway, you’re wonderful.

CURRY: I’ll get out of the way.

VIEIRA: Wonderful in the movie.

Ms. COTILLARD: Thank you very much.

VIEIRA: Thank you so much. Truly wonderful.

Ms. COTILLARD: Thank you so much. Thank you.

CURRY: Congratulations.

Ms. COTILLARD: Thank you.

VIEIRA: And the movie opens on Christmas Day, which is very exciting. A perfect present for folks.

Ms. COTILLARD: Yeah.

VIEIRA: That is “Nine.” Marion Cotillard.

CURRY: Marion Cotillard. Thank you so much.

from Examiner.com / by Carla Hay

“Nine” is one of those rare movie musicals in which most of its stars are Oscar winners.The film’s cast includes Oscar-winning actors Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren and Penélope Cruz. Oscar nominee Kate Hudson and Grammy-winning singer Fergie (of the Black Eyed Peas) round out the stellar “Nine” lineup.

The movie musical “Nine” (directed by Rob Marshall, who also helmed the 2002 Oscar-winning musical “Chicago”) is based on the stage production of the same name, which was inspired by the Federico Fellini film “8 1/2.” Day-Lewis plays Guido Contini, a famous Italian filmmaker who’s under pressure to start his next movie, but he has writer’s block and doesn’t even have a script or concept for the film.

In the middle of this professional crisis, Guido is dealing with conflicting emotions about women from his past and present: his long-suffering wife, Luisa (played by Cotillard); his demanding mistress Carla (played by Cruz); his costume designer/longtime confidante, Lilli (played by Dench); his actress muse Claudia Jenssen (played by Kidman); a star-struck Vogue magazine writer named Stephanie (played by Hudson); a prostitute from his childhood named Saraghina (played by Fergie); and his late mother (played by Loren). At a “Nine” press conference in New York City, Day-Lewis, Fergie, Cotillard and Dench sat down to talk about their experiences making this musical extravaganza.

Judi, you were quite sexy chanteuse when you performed your solo number in “Nine.” How did the costume make you feel? And is there a behind-the-scenes story you can share?

Dench: I trained as a costume designer before I trained as an actress, so I know how important it is to have a costume that empowers you. ["Nine" costume designer] Colleen Atwood designs something quite organically on you. She will perhaps do a drawing, but when it comes to actually seeing you in it, certain things will change and she will ask you how you feel and things. At least, getting into that costume I felt that I might, in fact, be part of a nightclub in Paris at some time. So that is unbelievably empowering and does half the work for you. Then you’ve got to do the rest of it, which isn’t easy!

What was a help in all that [filming of the scene] is that it happened on a stage. And the only reference back I had was I played Sally Bowles in “Cabaret” in London. And suddenly, I thought, “Oh yes, this is what this [scene] reminds me of: this kind of stand-up person who speaks to the audience.” So that reference for me was very, very helpful. It was difficult for the audience sitting there, take after take after take after take, to still look as if they’re enjoying it and having a nice time and smoking a cigarette. You wanted to scream at them, “For Christ’s sake! Look as if you’re enjoying it!” I didn’t get a chance to do that. But anyway, they stuck with me until the end. It was a long day.

Marion, your strip-tease scene in the movie wasn’t in the “Nine” stage musical. What inspiration or what did you refer to when you were doing that scene?

Cotillard: I would say I referred to her [Luisa]. What was interesting with Luisa is you have many layers, many faces of her in the movie. She’s someone who keeps things inside because she doesn’t really know at that moment in her life how she feels. She’s lonely. It takes courage to end a love story, to tell the man you love that you can’t take anymore; you can’t be so empty anymore.

What is very interesting with Luisa is you have the face of this woman who is handling things, and then when the disrespect is too much to take … Because she’s an actress too, she has things inside of her that need to come out. The anger is everything that’s sexy. It’s anger, it’s fierce, it’s sad. My reference was her pain.

Daniel, why did this role in “Nine” appeal to you? And how did you feel about doing the musical numbers?

Day-Lewis: Nervous as hell, like everyone else. I didn’t really ask myself initially why I was drawn so much to it. Tony [Minghella's] script was so beautiful, but I could have appreciated that from the outside without necessarily being drawn into the world he was describing. I suppose that anyone who does any kind of creative work at some time in their life, and it tends to happen as you grow into middle-age, you come to a time when you really question more and more frequently whether you have anything else to offer. And at its very worst, you feel utterly bereft of whatever creative force it takes to do that work. And so I suppose I was interested in that dilemma for a man who’s about to shoot a film in five days and he’s living in a wasteland of his own making.

Fergie, what did you draw from in your life that you put into your character in “Nine”?

Fergie: Going into this musical. I’m definitely “the singer” going into this A-list acting world. So it was intimidating for me, flying over and knowing I was going to be amongst these people who were at the top of their game in their field. I really just thought, “You know, maybe I’ll just sit in a corner and kind of be a sponge and not speak unless spoken to.” Kind of just watch what these people do and how they hone their craft. The first person I met there was Daniel, and I think it was 15 minutes later I was standing by a piano and I had to belt out the song right in front of him. I’d admired his work for years and I had to push through it and just say, “What the hell?” This is what I do.

That’s kind of how I handled the audition. I was hungry for this role, I really wanted it, and I was a really good student. I came to London with all my tools, all the Fellini films, studying old Italian actresses and how they walked and spoke with their hands and just really studying this character from that period.

What I can bring to the performance part of it is things that come more naturally to me that is performing, which is the more extroverted style of performing. What was interesting is that during the ["Be Italian"] number, I’m not moving like myself. During this film, whenever I would sit down, I would never cross my legs, because that’s not how Saraghina would sit. She wasn’t a lady. I would walk in a different physicality than I would use myself.

But the performance aspect of it is pretty much ingrained in me. It was more about, for me, putting that together with the thoughts. I say “be Italian” many times in the song, and it was important to me that every time I said, “be Italian,” for it to have a different meaning, because there are so many things about being Italian. There’s love of life, there’s love of food, there’s love of sex, love of drink, love of dancing, love of singing. And every one was different. So it was putting all of that into it behind what I already knew and combining the two.

What was fun for me — and I’m really excited about this — when we do the reality section of the film, it’s not about performing and being broad at all. It’s about keeping it still and everything is internal, and just using that and counting on that. And that’s what really excited me. I definitely have caught the [acting] bug, because it’s another way to express yourself as an artist — and getting to see these people do their thing.

Fergie, how do you separate your professional life with your private life?

Fergie: I’m pretty good about that. I would get off work and we hangout. We went to the Madonna concert after one of our work days. [She laughs and says jokingly] And that was private! I’m not as Method as someone like Daniel [Day-Lewis]. I’m pretty much go into it, I wear that hat, and then I leave it there …

How did you get your role in “Nine”?

Fergie: As soon as I knew this part was available, basically, I had been touring [for my solo album] “The Dutchess.” I had been touring for about five-and-a-half years straight with the [Black Eyed] Peas. And if any of you know anything about touring, it’s basically different hotel rooms every other night, and it’s a very rock’n’roll lifestyle. And they planned this big tour for me, and I said, “You know what? I’m not 110 percent on this right now. I’m a little bit burned out. I need to take a break.”

Then I found out that this [role in "Nine"] was available and I was like, “I need to audition for this.” Immediately, like a student, I go on BlueGobo.com, I’m studying all the different Saraghinas. “8 1/2,” I’m watching it different times, trying to find new things. And I just dove into it.

Cotillard: I didn’t know there was a play, a musical on stage. And actually, I auditioned for three roles [in "Nine"] before Luisa. What was funny, actually, was my memory of the last audition was that I couldn’t sing the song. I was with ["Nine" musical conductor] Paul Bogaev, and [Luisa’s solo number] “My Husband Makes Movies” is kind of difficult. And I couldn’t get the whole melody at the end. I was working with Paul, and we had and hour, and I knew Rob [Marshall] was coming with ["Nine" producer/choreographer] John [DeLuca] and I don’t remember exactly who was there. And it was in this tiny room, and I told myself, “Well, I’m going to improvise something at the end if I can’t do the right melody.”

And sometimes, miracles happen. And I remember they came — Rob, John — and I was very nervous, because I really couldn’t sing the entire song without making mistakes. And I started that song, and I felt that we were waiting for the moment I would crash down. And then a miracle happened and I could sing the song without mistakes. And I remember Paul looking at me, singing what I couldn’t sing before …

And this day, I had a very special feeling about Luisa. I actually have to say that we went through the process and at that time I was working so much. Two days before, I had this dancing audition and I had to learn so many choreographies. What they don’t know is I was about to cancel the whole thing, because it was my dream to do a musical, but I thought, “My reputation is [being] a hard worker. If they go there and they find out that I haven’t worked the whole thing, I’m going to miserable!” And I went anyway because I thought, “OK, I’m going to improvise my hair or something.” So when I went to the third audition, I didn’t really realize that I was auditioning for Luisa, actually.

Dench: For 52 years, I have been doing plays that, unless they’re Shakespeare, I’ve never read. I’ve just said, “yes,” when I’ve been offered something. I always think I’m very lucky when something comes along. So I didn’t know about “Nine.” It was talked about quite a long time ago.

And then suddenly the day came when I was asked to meet Rob and John at Claridge’s in London. And I went in and I looked at them both and said, “Yes! Yes! Why would I ever not want to do this?” But I had not heard [Lilli’s solo number] “Folies Bergère.” I had not seen it. I just take it on complete instinct. And I knew straight away the minute I walked in and met them that I passionately wanted to be part of this. And I can’t believe that it happened, and I’m thrilled!

Daniel, did you have any singing lessons? And did you learn Italian for the movie?

Day-Lewis: I didn’t learn Italian for the movie. I learned some Italian over the years. A couple of people have said, “Oh, you’re a fluent Italian speaker.” I wish I was, but I’m not. I understand quite a lot.

Rob convinced me, really against my better judgment, that I would be able to do this thing. I tried to think of every excuse I could not to, because I thought he needed somebody else. I think I gave him a few names actually! But he said, “No, I think you can sing.” So I wanted to put it to the test. So Paul Bogaev, the musical director Marion mentioned, came over to the place I was staying, and I tried to stagger through the songs with him. And quite clearly, I was incapable of singing them, but Rob still managed to convince me that it would be OK.

Rather like Judi, even though I knew a little more than Judi did about the demands, I took it on blind trust but had severe doubts about it. I knew I would enjoy the work, but I had no idea what the results of the work would be. I was a choir boy in the local church, when I was a little schoolboy, but other than that, I hadn’t done any singing to speak of.

Daniel, have you every had moments like Guido when you question your beliefs and abilities?

Day-Lewis: Only every single one.

Can you explain how you can “claim” a role when you audition for it?

Fergie: It’s quite funny, because I remember getting ready for this audition and I was thinking, “OK, I want this. I really want this.” And so I’ve learned ever since I was a little girl, when you want something, you walk in as that character. So I’ getting dressed and trying to make my lips look fuller and red and more Italian. I’m trying to contour my nose to make it look more Italian. I’m doing the hair and push [she points to her breasts] making everything look bigger.

And as I’m leaving — we’re in London, mind you — and I was just scared that the paparazzi was going to get a picture of me walking out of a hotel looking like and go, “What was she thinking?” So I just came there and I really wanted it. I have not seen my audition tape, but I’m assuming it’s pretty risqué. I did research. I really feel you should do something unless you really want it, unless you really want to do it, because there’s somebody else’s that’s going to want it. And then that role is theirs. But I really wanted it and I was willing to put in all the work it needed to be that character.

What about the anxiety that actors have about performing?

Day-Lewis: That anxiety is an aphrodisiac.

Daniel, you a play a character surrounded by incredible women and your female co-stars are incredible women in real life. Did you find that that affected how you played your character in “Nine”?

Day-Lewis: It helped. [He laughs.] It really helped a lot. When I was first talking to Rob about maybe doing this work, he talked about the rehearsal period, which initially made me step backwards, because I don’t tend to rehearse. I don’t like to rehearse. I couldn’t understand how you cold go through eight weeks of rehearsals without exhausting every possibility to the point where you’re lying gasping on the floor.

And yet, little by little, I realized that the demands of the music were such that there was no possible way of achieving that thing at all if you don’t go about it with that kind of discipline. That’s the only way it works … It’s been a long time since I worked in the theater, but one of the things I most loved about the theater and the rehearsal process wasn’t the exploring of the text, because I thought, “We’ll be exploring the text for six months in performance.” It was really to do with the bond of trust that is formed between the group of strangers.

Although I knew and admired hugely each of the people that I knew I’d be working with — Judi I’d worked with once before; I sent her a note saying, “I promise not to run out on you this time.”

Was that for “Hamlet”?

Day-Lewis: Yes, it was. But it was really that time during rehearsals where I felt that work was done, not just with the discipline of doing the music — and in the girls’ case, the dancing as well — but just forming those bonds of trust you need to have so that you can then you can live near the edge of anarchy, which is where most creative work happens.

Daniel and Judi, can you describe working with one another?

Day-Lewis: She’s naughty. She’s very naughty. She’s a very, very naughty girl.

Dench: What is terrific about having worked with somebody is you create a shorthand, so that when it comes to the next time, if you’re lucky enough that it comes to the next time, that there is a degree of shorthand between you that you know each other. Therefore, the initial thing of having to act with somebody you don’t know — a lot of the time at the beginning of rehearsals is just getting to know how that person works, how they react, and understanding about them, which in a way, takes up time that you should use playing your character or being that person.

But we, because of Daniel and I working together [before], we didn’t have that. And much of our relationship in the film is exactly what we’re lucky enough to have. And that, in a way, was there for us to draw on. And we did draw on it, didn’t we? [Day-Lewis laughs.] I think we drew on it.

Day-Lewis: We did. Also, the other thing about rehearsing is, you know, Fergie mentioned that moment when she had to sing at the piano, and I have to say — I said this a few times to people — that the first ["Nine"] musical number I remember listening to was “Be Italian,” and it was a fairly early stage of the rehearsal. And I thought, “We might as well just go home now,” because it was so magnificent and we still had six weeks of rehearsals there.

But the thing about rehearsals and relating to the business of trust is you make complete fools of yourselves in that process, and you have to. You have to be able to do that and be allowed to do that. And it was very early on in that period of time that we had to do things as un-self-consciously as possible which we knew were going to be difficult in front of each other. And once you’ve done that, it sort of clears the way a little bit. It doesn’t really mater anymore whether you’re a fool or not. You have to be able to be a fool.

Daniel, you’re a Method actor, so can you talk about staying in the Guido character off-camera? Did you want people to call you Guido when you weren’t filming? And to any of the women on the panel, how did you relate to that way of acting?

Day-Lewis: I don’t mind what people call me, within reason. I’m only too happy if they choose to call me by the name of my character, but it isn’t written on the call sheet. It’s not like that … Everyone has their way of working. My way of working is individual to me, just as Marion’s in to her, and Fergie and Judi and soon and so forth. All you can do is to be true to your own way of working. That can only be of use in a company situation when you’re not making demands on the people you’re working with.

But how do you stay in character 24 hours a day?

Day-Lewis: I don’t know. Like all of us, I’m just interested in a world we’re trying to create. And it takes time and energy to enter into an unknown world and unknown culture and see the world through different eyes. So just from my point of view, it makes better sense, I suppose, for me, to once having entered that world to stay there because I like it. There’s nothing mysterious about it.

Fergie: I have to say that Daniel is really charming. We’d go in our dressing rooms and find this little note on this stationery, and I’d open it up and it would be Guido stationery. And right in the middle of the note to would say, “Guido.” They were very cute and very charming … I kind of didn’t want to relate to him face-to-face very much, because I respect everybody’s way of work. My character is with Guido is basically him as a 9-year-old boy, and I didn’t want to treat Daniel Day-Lewis as a 9-year-old boy. I created this space. I thought, “We can have our moment to together, and that will be it.”

Daniel, can you talk about working with Sophia Loren?

Day-Lewis: She’s a mighty woman. She has a real laugh as well. She’s naughty, too. One of the great joys of working on this film for all of us, most of what she will be known for in the English-speaking world is the films she made in the English language or films she made in this country. But when you discover or rediscover the films she made in her own language, she is such a sublimely gifted actress.

from CNN.com / Transcript from Larry King Live

LARRY KING, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, the all-star cast of the Golden Globe-nominated “Nine” — Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman…

KING: Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz…

KING: …Dame Judi Dench…

KING: Marion Cotillard, Fergie and the one and only Sophia Loren.

Next on LARRY KING LIVE.

Good evening.

“Nine” opens this Friday in New York and Los Angeles, and across the country on Christmas Day. It’s been nominated a record 10 times by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, including nods for best picture, best supporting actress and best ensemble. And just earlier today, “Nine” was nominated for five Golden Globes, including best picture, musical or comedy; and best original song.

Joining us is the cast — Kate Hudson, Academy Award-nominated actress — this is going to sound repetitive; Nicole Kidman, Academy Award-winning actress; Penelope Cruz, Academy Award-winning actress and Golden Globe nominee; Dame Judi Dench, Academy Award-winning actress; Daniel Day-Lewis, two-time Academy Award-winner and Golden Globe nominee; Marion Cotillard, Academy Award-winning actress and Golden Globe nominee; Fergie, the Grammy-winning recording artist and actress; Rob Marshall, the Academy Award-winning — Academy Award- nominated director; and from Geneva, Sophia Loren, the Academy Award- winning actress.

We’re out of time, so good night.

(LAUGHTER) KING: Before we get into our discussion with this talented bunch, let’s take a look at the film everyone’s talking about.

KING: I was fortunate enough to see “Nine” last week at its L.A. Premiere. And my quote will be, “‘Nine’ is a 10.”

Its director is Rob Marshall.

How did you assemble this cast?

ROB MARSHALL, DIRECTOR: Oh, gosh. I guess piece by piece. I mean, I never imagined we’d have this cast. And this is a dream cast for me, every single one of them. It was joyous to work with them every day.

KING: Who was the hardest to get?

MARSHALL: Oh, gosh. The man — the man in the middle…

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

MARSHALL: …Daniel Day-Lewis.

KING: Did you resist it, Daniel?

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS, ACTOR: You can’t resist him. He’s irresistible.

KING: Did you like this from the get-go or were you?

DAY-LEWIS: I did, yes. But I — it just wasn’t — at the — at the time, it was — it was when he — when he found me, we’d just finished making — my wife had just finished making a film in — in the States and it was not — it wasn’t a good moment for me to transplant everyone somewhere else to (INAUDIBLE)…

KING: So why did you succumb?

DAY-LEWIS: Him.

KING: Him.

DAY-LEWIS: And these lovely ladies.

KING: And the script.

Let’s go around.

Kate, how did they get you?

KATE HUDSON, ACTRESS: I auditioned for Rob. I went in and I sang first. And then I — it — it was kind of old school. So I went and I sang and then I got a call back.

(LAUGHTER)

HUDSON: And I danced and then I got another call back. And I sang and I danced. Then I got another call back.

MARSHALL: That’s true.

HUDSON: So it was a process for me.

KING: Did you think you’d get it?

HUDSON: You know, to be honest, I just wanted to sing and dance for Rob, you know. And I — of course, I hoped that I would be able to be a part of such an incredible film. But I was more…

KING: But you got it.

HUDSON: … Just trying to stay in (INAUDIBLE) — well, yes.

KING: You were great.

Fergie, how did they get you?

FERGIE, ACTRESS/SINGER: I auditioned, as well. And everyone else had been cast, so it was…

KING: The last one?

FERGIE: Yes, I was the last one. And I — I wanted it so badly. And I came in and, you know, I did my make-up. I contoured my nose. I have this bump on my nose and I tried to make it look bigger with make-up and over-line my lips and tried to make everything look bigger, because, you know, that’s what…

KING: Everything?

FERGIE: Everything, Larry.

(LAUGHTER)

FERGIE: And — and — and, yes and — a few weeks went by and — and I was — I was hoping, hoping. And every day I would think about it. And I — I basically gave up on it. I let it go and I said…

KING: Really?

FERGIE: … Well, I would have heard by now. I guess I didn’t get it. And about a week letter — about a week later, I got a call from Harvey and I screamed…

KING: That’s Harvey Weinstein.

FERGIE: Yes. Yes.

KING: Nicole, you — how did they get you for “Nine?” NICOLE KIDMAN, ACTRESS: Actually, Rob told me. We were — I think we had lunch or coffee or something. And he said that Anthony Minghella had written a role for me and so…

KING: He wrote it for you?

KIDMAN: Yes. Rob tells that story (ph).

KING: So then you had to do it, right?

KIDMAN: Huh?

KING: Then you had to do it, if he wrote it for you?

KIDMAN: Well, I had to do it because I wanted to work with Rob. And, of course, Anthony was one of my dearest friends. So, yes.

KING: Marion, how did they get you?

MARION COTILLARD, ACTRESS: Well, I auditioned, too.

KING: You had to audition?

COTILLARD: Yes. The first audition was singing.

MARSHALL: Yes.

COTILLARD: And then…

MARSHALL: For Judi’s role.

COTILLARD: Yes, it was for Judi’s role, actually. And…

(LAUGHTER)

COTILLARD: And I sang Claudia’s song, too.

MARSHALL: Yes, also, she auditioned for Claudia, exactly.

COTILLARD: This…

MARSHALL: We — we were — we cast — we were at casting before we started writing. So we weren’t sure exactly who was going to play what and…

KING: But…

COTILLARD: Because Lilli is French.

MARSHALL: Lilli is French or Lilli sings a French song, “Folies Bergeres.” So we thought well, maybe that. And we weren’t sure.

COTILLARD: Yes.

KING: The star of “La Vie en Rose” had to audition?

MARSHALL: Well, I didn’t know she could really sing or dance. And that…

COTILLARD: And it was much before…

MARSHALL: … None of these actors would…

COTILLARD: …I actually…

MARSHALL: …would — would audition except the fact…

COTILLARD: That movie was just…

KING: Wait a minute.

COTILLARD: …released at that time, it was…

KING: Kate auditioned.

MARSHALL: No. No, they wouldn’t have…

KING: Oh.

MARSHALL: …if I — but I didn’t know they could sing or dance. Nicole did not because I knew her work as a singer. Judi, I — I didn’t audition, either.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: All right. Penelope, how did you come to “Nine?”

PENELOPE CRUZ, ACTRESS: I auditioned for three different parts. And my first meeting with Rob was like two-and-a-half years ago already.

MARSHALL: Yes.

CRUZ: And I just knew I wanted to be in part of this movie. I said to him, “I don’t care which character, just have me there on the set cleaning the floors just to learn,” because I admired him so much. And then he called me one day and he said, “I have decided that I want you to be Carla.”

KING: Judi, how did they get you?

Oh, Dame.

Do you have to say “Dame?”

DENCH: No, you don’t have to say Dame.

KING: Judi, how did they get you?

DENCH: It’s a bone of contention, actually, between Nicole and I, because Nicole, I know, was asked by Rob to have lunch and was asked to do the part. I was just asked to have a coffee.

(LAUGHTER) DENCH: But, you see, the same magic.

How can you resist him?

KING: Are you glad you did it?

DENCH: Oh, you bet. I’m just resentful that I’m not in all the other dances.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: Sophia in Geneva, how did you get to do “Nine?”

SOPHIA LOREN, ACTRESS: Yes?

KING: How did you come to do the part?

LOREN: Well, I got a phone call from Rob Marshall — one phone call. And I said yes right away. So it’s very short, my story.

But — no, no, no. There is also another — there is also another reason, is that the film was involved, of course, the life of Fellini. And many times before, of course, before he died, I was very, very close to do a film with him. But as it happens in films, it never happened.

So I was very happy to be involved in the life of Fellini. And beside the phone call from Rob — which I adore — it’s because I was very moved to be closer to my dear friend, Fellini, which I think is the best — that he was the best director in town, in — in — in the world, you know?

Yes.

KING: A great story.

We’ll — we’re just getting started with the cast of “Nine.”

Much more with our nine guests right after the break.

KING: That was Daniel Day-Lewis, of course, before he became Guido in “Nine.”

And we’ll be showing you some of the star turns from each of our guests during the hour.

Did you know you could sing?

DAY-LEWIS: I certainly didn’t. I don’t think he did, either. He — he managed to convince me that — that — that he knew that. But I think I insisted on at least trying to sing to you.

MARSHALL: Yes. I think you would have wanted to audition yourself, as well.

KING: OK. What…

DAY-LEWIS: It was hopeless, Larry. And he still — still managed to convince me.

MARSHALL: No, it was beautiful.

KING: But what was it like as a distinguished actor, a two-time — I mean, one of the — many consider you maybe the best actor in the world today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

KING: What was it like to sing?

DAY-LEWIS: I — I don’t — I think maybe we all secretly hope that we have a voice in us that one day somebody will help us to discover and — and it always looks — when — you know, when you see somebody expressing themselves through music, it looks as if it must be so satisfying. So how it…

KING: Was it?

DAY-LEWIS: Yes, I mean, with all the frustrations that you go through beforehand. But, yes, very, very satisfying.

KING: Fergie, how good was he?

DAY-LEWIS: Yes.

FERGIE: Oh, he did a great job. He was spectacular. In fact, he was the first person that I — that I met on set, you know, flying and just being really intimidated, you know, walking onto the set and the first person I see is Daniel. I’m going, great. And Rob, 15 minutes later, pulls me over to the piano and says, “Why don’t you just sing along? We’ll do a piano version right here.”

And Daniel’s sitting right there in the corner. And I’m going, “OK.”

So those fears kind of had to go out the window really quick. And they did, because everyone here is — is very down to Earth. And I find that…

KING: Yes?

FERGIE: …that the more — the more people who — who are very successful and — and talented at what they do are — tend to be the nicest, because they’re not trying to prove anything to you. So it made it very comfortable for me.

KING: Were you at all, Rob, intimidated by Daniel Day?

MARSHALL: I was thrilled. I was thrilled to be able to work with, to me, the greatest — I agree, the greatest actor in the world.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I agree.

MARSHALL: And so every day for me was thrilling. Imagine, you know, the call sheet, Larry, you know, Daniel Day-Lewis in a scene with Judi Dench; in a scene with Nicole Kidman and Penelope Cruz; and Marion and Kate. I mean, I was in heaven.

KING: But were you able to say to these stars, “No, let’s do it that way?”

MARSHALL: Oh, I think that…

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

MARSHALL: Oh, I think they’re desperate for that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

MARSHALL: Well, you know, I think of it as a collaboration, in a way. I mean, I never feel like I’m instructing them to do certain things. I feel like it’s something we’re — we’re creating together. And, you know, these are the best in the world because they’re — they work so hard. It’s not because there’s some magic thing that happens. It’s because of the…

KING: They (INAUDIBLE)…

(CROSSTALK)

KING: If they prove it…

MARSHALL: It’s because of the work ethic. Yes.

KING: Was it nervous for you, Kate?

HUDSON: I was — I was thrilled. I was — you know, I was nervous when I heard the song for the first time, because it was a very challenging — it’s a very challenging song. And I got intimidated by the actual song that — that they wrote. And — but the thing about Rob is that he provides this amazing, you know, sort of safety net around you, so you — it — it helps you build your confidence that I think, in order to, you know, be able to perform those things, when you’re not — when it’s not your everyday, you know…

KING: It’s not?

HUDSON: No, you know?

KING: Marion, this is a very different kind of musical.

Did you enjoy doing it?

COTILLARD: It was my dream to do a musical — an American musical and — and to have the opportunity to do one with Rob was magical, really. And — and I more than enjoyed, I mean, working with all these amazing, gifted people and — and also all that…

KING: You’re not bad yourself.

COTILLARD: …that — sorry?

KING: You’re not bad yourself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

COTILLARD: Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

COTILLARD: And Rob’s team, John DeLuca and all the dancers and — and Paul Bogaey, our singing guide…

KING: A couple of the stars transformed themselves for the film. We’ll talk about that ahead.

Back in 60 seconds with the cast of “Nine.”

KING: We’re talking with the terrifically talented cast of the new movie, “Nine.” Daniel Day-Lewis plays Guido Contini, an Italian director with no direction, struggling to make his latest movie.

The character played by Penelope Cruz is his mistress.

Take a look.

KING: Do you like doing love scenes, Penelope?

(LAUGHTER)

CRUZ: What?

KING: Do you like doing love scenes?

CRUZ: No.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: No?

CRUZ: It’s — it’s always a very strange thing. I mean, I — I — we had the best director and — and I was in the best possible company, but it’s always something strange, right, Daniel?

DAY-LEWIS: We had to laugh.

(LAUGHTER)

CRUZ: And, God, we laughed a lot together, because you have to bring humor to those situations.

DAY-LEWIS yes.

KING: With a cast this big, there had to be some behind-the- scenes drama.

Was there?

We’ll ask after the break.

KING: Nicole, is a musical harder to do?

KIDMAN: No. No, I don’t think so.

KING: Even though you prerecord the music and you have to kind of lip sync over it?

KIDMAN: Yes, except, I mean, as — as an actress, that’s just — that’s what you want to do. You want to be able to do it all. You want to have a chance to sing and dance and — and act and — that’s what they used to do. So, it’s nice to have that chance now.

KING: Of course, you had the experience in “Moulin Rouge!” too, right?

KIDMAN: I did.

KING: Let’s take a look at Nicole and Daniel in action. Now, Kidman plays Guido’s muse.

See why she’s so important to him in “Nine”.

KING: What’s it like to work with this cast?

KIDMAN: Wonderful. I mean it was one of those things that…

KING: I mean you were all stars. Is there a little diva issue or do you actually — are you workers?

KIDMAN: I — I mean, I think when you get to — as Fergie said, when you get to a certain place in your career, everyone is there because they are hard workers.

Wouldn’t you agree with that?

DAY-LEWIS: Yes. Yes.

KIDMAN: And we love — we love what we do and the craft of it.

KING: Do you like musicals, Judi?

DENCH: Yes, I love it. I love them. It’s a great — well, I loved being in a musical on stage, when an orchestra starts and you — and you suddenly hear all that music. And it’s like a huge, you know, support to you. So all you’ve got to get on is get on and do your bit.

KING: Sophia, have you seen the finished product?

LOREN: No, I’ve not seen the film because I have in mind to see the film with my children. I want to enjoy the whole film with my children, because it’s — this film is very important to me, because, being Italian, I’ve always wanted to be in a musical. And now that I have this chance, even though my role is cameo, but I think it’s a good start. And I think while the shooting, I enjoyed, really, every moment of it.

So I want to see it finished and I want to see it with my family.

KING: You will love it.

Was she — what was she like to direct, Rob?

MARSHALL: Oh, my god. I mean that’s almost impossible to — to explain for me. I mean there was a sequence I remember very clearly, shooting in Rome, in the Piazza de Popolo with Daniel and Sophia in a little Italian sports car and everything set in the ’60s. So there was Sophia in a ’60s Italian sports car. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I — I couldn’t quite believe I was there, this kid from Pittsburgh was there directing this iconic major actor and — and Daniel. I mean I couldn’t believe it.

KING: What was it like for you, Daniel, to work with one of the grand dames?

DAY-LEWIS: Oh, I — I tell you, I shall treasure it forever, for every single moment I spent with that wonderful woman. I’ll treasure it, yes.

KING: Will you…

DAY-LEWIS: It was funny, because we were going around in circles pretty much all day long. And a huge crowd had turned out to see Sophia. And — and she turned to me at one point and she said, you know, all these people, every time we go around, they think that the reason we’re doing it and again is because we’re so stupid…

(LAUGHTER)

DAY-LEWIS: …that we just can’t get it right. Dua criatinni (ph).

KING: Do you ever get used, Penelope, to doing it again and again?

CRUZ: What?

KING: Do you ever get used to that — let’s take another take, let’s do another take?

CRUZ: I — I always get thrown out of the set, because asking for too many dates — takes.

KING: You like takes?

CRUZ: I — I — I have a problem with that. I cannot let go. I cannot say OK, now we can stop and move to the next thing…

MARSHALL: We had to call security.

CRUZ: Yes, I — I…

(LAUGHTER)

CRUZ: …I drive everybody crazy because I can’t control myself. I always want to do one more.

KING: Penelope’s sexy rope dance — she suffered for her art. We’ll talk about it ahead.

KING: That was, of course, was one of the greatest screen performances ever.

Did you know you were going to win?

COTILLARD: I didn’t want to think about it. I really tried to stay in the present time all — all this advent — all the — sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: Now when you’re sitting there in that theater…

COTILLARD: All the way long.

KING: …and they’re opening the envelope.

COTILLARD: No, I mean it was two or even three months of amazing adventure, amazing meetings with people I admire so much. And the way in America you share movies with actors, we don’t do that in France. And then you have to talk about your work with people who know what you are talking about.

It was — it was so amazing that I really wanted to keep it out of the fantasy, out of thinking, oh, if this happens, if that happens. So I really — and being nominated with Cate Blanchett was something huge for me. So I really wanted to enjoy the present time and to enjoy it, you don’t have to think about what’s — what could happen.

KING: Well said.

Penelope, that dance that we showed, what was that like to do?

(LAUGHTER)

CRUZ: It — it was amazing. It was amazing to learn it from them and to be able to train for three months I had until I shot it. And to see how everyday you can get a little farther and the feeling of freedom that you get when you can get to do the entire number without stopping. It’s been a great experience for me.

KING: Do you think that’s the biggest turn-on moment of the movie, Rob?

MARSHALL: Oh, gosh. I mean, I–

(LAUGHTER)

MARSHALL: I think all the–

KING: Oh, come on, Rob.

(CROSSTALK)

MARSHALL: — question for me. Listen, I think —

KING: It is the–

MARSHALL: Well, I think she’s– KING: There are many sexy scenes, but that’s–

MARSHALL: Well, that’s — that’s a particularly sexy scene.

(LAUGHTER)

MARSHALL: But all these ladies have their moments of — of beauty and sex in this film, I have to say, every single one of them.

KING: Fergie, did you all get along?

FERGIE: Oh, yes. Oh–

KING: Come on.

FERGIE: Oh, yes. I’m serious. We would have lunch together and, you know, I — I really didn’t know what to expect, you know, coming on and with — with all these Academy Award winners and — and nominees and–

KING: Well, you’re a Grammy winner.

FERGIE: And — yes, a Grammy winner. Exactly. I got — I got to have something.

(LAUGHTER)

FERGIE: But, you know, I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know if I was going to sit in the corner and kind of let everyone do their thing and kind of soak it up.

MARSHALL: But Fergie attacked us — she attacked this like an actor.

FERGIE: Yes. But we–

MARSHALL: Big time.

FERGIE: But we all got along really well. I mean — I mean honestly.

COTILLARD: It was fun.

FERGIE: Yes, we had a good time.

MARSHALL: It’s very exciting doing a musical together. It really is. It’s a joy. It’s a joyous experience. This is a — this is a tough musical in some ways, too. It’s more sophisticated, in a way, and — and — and sort of treads some different territory. But there’s a joy to making musicals. The dancers are so — they’re spectacular to be around — the discipline. Amazing.

KING: You grew up in show business, Kate.

HUDSON: Yes.

KING: Right?

So what — did your mother see it yet?

HUDSON: No. She’s going to be my date tonight to the premier so I’m really excited about that. It’s actually really interesting, this — this movie for — for the first time I feel like — and my mom was a dancer. That’s how she started her career. And so for me to be able to work with Rob, who’s, you know, for our generation or my generation, the — the choreographer to look up to and for me to kind of have that connection with my mother and then be able to bring her to the movie tonight and it’s kind of — it’s pretty — it’s pretty amazing–

KING: That’s — yes.

You were — are you a good dancer, Rob?

MARSHALL: I was a dancer.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He’s amazing.

MARSHALL: Well, it’s a–

KING: There’s a lot of choreographers who are not great dancers.

MARSHALL: Well, listen, John DeLuca and myself, who choreographed this with me, you know, we’re dancers. That’s where we come from. We — you know, we — we started in the — in the chorus in the ensemble. There we were.

(CROSSTALK)

CRUZ: — in a film Rob can dance it.

COTILLARD: Yes. He can do my routine–

KING: Whoa.

COTILLARD: — way better than I can.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Because it’s true, though, right?

A lot of great choreographers–

MARSHALL: Well, the only way I can choreograph–

KING: — are not necessarily great dancers?

MARSHALL: Well, the only way I can choreograph is actually to get up there and do it.

KING: Show them? MARSHALL: And feel it and try it.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: As we go to break, a look at Kate Hudson’s greatest hits.

KING: We’re back.

“Nine” opens in Los Angeles and in New York Friday night and then will open wide on Christmas Day. It’s a great movie.

Fergie really worked hard for this part. She plays a prostitute from Guido’s past, and sings “Nine’s” signature song that you may be singing when you the see movie.

Here’s Fergie in action.

KING: Now, you can applaud that.

Now, Rob–

FERGIE: Remember when we were–

KING: It had to be interesting–

FERGIE: Remember when we were trying to decide what pose would be the great–

MARSHALL: I know. We–

FERGIE: — the grand ending pose.

MARSHALL: Yes. Yes. We came up with hundreds.

FERGIE: And Rob was getting on the chair and, you know, turning all these different ways.

KING: And Fergie was the only one of these people that’s a singer, right?

MARSHALL: Yes. It was amazing to see her come from that side of things. But the challenge was huge for her. FERGIE: Yes.

MARSHALL: Everybody had this big mountain to climb, but hers was different. But, you know, I was so impressed every day with how Fergie attacked this role, like an animal. Really. She wanted to feel it. She wanted to believe it.

FERGIE: Yes.

MARSHALL: It was extraordinary to see, you know — that — the first day of shooting was the black and white footage in that film, right, that we shot?

FERGIE: Oh, really?

MARSHALL: Yes. It was the first day of filming.

FERGIE: Oh, wow!

MARSHALL: And it was freezing cold water. You were in there and you wouldn’t leave.

FERGIE: Oh, that — that’s right.

MARSHALL: Yes.

FERGIE: That — that’s the — the realistic scenes. And — and it’s interesting for me–

MARSHALL: Yes.

FERGIE: — because, you know, the song is so big and–

KING: Right.

FERGIE: — and, you know, performing when — when you have dance moves, it’s — it’s projecting. It’s — it’s being extroverted. But on the reality side of the film, for me, it was so much fun to just go inside and be still and keep it about the thoughts, about what I’m seeing and — and about the reality of this situation with Guido and her relationship with him and — and how that all works and how that started that spark in his brain of that naughty, naughty, naughty, naughty, all these naughty thoughts that Guido has. And — and, you know, looking at Daniel Day Lewis and I have to basically look at him as a child, you know. And that was kind of weird for me. I kind of just let him do his thing and stayed away, because it’s awkward looking at, you know, the natives — that guy, you know, as–

KING: Daniel, was–

FERGIE: — as an eight-year-old boy.

KING: Daniel, did–

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Daniel, did you like Guido?

DAY-LEWIS: I don’t think I — I — I didn’t like or dislike him. I didn’t really — I didn’t look at him in that way. I didn’t — I didn’t relate to him as a separate being, I suppose.

KING: You became him?

DAY-LEWIS: Well, I — I kidded myself I did, yes.

KING: What was he like to work with, Nicole?

KIDMAN: Oh, very difficult.

(CROSSTALK)

DAY-LEWIS: Finally we’re getting to it.

KING: All right, let’s get to it now.

He bucks you, right?

KIDMAN: He — he lifts your game. He — I think that’s the thing. When you’re working with somebody like Daniel, it — it makes you want to do better.

KING: Judi, what was it like with you for him?

DENCH: We go back a long, long way, because I played his mother 20 years ago.

KING: Were you?

DENCH: In “Hamlet,” yes. So you see, I’ve known him for a very long time.

KING: On the stage in London?

DENCH: Yes, at The National. Yes. And well, the thing about Daniel is you’re meant to be — you come to make — you’re meant to be doing a scene with this person and this person is not Daniel; this person who you’d like to be doing the scene with is standing in front of you.

So it’s an all embracing thing, you know?

It’s — it doesn’t ex — stand in the way of working. Daniel’s way of working doesn’t exclude you, it includes you.

KING: How good a Hamlet was he?

DENCH: Oh, he was wonderful.

KING: That’s the hardest — the hardest role in the theater, isn’t it?

DENCH: I don’t think you can get harder than that, do you? DAY-LEWIS: I sent her a–

(CROSSTALK)

DAY-LEWIS: — I sent her a note when — when we started “Nine,” “I promise not to run out on you this time.”

(LAUGHTER)

KING: We’ll be back.

We’ll check in with Sophia, too.

Back with the cast of “Nine” in 60 seconds.

Here’s a look at Penelope Cruz and some of her acclaimed performances.

We’ve got a lot of them.

KING: Two screen legends, Oscar winners Sophia Loren and Dame Judi Dench, have played and portrayed all kinds of characters on film. And while you might not think of them as singers, this isn’t the first time they’ve carried a tune in movies.

Watch.

KING: Sophia, tell us, what is life like now? What are you doing? What are you doing?

LOREN: I just made a film on the life of my mother, which is a fiction for television that is going on for tonight. And — and then I’m preparing something else to do in films in Italy.

KING: Thank you so much, dear.

Give our love to everyone.

We love you, Sophia.

LOREN: Thank you.

Merry Christmas to everybody.

(CROSSTALK)

LOREN: Ciao, Rob.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Ciao, Rob.

Sophia Loren. We lose the satellite.

The rest of the cast remains with us.

Nicole gave birth to her daughter weeks before “Nine” began filming. She brought her baby to the set. We’re going to talk about kids and families next.

KING: We’re back in New York with the cast of “Nine”.

All right, what’s with the — what’s with the baby?

KIDMAN: What do you mean?

KING: You brought the — you brought the baby to the set?

And she’s hold old now?

KIDMAN: I did. I did. It was when she first came, she was six weeks old. And everyone — everyone was really nice to her.

MARSHALL: It was beautiful.

COTILLARD: Yes, it was–

(CROSSTALK)

MARSHALL: Yes.

KIDMAN: So they’ve seen her grow up now, so —

KING: Now, she’s how old now?

KIDMAN: Seventeen months.

KING: What was it like having a baby around the set, Rob?

MARSHALL: It was part of the whole family extension. I loved it.

KING: Do all of you have children?

Who has children?

Everyone. OK. Let’s run around.

Kate, what’s your family?

HUDSON: I have a — he’s going to be six in January.

KING: What’s his name?

HUDSON: Ryder. Ryder Russell Robinson. And–

KING: Ryder Russell Robinson?

HUDSON: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

HUDSON: He was. He was on the set–

KING: Did you take him to the World Series?

HUDSON: Yes. No. Actually, no. No, I didn’t. He was with his father. But — but he got to enjoy a lot of great baseball games.

KING: How is A-Rod, by the way?

HUDSON: Good. Really good.

KING: Are you really into baseball now?

HUDSON: I’ve always kind of been into baseball. You know, my Kurt — my dad played baseball so–

COTILLARD: Yes.

HUDSON: — I’ve always.

KING: That’s right, he did.

HUDSON: And my cousin played — played pro ball. So I’ve — I’ve all — baseball has been around my family for a while. But, yes, I took –

KING: So you have an older daughter, right?

KIDMAN: Seventeen.

KING: Seventeen now?

KIDMAN: Um-hmm.

KING: How — what’s her name?

KIDMAN: Bella.

KING: A great name.

Penelope, what — what is in your family grouping?

CRUZ: Well, my parents, my brother and sister. I don’t have kids yet.

KING: No kids.

Judi, do you have grown children?

DENCH: I have an actress daughter who is here to see the premier. And she has a son, Sammy, my grandson, who is 12 and who is in love with Fergie.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: A crush?

DENCH: This film has changed his –

KING: How many children do you have, Daniel?

DAY-LEWIS: I have three boys.

KING: Three boys?

DAY-LEWIS: Three boys, yes.

KING: Ages?

DAY-LEWIS: Fourteen, 11 and seven.

KING: Any want to act?

DAY-LEWIS: No, I don’t think so.

KING: Well, do they watch their father a lot?

DAY-LEWIS: Never.

KING: They don’t watch their father?

DAY-LEWIS: No. They have other things to do.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: Marion, do you — you’re not married, right?

COTILLARD: No. No kids yet.

KING: Do you want children?

COTILLARD: Yes, of course.

KING: Fergie?

FERGIE: I have two furry dogs that I — I remind them that I suffered for nine months for each of them. So if they get out of line, they get in trouble.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: Rob?

MARSHALL: I have a dog, as well, a gorgeous dog, Gilly (ph). And John, of course.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gilly was on the set.

(CROSSTALK)

MARSHALL: Gilly is great.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our mascot.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: This was all really this happy?

MARSHALL: Yes.

DAY-LEWIS: Yes, but, still — we’re sort of squeezing the last remaining time that we can, which is lovely that you invited us all to be together in this, because we rarely have a chance to be together now and–

KING: Because you all go off and do different things now, right?

DAY-LEWIS: And we miss it. I miss it. I didn’t do anything.

(CROSSTALK)

MARSHALL: I mean it’s — it’s — but one of the great things about doing this event tonight, for instance, and — is just being together, because we knew how special what we were doing was. I think — it rarely happens like this.

KING: Anthony Quinn told me once, the saddest day when you make a movie is the last day.

MARSHALL: That’s true.

KING: Because you all play these parts and you go off —

MARSHALL: That’s true. KING: — into another world.

MARSHALL: Well, I got to sit with them in a room, you know, and look at them and — and spend time with them during the editing process, which was beautiful for me. You know, I always feel it’s my job to serve them.

KING: Fergie is famous, of course, as a member of the Black Eyed Peas. here she is doing what she does best. Let’s get it started.

KING: Before we find out what’s next, let’s look at Judi and Daniel talking about how easy directing is.

KING: That’s a great last word in this movie — action.

I love that ending. And the entire premier audience stood up and applauded.

What’s next, Kate?

HUDSON: Christmas. Christmas shopping.

(LAUGHTER)

HUDSON: I’m trying to wrap my head around that and the family. But — but for work, I start a film in–

KING: Work.

HUDSON: — in January. I start a film where I play a girl that’s dying of cancer.

KING: Really?

Oh.

Rob, what’s next?

MARSHALL: I don’t know yet. I’m still sort of debating and a few things in the — mostly it’s just a rest would be lovely.

KING: — figure something out.

HUDSON: Here, here.

KING: Nicole, what’s next?

KIDMAN: I produced my first film and it’s — we’re going to release that, called “Robert Holt.” And then I’m going to play a transsexual in a film.

KING: A transsex–

HUDSON: Yes.

KING: You’ve got a cancer victim, you’re a transsexual?

HUDSON: Yes.

KING: Interesting lives these people lead.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Fergie?

FERGIE: I am going to be on tour all year next year. So the end with the Black Eyed Peas. And I’m just designing my shoe line, and doing that. But touring — I’ll be in the tour bus a lot.

KING: Penelope?

CRUZ: I think I’m going to take a little bit of time for myself away from the set, because I’ve been traveling a lot promoting “Nine” and broken — at the same time. So I’ve been going around the world and I just wanted to take a little bit of time.

KING: Here or back home?

CRUZ: Both, mainly back home, but–

KING: The lovely Marion, what’s next?

COTILLARD: I want to travel. I’m going to go to Africa. I’m going to go to Peru. And I want to — I want to do a documentary about the forest.

KING: The forest?

COTILLARD: Deforestation and all amazing projects about reforestation. So I want to spend time in the forest.

KING: Dame?

(LAUGHTER)

DENCH: I did “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with Peter Hall on stage in 1962. And I’m going to do it again.

KING: In London?

COTILLARD: I’ll be there.

MARSHALL: I’ll be there, too.

DENCH: Yes.

KING: And Daniel Day?

DAY-LEWIS: No plans, just — just spending time with the family and catching up with them.

KING: You work sparingly, don’t you?

DAY LEWIS: I do.

KING: You do a film like, what, every three years?

DAY LEWIS: Two or three, yes.

KING: Why?

DAY-LEWIS: I think I — I’ve found that the time that I spend away from — from working, which is a great luxury, of course, to be able to spend that time away from it, gives me what I need to be able to do the work. So it’s very much part of the same thing.

KING: So no chosen script yet?

DAY LEWIS: No.

KING: Rob, do you expect some Academy — obviously, you’re going to get Academy Award nominations.

MARSHALL: Oh —

KING: Do you expect a lot?

MARSHALL: Well, I think all of us are just go like this and just sort of — because — because those are gifts, really, you know?

It’s so dangerous to think in terms of that. I think we’re just so happy with the product and the process of what we did. I think that’s what you must do.

KING: Do you like the idea of 10 nominations for best movies this year?

MARSHALL: That’s an interesting question. I mean, I — I like that it includes a lot of different kinds of films, hopefully. I love the variety and — but, on the other hand, you do think, well, isn’t it, you know — the five, it’s always been that — or at least it has, you know, for the most recent past.

KING: Yes.

MARSHALL: And so you —

KING: It’s hard to change.

MARSHALL: Yes. Yes.

KING: All right, let’s hear it for Kate, Nicole, Penelope, Dame Judi, Daniel Day, Marion, Fergie, Rob and, from Italy, Sophia — from Sweden, rather — from Switzerland — from Sophia Loren.

Thank you all very much.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: “Nine” opens Friday in L.A. and New York and nationwide Christmas Day

from ABC.com

ABC’s Cynthia McFadden Convenes Cast of Stars to Talk About Life on Set of New Film

For the first and only time, “Nightline” got the entire cast of upcoming movie “Nine” together at New York’s legendary Plaza Hotel for a feisty and intimate conversation. Anchor Cynthia McFadden led the actors — Sophia Loren, Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Dame Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Marion Cotillard and Fergie — and director Rob Marshall in a discussion of the new film, life backstage, eating habits, the pain of rehearsal and more. The following is a full transcript of the interview.

Cynthia McFadden: So first of all thank you all for coming, and I thought it would be appropriate to start with a toast to Fellini who inspired this film.

Rob Marshall:That’s lovely. Thank you [all raise their glasses].

Marshall: Sophia knew him.

McFadden: Yes. So would he approve?

Sophia Loren: I think he would, yes, of course he would approve. Yes.

McFadden: You think so?

Loren: Yes, absolutely. Cheers.

McFadden: What was he like?

Loren: Fellini?

McFadden: Yes. I read that he was rather self effacing and shy, true?

Loren: Well it depends on what kind of people he was meeting. But otherwise he was somebody that was very open. He was a great artist because he drew very well. He did things for children, characters for children wonderfully, and that’s how he started in this business. And then he um, he, uh, he started to be very much in love with cinema and he met Alberto Sordi and he started with him and he did a wonderful picture with him that was very, very, very successful.

McFadden: Was Fellini also a Casanova?

Loren: He pretended to be.

[everyone laughs]

McFadden: Is that better or worse than being one, I don’t know—

Loren: No, no no. But that’s it’s not fair what I say. He pretended to be for what I saw, for what I hear. But really I don’t think so.

McFadden: [to Daniel] So you studied Italian to play the part.

Daniel Day-Lewis: So I’m told.

[everyone laughs]

McFadden: Why?

Marshall: Everyone is saying that you spoke Italian.

Day-Lewis: I know, I know.

McFadden: Did you?

Day-Lewis: What else did I do?

[everyone laughs]

McFadden: You tell me.

Day-Lewis: I didn’t study Italian, no. I mean I studied it in as far as I prefer to know more of than less Italian while we were working on this but I am certainly not an Italian speaker, yes. I understand quite a lot.

McFadden: You didn’t speak in Italian the entire time on the set, that’s all just, bad reporting?

Marshall: Yeah, because I wouldn’t have understood a word he said. He speaks, he has a beautiful Italian accent, he speaks beautiful Italian, but it wasn’t, that wasn’t something that we did because we were making this film in English. The truth is, what was nice is there is Italian throughout, pieces of it, which gives it a flavor which was great.

Loren: Yeah, but when I spoke Italian he understood what I was saying.

McFadden: Did you?

Day-Lewis: I think so.

Loren: Yes.

[everyone laughs]

McFadden: Is Guido the man that every man would like to be or is he not. I mean do you think men really aspire to that kind of& fantasy. Or is he, or you know, what do you think. Judi?

Dame Judi Dench: He is the man he wants to be and women in their fantasy may well want that kind of man. Most of us do [little laugh]. I mean we have a long, long relationship Daniel and I, for 30 years or so, so he is everything that Guido is to me is everything that Daniel and Guido have completely fused to be the same person. I’m off to Italy next year to just look around for him.

[everyone laughs]

McFadden: That’s some bad news for your wife, but OK, I’m hearing you.

Fergie: But Guido’s very tortured though, I don’t know if every man would wish to feel that way, constantly having that dilemma between the Madonna and the whore and all of that and you know I certainly know men like that and my advice is you want to work with them, they’re genius, but you don’t want to date& and uh, that type of man.

McFadden: Do you have any personal experience?

Fergie: Yes. Yes.

[everyone laughs a lot]

McFadden: Would you care to elaborate.

Fergie: No!

[everyone laugh]

McFadden: Marion, what do you think? Is Guido something men aspire to be and Guido is just charming enough and talented enough to be able to pull it off, at least in his mind?

Marion Cotillard: Well, I’m close to what Fergie just said. I don’t know& I don’t know if you want to be—can you be Guido, that’s the first question. Can you be this man, this creator, this artist, this&maybe about his relationship with women, maybe men want to have that, but I don’t, no, I don’t think so. With all my respect to Guido and all my love I don’t think—but, actually, you know I’m thinking, which men, which man men would like to be and I have no answer. So, it might not be the right sentiment.

Kate Hudson: I would actually like to say something, because when I saw the movie just as a female watching it I felt like watching Guido and how he saw each woman and what each woman represented, and I thought Rob did this amazing job of, every woman here is specific in their own sensuality and their own sexuality. He casted it very specifically what each woman would represent to Guido and when you watch the film all these women have something that Guido thinks he needs. And as a comment on men and what men think they need from women inevitably it all comes down to who you are. You know, who the man is. We’re not going to help him, his temptations and his ideas of what a woman should be or what he needs from that woman. He has to figure that out for himself. Um—

McFadden: But do you think that’s what men want? I mean if they were being honest about it. Is the fantasy—are Guido’s fantasies the fantasies men have?

Hudson: Well, I mean—

Dench: Some men. Yeah.

McFadden: Yeah.

Hudson: Men like sex. I mean—

[laughter]

Hudson: You know, I mean in terms of that, that’s what I think. That’s, in my small, short, 30 years& I mean no, I think, I think, I think, yeah, I mean, fantasy is wonderful. It’s wonderful to have fantasy. It’s wonderful to dream up things that you want. And sometimes, you know—

Marshall: We meet this man in crisis, that’s the thing. This is man who has been trying to spin these plates for so many years and it just doesn’t work anymore, that’s the problem, you know, all these∧ I think Louisa says it so beautifully when she says he’s just an appetite, you’re an appetite, you want so much and you can’t have all that.

McFadden: He wants to be everything, have everything—

Marshall: Yeah, but you can’t, you can’t—

Loren: Yeah, but the most wonderful character in the film, I mean, is the wife, of course, because the wife has to cope with the genius like Fellini’s and she is a woman too and she is an artist too and how can she cope with everything that is wrong with Fellini. It’s a very difficult role she plays.

McFadden: So Penelope, in your experience, are all men really nine?

Penelope Cruz: Well just to continue to talk about Guido and my opinion on that, I think he is, even if every man would dream about being Guido he is a very special human being. He is one of those people that you know when you are around him you are going to be at a high risk, because if they are happy you are going to be happy. If they are sad, they enter a room and they have an effect on everybody else. Because they are these big personalities—

McFadden: Do special rules apply then, if you’re that kind of person.

Cruz: Well, he has to face the same lessons in life and he has to get to a point in his life where he has to make some decisions and make some choices and the movie talks a lot about that, about how even someone like him that can get away with so much because people allow him to get away with a lot because he is that special, in the end he is confronted by the rules of what life is for all of us, for everybody.

McFadden: Nicole, is that how you see it?

Nicole Kidman: What was the question?

[everyone laughs]

‘Can’t I Just Listen?’

McFadden: I don’t know, I have no idea. Is Guido, do you think—when men go to the movie and they see this film are they going to say “A-ha! That is what I want too.”

Kidman: Um, well, I mean part of making a movie is it should be a little bit beyond what we have here, so it’s a little heightened. And it should make all of us, I think women will go see it and say I want to be her and her and her and her and her. But um, at the same time, I think also, when you talk about men and all of those things, we’re all individuals and we all have different things and this is a particular man, um, and—

McFadden: So you don’t think this is—

Kidman: One of the lessons in life is learning to want what you have. And I think that’s probably what Guido has to get to a place of going I want what I already have, instead of I want, I want, I want, what’s beyond.

McFadden: So Daniel, do you think this is sort of the male fantasy?

Day-Lewis: Can’t I just listen to everyone?

[everyone laughs]

McFadden: Nope.

Day-Lewis: But what, what—I don’t really understand that, going back to what Rob and Marion were saying, that you discover a man who is having a very profound crisis in his life, so the degree to which he actually derives pleasure from the satisfaction of the appetite he has I think is very limited. Maybe also you discover someone at a stage in their life when they feel their powers are waning and maybe your appetite somehow increases in response to that but you’re looking for nourishment in the wrong places. So it’s not, I don’t think, for all that you see him having moments of pleasure within the story, the prevailing sense that you have is of a man who is running helter-skelter from his own, from his very own self and kind of has to be shepherded back to confronting it.

McFadden: Is it all mama’s fault?

Day-Lewis: [turns towards Loren] It is all your fault.

[everyone laughs]

Loren: I knew it. Yes, it’s the story of my life.

[everyone laughs]

Fergie: Yeah, Guido definitely has some, mommy issues—

McFadden: Mommy issues.

Fergie: Yeah, yeah.

Day-Lewis: What a joy to be messed up by that woman. Can you imagine?

Loren: I try to make my son as I would like him to be, I’ve tried to adjust his life the way I would like it to be. I try to help him in the moments of despair, I try to be close to him as much as I can. But sometimes there comes a moment that I cannot help him anymore because he has to go on his own and he has to decide himself what he wants to do with his life.

Marshall: Beautifully said.

Loren: Il capito!

Day-Lewis: She has a point.

McFadden: That brings us back to you [turns to Marion Cotillard]. The wife, the long suffering wife. I mean, what is their relationship? They were once in love and now they’re not?

Loren: No, no, no.

Cotillard: Oh, yeah, I think they’re in love, I think it’s just when you’re lost you don’t know who you love, you don’t know who you are, you don’t know what to do, you don’t know where to go. Um, and I think Louisa just tries to wake him up. To& to tell him that to be an artist you just have to have a life, because that’s where you find inspiration.

McFadden: Well he was having a little bit too much of a life.

Cotillard: Dedicated, yeah. It’s, I remember when I prepared the movie I watched this documentary of Frances Ford Coppola [inaudible] now and it’s his wife that has done this documentary and you can see her sometimes in some footage and you can feel the, yeah, the dedication to a man, uh, and it’s, I think it’s a beautiful relationship when you are, you’re not, you don’t sacrifice anything, you just find your place, helping someone to create. I think it’s beautiful.

McFadden: Well, but she gets squashed in helping him create.

Day-Lewis: I don’t, I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think, and certainly not the way Marion plays her, um for all that she’s a victim as far as you feel the pain that she’s, that she’s caused to suffer by that man, but absolutely she is not a victim in the deeper sense because she is completely independent, she’s very strong, and quite clearly she understands him better than anybody else and his salvation finally is to probably realize that she is his partner in the truest sense that she understands him, she recognizes him.

McFadden: But there’s that scene at the dining room table, in the restaurant right, where the priest says, oh but you’re a great Catholic wife because you’ve sacrificed everything for him.

Day-Lewis: That’s just the priest’s point of view.

[laughter]

Cotillard: I think that, you know, when you make choices in your life and sometimes you choose love and I don’t think she, she put aside her career because, and also life is in a constant movement so when you put something aside it’s maybe not forever. You just have to, well they spent many years together and it’s a turning point because, not that she’s, I mean she understands that Guido needs to desire. He desires Claudia and nothing happens between them. What she can’t understand is the lie; the lie, because the lie cuts the connection between these two people who are in love with each other.

McFadden: Well it’s an interesting idea, though. Does love mean fidelity? Because he’s certainly not faithful.

Day-Lewis: But isn’t that for every couple to decide within their own relationship? Because we tend to sort of assess people in the marketplace now, it’s like this marketplace judgment, acts of contrition, penance and so forth, but truly the only, the only real ethical decision you make are between you, your own spirit and the person closest to you or the people closest to you that those decisions might affect.

McFadden: Well Penelope is certainly not happy with your choices in the movie, she tries to kill herself, right?

Cruz: No, Carla is really in love and upset with Guido and she’s very addicted to this relationship and what he means for her in her life, he does not want to let that go. And she’s not a victim of Guido, either, she’s equally responsible. She’s also& I think betraying someone else because her agreement with her husband, I don’t think he’s happy with that, but that’s where she wants to be and she cannot let that go. It’s her drug.

McFadden: So is nobody right and nobody wrong in this? There are no—

Marshall: Well it’s not working, that’s the thing. What he’s created, the lies and all of the women that he’s been with and so forth, looking for some kind of satisfaction to help him heal. It’s not working. It’s not working, so you see a man who is actually falling and you know, so timely you see these incredibly powerful figures who are fallen because they can’t keep that up. It’s doesn’t last long. And so what is beautiful about this story is that it’s about a man learning to begin again in a different way. In a purer way.

McFadden: I’m interested in the way women are seen in the film. [To Daniel] Who do you like best? Who are you most in love with?

Day-Lewis: Listen, you’re not going to get away with that, no, no, no.

McFadden: Who is really—

Loren: The wife, the wife.

Day-Lewis: I will tell them each individually after the show’s over.

McFadden: Yes, they said it was a very happy set. Now we know why. No, seriously, to him, who is the most important of the women.

Loren: Fellini would say the wife.

McFadden: The wife. What about the mother?

Day-Lewis: [reaches over and touches Judi Dench] The wife and the pal.

McFadden: The pal?

[Everyone screams out different names]

Day-Lewis: She tells him what things are, the inspiration, the mother, everything.

Dench: You’re going to have a busy afternoon, Daniel.

Day-Lewis: That’s the problem. If you could just mash them all into one single being [laughs]

McFadden: [To Judi] So, what do you think? Who’s the most important one?

Dench: Well, he, he, Guido loves them all for different reasons. You know, he’s three quarters in fantasy and that’s what the dilemma is, isn’t it? That he’s spinning out of truths, it’s what Luisa, you know, is saying. Why didn’t you face reality for goodness sake? And he has now become, you know, a man who has spun out of kilter in a way. And so um, who—it doesn’t matter really who he loves—he doesn’t love anybody better than anybody—does he? — no, he doesn’t love anybody better. But you know, we all—

Fergie: He loves himself the best. [laughs]

Dench: –as you know we all have a different relationship with him, and he because of the very nature of the film that’s how you understand that.

Kidman: No, I want him to love his wife the most.

McFadden: You want him to love his wife.

Kidman: Yeah. Of course.

Hudson: That’s what I was just going to say, I was going to say that, yeah.

Kidman: I don’t want him to love any of us. Just his wife.

Cotillard: Well, when Claudia says she wants to be the man she, it’s a beautiful way to also tell him, see the reality, because he sees all these women just one way, where as there are many faces, women, and when she tells him I want to be the man, because this is where it’s interesting. This is like, look at you, look at who you are, how you see things, and here’s the reality. It’s, I mean, they’re all so important in his life.

McFadden: So what do you think she means when she says I want to be the man? [to Nicole]

Kidman: Everything Marion just said. But I mean, it’s, but also, part of that is also what my character is saying to him is you don’t even know me, you are in love with something that is over here that’s our creative love affair, but it’s not me, which is why I then say, wrong girl, because you don’t know the flesh and blood me. And that’s fine for that to exist like that as a creative love affair because I think that’s how artists work together, which is why Marion said that’s nonthreatening because it’s in some other place that’s&

Hudson: It’s also a level of narcissism which is when you’re truly narcissistic you only perceive what you perceive, you’re not really seeing what it is, do you know? And that’s, you can’t& you know, and then what you do as a narcissist is then you create, you create your perception.

McFadden: So he can’t really love any of you, can he?

Hudson: Not until he loves himself.

Fergie: Well, yeah. But he’s actually very selfish in all of this.

McFadden: Right, I mean, he takes what he wants from each one of you, which is why I thought you said you wanted to be the man, which is all of the rest of you are being used for his own purposes, but finally you’re saying hold it a sec, let me be the one who’s purposes are served.

Loren: But he would have never lived without his wife, never. He treated her in a very nice way. He was so nice with her, he was so much apparently in love with her.

McFadden: But not in the movie, is he? Do you think that’s nice?

Day-Lewis: Absolutely.

McFadden: Because I have to tell you, if I were married to him, I would not be so happy.

Hudson: I second that! Me too.

Kidman: I agree, I wouldn’t be happy.

Day-Lewis: No, if that’s not clear then that’s our mistake. It should be clear that yes.

McFadden: Well you love her but you’re screwing around like crazy!

Hudson: [to Cynthia] OK, let’s get to your stuff. Let’s talk about your own stuff. Let’s talk about you. Because you’re revealing a lot right now, you’re revealing a lot about yourself.

Marshall: Cynthia, there’s a term that we’ve used, and actually Maury Yeston who wrote this piece, he calls Guido a serial monogamist, because he loves these women individually in a very true and real way and he wishes—but I will remind, this is a cautionary tale.

McFadden: Yes.

Marshall: This is not, we are not glorifying this man, it’s a cautionary tale about a man that—

Kidman: Who’s struggling—

‘There Is a Fellini in Every Man’

Marshall: –wants all that and it’s unrealistic, it doesn’t work. And if you do want all that then you are left alone.

Fergie: Tortured.

Marshall: And that’s what ends up happening, everyone leaves him alone and leaves him.

McFadden: His wife at one point says, you are not capable of love.

Marshall: In a matter of speaking. Yeah, and so does Claudia [role played by Nicole Kidman] in a way. She says, as he’s describing the character in the film, he says to, you know, she says, and this man you describe does not know how to love.

McFadden: So do we like him?… Ladies? Director?

Marshall: I mean for me, he’s so, well, I think we all understand him and invest in his story because of that.

Hudson: Well, you recognize the crisis. I mean you recognize this man is struggling with who he is and what he represents and what he’s going to create and you recognize these things in him. No matter what, no matter what anybody’s faults are, Guido, you want to root for his work.

Loren: There is a Fellini in every man. In a way.

McFadden: But he’s using everybody. Badly. Isn’t he?

Fergie: That’s why you work with him and you don’t date him.

Marshall: Can I just say one quick thing about this cast for myself, just because we’re here. I have to say, you know, it was such a joy every moment with this cast. I couldn’t believe we had assembled this amazing group, and you know one of the joys of doing a musical on film is you get to rehearse. And we had weeks of rehearsal and we had two weeks of prerecord and everybody was working together to do something very difficult. Most of us hadn’t really done, or had done but hadn’t done for years or whatever and we were all climbing this mountain together and I have to say the joy of being together and this past week has been incredible because it’s a very special, special group of people.

Kidman: Here, here! [raises glass]

[everyone raises glasses]

Everyone: Cheers!

McFadden: So is it possible—[people still drinking and everyone laughs]

McFadden: So&is it possible to have too many stars in a picture? I mean, is it possible to have so much star power that you can sort of sink the project through the weight of it all?

Marshall: That, you know, I have to, I’ll just say briefly, that was never the intention. It was only to cast the greatest actors that could play the roles. That was it. That was my only intention and it just ended up happening piece by piece that this developed. But it was never that. It was who can play these roles. And I didn’t know at first. We started casting before we started writing. I mean, Marion auditioned for Judi’s role—

McFadden: — just like Guido!

Marshall: Yes. Marion auditioned for Lily.

Kidman: Wow.

Marshall: Yes, because she’s French and the song is Folies Bergere, I thought well maybe Lily will be something else in this version. On stage she was a producer, not a costume designer.

Loren: But I was always the mother.

Marshall: You were always the mom.

[laughter]

Marshall: This was the first call.

McFadden: Was it? Was Sophia Loren the first call?

Marshall: Of course. My heart was beating out of my chest.

McFadden: Well did you give him a hard time?

Marshall: She was immediately lovely.

Loren: No, no, no. — [cross talk] I loved it so much—

McFadden: No? So what did you say.

Loren: since the beginning. No, no, no. I was in love with him—[cross talk continues]

McFadden: — let me hear the phone call, hello?—

Loren: No, no, no, no. Absolutely.

Marshall: — I was in love with her&.I thought I was going to die. I called her and said—

Loren: And I came to see you on the set right away.

Marshall: Yes you did and that was beyond. It’s just, you have to understand, do we know who this is? You know, this is, there are only a few that live in this world and this is one of the greatest&

Loren: Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo [singing to herself]

[laughter]

Marshall: Anyway, I, she knows I—

McFadden: Does that make you uncomfortable [to Sophia]?

Loren: Very, very, comfortable.

[everyone laughs]

Loren: Not uncomfortable, no no no.

Marshall: I told her I couldn’t do the film unless she said yes, and she said yes.

Loren: Yes, right.

McFadden: Immediately?

Loren: Yes, yes. Without reading anything.

McFadden: So were the rest of them that easy?

Marshall: Well the great thing was they all—

Loren: Also because—he knew that I sang, so—

Marshall: Yes. Exactly.

Loren: Beautiful voice [laughs]

Marshall: Yes it’s beautiful. Have you seen House Boat?

Kidman: Yes.

Loren: Zhou Bisou Bisou.

Marshall: Yes. Zou Bisou Bisou, famous Zou Bisou Bisou. Yes. You know, I have to say, everybody wanted to be a part of this, it wasn’t—one of the joys of this for me wasn’t having to sort of convince people really, it was, maybe slight exception to the man at the end of the table [everyone laughs].

McFadden: The girls were easy, the guy wasn’t so.

Marshall: Well it was just because Daniel you know likes to try things on for awhile. He said to me, I could think about this for a year, you’re going to have to tell me when you need to know. Because we met a zillion times, I practically lived at his house.

‘I Have Never Seen an Audition Like That’

McFadden: So why? Why did it take you so long to decide this was the project for you?

Day-Lewis: Um& well just from a purely practical level it wasn’t a good moment for me to go back to work because we just, we had just been home schooling our boys for a period of some months whilst Rebecca was making a film and so we’d all sort of decamped for a period of time, for me to then go away and do something straight away, we couldn’t keep them out of school any longer, so from just a purely practical level it wasn’t. Plus I’m always looking for excuses [laughs]. Once I’ve tried all the excuses and I can’t find one, I know that [laughter] I mean—

Marshall: My favorite moment with Daniel was the day, the day I left, our last meeting, I was in the kitchen with Daniel and he kept bringing up other actors’ names, they would be great, they would be so much better than me. Why don’t you cast, blah blah blah, and I would just say, I don’t like that person! He was really—anything he could.

McFadden: Did you have everyone else cast at that point?

Marshall: Almost. Daniel weighed in on a few people. On Kate.

Day-Lewis: I weighed right in on Kate. [laughs]

McFadden: I guess you got a yes.

Marshall: He loved that idea.

Hudson: I go, Daniel, yes!

Marshall: So that was very exciting. Fergie had not been cast. Fergie came in to London, auditioned in London. I have never seen an audition like that in my life. I have never seen anyone want something more. To prove themselves and say this is mine and claim it and say this is my role, this is for me.

McFadden: So Fergie, tell us about that. Because it’s, I mean, listen you’re all at a point in your careers where auditioning isn’t necessarily something that happens.

Fergie: Well, I did a lot of acting when I was a little girl. And it was really bad acting. I had no idea what I was doing. And at around the age of 24 I had this boyfriend and he was a thespian and I was in love with him. And so I used to go to his class. Arthur Mendoza who taught—who took directly from Stella Adler. And I went just like when I was a little girl and I told my mommy, “Mommy, I don’t want to be in the audience anymore, I want to be on the stage.” Uh, it happened again at 24. I wanted to be in the class. So I enrolled in scene study, I enrolled in Shakespeare and speech and everything and took for over a year and didn’t audition and I was just—I fell in love with the craft and finally figured out, oh this is what you do. What have I been doing all these years? I had no idea. And just held on to that basically. And this was a chance for me to use those tools that I had learned about and also get to sing this beautiful song that I get to belt out and she’s such a fun character and to work with these people—you know, these guys—[little chortle]

McFadden: These guys?

Fergie: I’ve seen, I’ve seen their faces a few times. Um, and Rob who I just am such a fan of his work. I mean I feel like the luckiest girl in the world right now.

McFadden: What did you sing for him?

Fergie: Be Italian, of course. Yeah.

Marshall: Yeah, she sang Be Italian. I mean she opened her mouth to sing Be Italian and I had to hold onto the walls it was unbelievable. And with just such guts and fearlessness. I mean that’s what we all realize, I mean everybody has that in this room. Everybody has that—fearlessness. Because this is a really hard movie to do. And it really was, and it was extraordinary. But Fergie was exactly like that—coming from a different place. I mean, Daniel talks about walking into rehearsal and hearing Fergie do Be Italian, one of the first times we were in rehearsal—

Day-Lewis: I said, can I go home now, please? [laughter]

Fergie: Aw.

McFadden: Well, but I thought you were the intimidating one? [To Loren:] I had heard that you had said he was scary.

Day-Lewis: Am I scary?

Loren: This phrase really is ruining me. Because not scary, you are a little bit intimidating when we have to do something together. I mean, for me, I don’t know for you.

McFadden: In what way? Why—

Loren: This is my personal—

Day-Lewis: Let’s change the subject.

McFadden: No, I’m liking this subject.

Day-Lewis: I’ll bet you are—

Loren: –Let’s change the subject.

McFadden: But why, why? Because he’s intense?

[Day-Lewis making groaning noises and others laughing]

Loren: Because he is very, very much intense. He is so intense, he’s so, so much —

Marshall: It’s like going out on the tennis court with Federer. That’s just what it is for everybody.

McFadden: No but I was going to say—ok let’s use the tennis metaphor. Do you play better when you’re playing with someone who you respect and admire and who you think might be a little bit better than you. Or do you play better when you can dominate.

Cruz: It’s always better to have someone you admire there.

Dench: It’s not about dominating anyway. [big sigh] It’s not about domination.

McFadden: OK, what? [to Judi] What’s it about?

Dench: It’s not about dominating. It’s not a match. That’s a terrible analogy to make, tennis, it’s not like that, who said tennis?

McFadden: OK [lifts her drink up] me! [others laughing]

Fergie: [amidst the laughing] That’s served to you across the table.

McFadden: Oh I picked it right up!

Marshall: [to Judi] You can say anything, I agree with anything you say.

McFadden: Hold—but just a second. You know what, you’re pretty scary, so keep going.

Judi: Oh, no, no, no. Please don’t say that.

McFadden: No, I’m teasing.

Dench: You can’t know me.

Day-Lewis: [cross talk] it’s not true. It’s not true.

Dench: But it’s not to do with a match. It’s like when you were saying before, we’re all playing parts, we’re all being another person. It’s not really to do, we draw on everything, isn’t that right? We draw on ourselves, we draw on our observation, we draw on all time what Rob says and, and, but it’s not a thing of coming out and somebody winning. It’s not to do with that. It’s to do with having a relationship with a person you’re acting and the more wonderful the person is, the more wonderful time you have because it brings out in you exactly what’s required. It means that your job isn’t so hard. Because you have it from the person standing in front of you.

Kidman: Here, here!

Everyone: Yeah Judi! Yeah! [raising glasses again]

Day-Lewis: Your job, as any performer’s job is if you’re working in a partnership with another performer is to do in whatever way you’re able to is to try and help that person, and you may be helping them only just by focusing on the work that you are doing so that you are recognizable to them in that situation, but if you were to, and I mean I must say it’s kind of, it saddens me to think that any partner might be intimidating because it would be completely—it would defeat the scene. If you intimidated a working partner during the course of a scene it would defeat the work that you are doing. It would be self defeating.

Marshall: Well, what I observed, what I observed, was um& incredible magic happening because you see the people at the height of their craft—they know what they’re doing. I have to say it’s like kids in a playground. One of the things that was important to me was to create an atmosphere where people could fail and make mistakes—

Day-Lewis: Exactly.

Marshall: And be terrible. Because I mean, and there were moments that were bad. [everyone laughs] But—

McFadden: None of those are in the film though!

Marshall: [laughs] No, but it’s part of the process. And that’s everything. I mean, and you have to feel safe and protected in a way so that you know you can try anything&I mean, you know, we could never have done this without the time that we put into actually creating and working on it because we weren’t ready. Everyone was training like athletes. Everyone was working so incredibly hard to get there. But there has to be a sense of play.

Dench: Yes.

Marshall: There has to be a sense of that, and that’s what we all felt. A sense of joy and play and so we could mess up and get better.

McFadden: So, that’s unusual in a film to have as long as you all had to prepare?

Marshall: Oh, it’s a luxury. It’s a luxury, it’s a luxury for film to have any rehearsal and to have the rehearsal that we had. And also what ended up happening is that because you’re all together, you’re making the same film. You know, it’s not—and that’s rare. Sometimes people come in and they’re& you know, we’re all on the same page together. And supporting each other—very important. It’s amazing. Daniel was incredibly generous. He was there at all rehearsals, at everybody’s numbers watching, and everybody else was too. It was—and I think it’s also because everybody’s so different and there isn’t anybody sort of crossing over. Everyone is so unique and so different. It’s really special.

McFadden: So what—Penelope—what did you like best about making the film?

Cruz: I enjoyed every second of this experience. Since the moment I met Rob, we had a lunch in New York and we talked about the movie and then I auditioned for a few characters, right?

Marshall: Yeah.

Cruz: And I said I’ll do whatever you want, I just want to be on that set, learning. I studied ballet when I was a little girl, like, I am a very big fan of music and musicals and I knew that if I was going to do one, the best person in the world to do one with is Rob Marshall. And the fact that we had all that time to prepare—months of training with great teachers and they choreographed the whole movie, Rob and John DeLuca. It was a really beautiful experience that we shared together that I think has created a bond because for us because it’s different from anything we have done before.

McFadden: I hear you were called “the warrior” and that you actually rehearsed to the point that your hands were bleeding.

Fergie: Oh, the ropes.

Cruz: Well they had to bleed a little bit because of the ropes, yes, yes. But I think you feel no physical pain after dancing for all those hours you get high in a good way. You go into a different state and you don’t feel it anymore. I just&

Marshall: It’s true, that’s a real dancer thing.

Hudson: Yeah, yeah.

Day-Lewis: We were working with a group of professional dancers that Rob had chosen. Each one of them very carefully and for all of us to live with and work with dancers, you understand no matter how hard you think you’re working and how strong your discipline is, it’s nothing compared to that of a professional dancer.

Hudson: Ugh, yeah.

Day-Lewis: So we had that living example in front of us every single day.

McFadden: So did you all eat really heavily—I mean take care of yourselves, like train—

Fergie: Ha!

McFadden: Alright, who had the worst eating habits, yes?

Fergie: [points to herself] Oh, yeah. That would be me. [pointing back and forth with Cruz and everyone laughing] Penelope and I.

McFadden: Hold it! I don’t know who—who? Who’s the worst?

Cotillard: [pointing across the table to Nicole?] You came back with a burger one day on the set and fries.

McFadden: You eat anything? [to Nicole]

Kidman: I do.

Hudson: Oh, Nicole eats.

Kidman: At six foot tall, people always go how can you eat that much? But, I&

McFadden: You pack it away.

Kidman: Yeah, but I like to um, to exercise too, but yeah I love to—

Hudson: I love watching Nicole with her cappuccinos because she spoons—she [starts to do an impersonation]—the milk and she—so I’ll see her in corners just taking the foam and [Kate continues impersonating her] and she looooves it. You can just feel her loving it so much. I love—that way my favorite.

Kidman: Well we all got to hang out a lot because we had on the set that sort of tented green room, right? Which was where we would all—which is unusual—

Marshall: It is unusual.

Kidman: But it was very, it was like a little, it was a wonderful space to just be able to—they had some couches and the craft service, and that’s where we’d all stay.

Hudson: And our dressing rooms too on the stage were sort of down this long corridor and everyone had you know, it was like an apartment complex, like a long—you know.

Kidman: But we were rarely in those, because when you would hit the set, you’d basically stay all day and never leave it.

Hudson: [cross talk with Nicole] We’d stay on the set.

McFadden: So what time—you’d start rehearsals when?

Marshall: Early

Kidman: Oh yeah.

McFadden: Like what? 8?

Kidman: Well when you’re shooting you start 5:30.

Marshall: You know, I would walk in and people would already be working, 8am, you know, and didn’t want to leave. I mean the thing was, everybody wanted more time. More time—I need more time. Right?

[everyone laughs and says yeah]

Cotillard: No, no, we were fighting sometimes, when we had the schedule for the week and I was like why am I, why those two days are off for me while everybody else is working? And they were all like, we need room and I said I don’t care about—

Marshall: And it was great.

McFadden: Arguing to work.

Cotillard: Well, not arguing. But—

Marshall: But wanting more time. And we had a great team, we had Joey Pizzi and Tara Nicole Hughes, Denise Faye and John DeLuca. I mean we had this incredible team so everybody was—

Cotillard: And Paul.

Marshall: And Paul Bogaev who was doing the musical work and you know it was, everybody did a lot of work ahead of them and they wanted the time.

McFadden: So would you all eat together? You were about to tell me a story about a lunch. [to Judi Dench]

Dench: Yes, very, very early on, before I realized we would all have lunch together, and I ordered rather a lot of food and when it came to the day they said we aren’t going to leave the set, we’re all going to have it around this table. Now that we’re all going to have it around the table, and gradually the plates came and went down in front and you know there would be four leaves and very, very small bit of smoked fish and I thought this can’t go on—and then this enormous plate, I said, I can’t possible have ordered that.

[everyone laughs]

‘They’ve Got My Guilty Secret’

McFadden: Well now they all know! And it’s OK with them right?

Dench: They’ve got my guilty secret, yes.

Marshall: And how gorgeous do you look in your beautiful bustiere?

McFadden: Yes, so let’s talk about that? Did you like the costume?

Dench: Oh yes, sure.

McFadden: You still have it, don’t you? No, no, no [laughs]

Dench: I wish I had the hair though. That’s what I liked best.

McFadden: That hair was great.

Dench: My daughter’s got it now. Not the wig, but the actual hair. She’s got the same thing now.

McFadden: So, I mean, it is an unusual—it’s unusual that you’re all back together to promote the movie. That’s unusual in itself. It’s a tribute I think, maybe to the director?

Everyone: Yes, yes, yes.

McFadden: So let’s pretend he’s not here for a moment. Talk amongst yourselves.

Hudson: Well he had a bullhorn. So, [laughs] you know, because we’re on stage, so we definitely would hear things because you know when you’re performing, you know, you need somebody pushing you. So&

McFadden: Did he push you?

Hudson: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. For our number it was so energetic, I mean it was, you know, and then, you know, we didn’t really stop because we needed the energy. There wasn’t a lot of cutting—we kind of just did it like a production and doing that all day we definitely needed the bullhorn because you know to bring us back to life and keep us pushing forward.

McFadden: So how many days to shoot that incredible number?

Hudson: [looks to Rob] Two?

McFadden: Two days.

Hudson: [nods] two days.

Marshall: We were so prepared because you know we rehearsed. In some ways the numbers were the easiest things to do because they were the ones that were prepared. Everything else was something that we had to create on the day. Everybody knew what they were gonna do. It was just—I mean, we didn’t have tons of time and you had to, you know, you had to, you have to be an Olympian. You have to show up and you know.

Hudson: I remember the first time on the—doing the performance with the costume and everything and the hair and the—and then, you know you’re on this stage rehearsing for two months and then all of a sudden they’re like OK we’ve got dress rehearsal and you get out there and there’s like these huge fans, and I’m like, where did the fans come from? There’s a spotlight, you can’t see anything and you have this moment where you go, I don’t know what I’m doing and then it just—you hear Rob’s voice and it’s just like [snaps] oh, ok, this is what I’m doing. And that’s because he’s created that connection and relationship to be able to have the confidence to deliver.

McFadden: Was it fun? It looks fun.

Hudson: Yeah&it was blast.

McFadden: Great outfit too.

Hudson: Thanks to Colleen [Atwood, costume designer], she’s a genius. She’s truly amazing.

McFadden: What about for you [to Daniel], I mean all of you have worked with some of the greatest directors in the business. What does this guy at the other end of the table [Rob Marshall], what did he bring to this for you?

Day-Lewis: Rob ishe’s made of an unusual um& um& mixture of qualities because he’s, you know, we all, we all thought we were working pretty hard, the dancers we knew were working very hard, and no one worked harder than Rob. Um, nobody. And, um, and he’s absolutely relentless in pursuit of something that he feels that he’s looking for or in encouraging us to carry on looking for something he can sense that we’re looking for.

He just won’t stop, I mean, he’d still be shooting now quite honestly. [laughter] But having said that, he does it with such an abundance of love and encouragement that we’ve all been sort of completely, almost, deboned with all thatthat kind of encouragement that you very, very rarely get when you’re working.

McFadden: Really?

Day-Lewis: In fact, I almost didn’t quite know how to deal with it some of the time because I’m not used to—

McFadden: Well why, what’s it usually like?

Day-Lewis: It’s, um, I think, I don’t know what everyone else’s experience is, but I mean, I’ve worked with directors I’ve had a very, very close bond with but um, one still tends to feel that, I feel very often, that I’m more or less left to my own devices to just you know discover that world and get on with it. Not that they won’t give me direction, but that it’s very much a very silent partnership, whereas with Rob he, you know, in this case, he sort of sensed our anxieties and fears which we all had and he just kept on giving us the sense that we could achieve this thing. And it’s unique in my experience anyway.

Kidman: Also, the other thing is Rob can dance pretty much any number in the film. I arrived and Kate was doing her number and was rehearsing it, and then I saw Rob climb up on the stage, and I was like oh he’s going to give her a little bit of direction or something he did the [laughs] the turns and the steps and that’s when I went—

Marshall: It’s a sad truth& a sad, tired, old gypsy.

[everyone laughs]

Kidman: That’s very rare—

McFadden: [cross talk] but without the outfit! Yeah.

Kidman: When he can do turns like that, because, I mean, he’s a great dancer, so.

Marshall: Was, was.

Kidman: Is.

McFadden: So does that help? Does that help to know that he’s—

Fergie: Rob and John. He could do all of the numbers better than us!

McFadden: Could he?

Fergie: Oh yeah.

Marshall: No.

Fergie: Oh, hands down.

Kidman: He can.

Marshall: No, I mean.

Fergie: Hands down.

Kidman: He can.

Marshall: I mean, when John and I created it, the work, I can only do it by actually getting up and trying and seeing how it feels and do that, and then we throw it away of course because it has to be them that does it, and you have to tailor-made it for the strength of the actress, but it’s all out of fear because you just want to make sure that you have something, you know, that works.

McFadden: Alright, who was the funniest person on the set? Who was the funniest?

Cotillard: Ah, Nicole is very funny.

Cruz: [nodding yes]

McFadden:: Nicole is funny? Hold it! Who?

Hudson: I would say Rob.

Marshall: Judi is hilarious.

Kidman: Judi [nodding].

Cruz: Daniel!

Cotillard: Nicole, Daniel.

[a chorus of names from each of them]

Marshall: Everybody’s funny.

McFadden: Really? So was there a lot of laughing?

Fergie: I had Kate and Judi in my makeup trailer& and between the two of them I was cracking up every day.

Hudson: We had fun. We had a fun makeup trailer.

Fergie: Oh, we did.

‘I Was Not Popular at All’

McFadden: It is sort of like sitting at the, you know, the cool kids club at high school. So, I mean were you all cool when you were young?

Hudson: Oh yeah, totally. [laughs]

Kidman: You would have been, though! Kate would have been cool.

Hudson: I really wasn’t.

McFadden: No?

Kidman: No, you would have been cool.

Hudson: No, I really wasn’t. I really wasn’t. I was actually the girl& I wasn’t into school.

McFadden: You weren’t?

Hudson: No, I wasn’t into school, I wasn’t. I was out, I was the one&I was staring out a window.

McFadden: The reason I ask is because people will look at all of you and say oh, so& so easy&everything must have been just golden for them, always. Is that how it feels?

Cruz: I had a really bad perm [laughs] if that counts for anything.

McFadden: You did? A bad perm? [everyone laughs]

Hudson: I think we all& I got a perm too.

McFadden: Did you? Did everyone have the perm? Yes?

Hudson: I had two perms. I went back for more

McFadden: Were you popular?

Cotillard: Oh no I was that, that black thing in the corner. I was not popular at all. I think I was very boring¬ boring because I didn’t talk, no, no it was terrible. I was not interesting at all.

McFadden: You weren’t?

Cotillard: No&

Marshall: That’s impossible to believe.

Cotillard: I thought I had no personality. So I was very& I thought everybody was so cool, and I was not. So&.you know, you think things about yourself and then you start to give a little bit of love at least enough, to enjoy life. But I was, oooh.

McFadden: Did you have a boyfriend?

Cotillard: Back then? Phhf. No.

[everyone laughs]

McFadden: What about you, Penelope? Boyfriend back then? Were you like one of the girls that all the boys wanted to go out with?

Cruz: In high school or when I was younger?

McFadden: High school, junior high.

Cruz: I was five when I went home to my mom and I said, “Mom, I have a boyfriend.”

[everyone laughs]

McFadden: OK, so the boys liked you.

Cruz: No, I don’t know. I liked them.

McFadden: [to Nicole] What about you as a kid?

Kidman: I was taller than all the boys. So, I had crushes on the boys they just didn’t have crushes on me. [shrugs her shoulders]

Kidman: Yeah&but then I remember getting a boyfriend who was older than me, who took me out from his motor bike from school. That was pretty cool.

McFadden: Judi? What about you?

Dench: Well when I was at school cool was a word rarely used. Cool is a word that my grandson uses sometimes to me. Sometimes. On rare occasions&perhaps three times in the last 12 years.

McFadden: Well, did you have a boyfriend, were you popular?

Dench: I had a boyfriend but not until&well, sort of, in our brother school—who, we were two Quaker boarding schools. And this very nice person said, “May I walk you back along your corridors?” And I said, “Yes, that would be absolutely wonderful.” So we walked along and it was very windy and my coat kind of blew open, like that, and he just went like that to stop my coat from going. And then you have to cut for years later when I was in the theater and this person, whose name was Christopher Malcolmson, came round and he said I have a letter in my pocket that you have to see. And in this letter was “Dear Christopher, I can never walk back with you along the walls again as you have touched my coat.”

McFadden: [To Fergie] What about you as a young&? You were on the student council, I read somewhere.

Fergie: Oh yeah, both my parents were teachers. So that was a big deal in my school. I was in honors classes and it was about a positive reinforcement system in my house. You know, if I wanted to make those phone calls to the boyfriend, I had to get the grades. Yes, and I fell in love every year. I was so boy crazy and every year there would be a different one, and I was madly in love with them and I just& I loved falling in love.

McFadden: And you were a good girl until later, right?

Fergie: Well [laughs] it depends on what you mean by being a good girl.

McFadden: Oh, I thought you meant it depended on what I meant by later.

Fergie: Well, yeah, I was 18 when I became a woman. But no, there it is, there’s your sound bite, there you go. But no, but it was just lovely falling in love and just those, those teenage hormones racing and, you know, you have a boyfriend through the holidays, and all the sudden spring break would come along, and [sound of cutting] and you know.

Hudson: Wait, I have a boyfriend?!

Fergie: I’d get my fake ID and go to the, you know, wherever the spring break was and find a new one for the year.

McFadden: So what do we think, [looking over at Day-Lewis] do we think that he was popular with the girls in high school?

Hudson: Yes.

McFadden: Yes? Were you?

Day-Lewis: When I was young I went through phases. I got along OK, you know, just with my mates when I was growing up in London but then when I was sent away to boarding school, I was a pariah. I mean I was universally despised. It was an all boys’ boarding school. So there wasn’t any opportunity there. But then I went to a mixed boarding school and things start to get better.

[everyone laughs]

McFadden: Why were you despised?

Day-Lewis: Because I think I was just unhappy and I acted the clown the whole time, and you know, I did things that I shouldn’t have done and everyone else was just trying to get on with the business of being a school boy. In those places it’s all about conformity, so if someone is reminding you every now then that they’re in a forced labor camp, you know, they don’t really like you for it. So& but then things got better.

McFadden: The reason I ask is because obviously so many of you have formed friendships, deep friendships in the process of making this film. I mean, I saw the two of you holding hands a little earlier, [to Judi and Daniel] and I saw the two of you holding hands a little earlier. So tell me about it. How many of you actually knew each other well before? [To Daniel and Judi]: The two of you knew each other well before.

Day-Lewis: Very well.

Dench: 30 years.

Day-Lewis: [laughs]

Dench: Not that we’re that old.

McFadden: So you knew—did that help make it easier, to know that she was going to be in the film?

Day-Lewis: Yeah. I was delighted, delighted.

McFadden: Did you know he was going to be trouble? Or no?

Dench: He is always trouble.

Day-Lewis: Yeah we used to laugh a lot when we were—

Dench: I’m afraid we used to laugh at Hamlet sometimes.

Day-Lewis: We did, we got into some trouble with that.

Kidman: Oh, you did Hamlet together.

Day-Lewis: Yes. And the best moment, really, of Hamlet for me was slogging with my own mother.

[everyone laughs]

Day-Lewis: I don’t know what that says about me. [laughing] Me or the production.

McFadden: Were any of the rest of you friends before this started or did you become friends in the process

Fergie: We had met—Kate and I had met years ago—

Hudson: Way—years before. Yeah. Back when you were blond.

Fergie: Yeah, I was really blond.

Hudson: You were really blond.

Fergie: I was, gosh, when was that?

Hudson: I was like 18.

Fergie: I was like, 22? 21?

Hudson: And I had known Penelope.

Cruz: Yeah. Most of us had met, we have met before, but not—

Kidman: I didn’t know Marion.

Cotillard: Oh, I didn’t know anybody, except— [points down the table towards Daniel]

Day-Lewis: [To Marion] We had met like a year or two years before.

Cotillard: Yeah, a year before.

McFadden: So did it make it hard? How nervous were you all before you started making this picture? Very nervous?

Day-Lewis: We were all like children, but that is a good thing.

McFadden: Is it?

Day-Lewis: Yes.

McFadden: No nerves, no good performance?

Fergie: No, because we were excited.

Hudson: We were so excited, yeah. It’s like&

Marshall: You felt that. You felt that in rehearsal and filming too, because we all felt we were very lucky to be doing this. I mean this kind of thing doesn’t happen all the time, especially to this scale, and it’s not really& it’s a unique piece, too. So we felt fortunate to all be together every day, I think we did. Because you can feel when something’s special.

Hudson: It’s like something happens, you know. It’s like anybody who has a performance gene, when there’s a stage and you kind of see it, you get this little child like feeling, at least for me, and I just want to like& I get like, dance-y, you know, and for me I can’t wait, you know. I look at it, and when I walked onto the set and I saw his stage, it was like, I mean, I wanted to jump out of my skin. You know?

‘Whiskey in Our Belly’

Marshall: Kate, tell them what Shirley Maclaine said to you about dancers and the kind of dancer she was. It’s such a great thing.

Hudson: My mom and Shirley are both dancers, that’s how they started. And I was talking with them about the difference between what dance was to them then, and choreography and what it is now, as I dance with choreographers. But Shirley said, you know, “I don’t know what it is about girls today, but back then when I was dancing with Fosse,” she goes, “girls today, it’s like they dance like there’s Diet Coke in their belly.” She goes, “when we were dancing we were dancing in a basement with whiskey in our belly.”

Marshall: And I think it’s very true. I really come from the old school, John worked with Fosse and I worked with Michael Bennett, and some of the greats like Jerome Robbins and they’re really from another time, and so I saw how that worked and Kate’s right. And that’s one of the things I am most proud of, of the work at this table, is that there was such passion in the work. I felt it with everybody.

McFadden: So they were dancing with whiskey in their belly?

Fergie: There was whiskey flowing through all the numbers.

Marshall: In the dancing and the singing and the joy that you feel, and you feel the whiskey in the belliesto me it is about feeling that. Because, no matter what, musical film will always be a hybrid for me of the theater. You have to feel that it’s live as you are watching as well. It has to have, you know, it has to feel that, and every one of your numbers has that sense of spontaneity and life and&whiskey.

Hudson: Yeah and we don’t get that opportunity anymore, you know. I grew up, and I felt like, you know, my mom did variety shows and would dance and sing. And I remember, I saw this thing with her and Dean Martin, an old thing of her doing a show and all of a sudden they broke into song and that was a part of what that generation was and did and I grew up looking at and going “oh, that’s so fun” and I don’t have that opportunity very often in my generation, you know. And to be able to feel that&it’s just, that’s what I fell in love with as a little girl. And to do it is just a dream come true to me.

McFadden: Did it feel that way to all of you? That this was an opportunity to do something you don’t usually get to do?

Day-Lewis: Very much so.

Cruz: Yes.

McFadden: Because some of you are known for your darker roles.

Day-Lewis: [chuckles] Those old darker roles.

[everyone laughs]

Marhsall: I have to say that Daniel’s range is out of the charts. He is off the charts. There’s nothing he can’t do.

McFadden: So I know it was all very Kumbaya, but come on, somebody must have had a fight with somebody at some point, didn’t they?

Day-Lewis: We never had a fight.

[everyone shaking their heads]

Day-Lewis: Who had a fight? I am trying to think.

McFadden: Nobody? There was no like, my publicist is bigger than your publicist? None of that stuff?

Marshall: No.

Fergie: Hold on there’s a funny story, though.

McFadden: Come on.

Fergie: And she is not here, but it’s really cute. I remember this one day that we were doing the Overture and each woman is presented and the very last shot of the day became Sophia’s, and we were running out of time so you had to put, we had to film Sophia’s at the end of the day and she was so upset that her close up was going to be at the end of the day and I completely understood, she was hilarious.

Marshall: You are absolutely right that was something that was my mistake. Thinking it was better to do it in order and not in continuity, as opposed to thinking in terms of you know this iconic actor from you know from film, and then you realize that’s important. So that was something that you know—

Day-Lewis: You also had to ransack every florist in West London.

[everyone laughs]

Fergie: She’s a trooper though.

McFadden: And she forgave you?

Marshall: Yes, and she looks gorgeous too.

Fergie: She looks stunning.

McFadden: Well that’s the forgiveness, right?

Fergie: And she does her own makeup, so she’s a trooper.

McFadden: She did?

Marshall: She does her own makeup.

Kidman: Does she?

Marshall: She’s comes out of that school. You don’t walk out of the house unless it’s done.

Fergie: Yeah, so she just went back in and she cleaned it up and she was a professional. Yes, she went and she did it.

McFadden: I was going to ask each of you, I know that fame isn’t calibrated in any kind of way, but since she’s not with you right now is she the most famous of you all do you think? Sophia Loren?

Marshall: Oh sure.

[everyone nodding]

Day-Lewis: Without a shadow of doubt.

McFadden: No question?

Marshall: It’s not even a question.

Cruz: Of course.

Marshall: There’s just, in the world there’s just a few. There’s Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, there’s, you know what I mean? Lauren Bacall& you know, she represents that. And the great thing about it is that she is one of the guys. And that’s maybe when the cameras are off. She is one of us, she is a girl from Napoli and that’s what she talks about. She says, this is who I am. I used to speak to her about, Sophia, she talked in the 3rd person sometimes. Like that’s that thing, and I am a girl from Naples. And that was lovely to find out.

Fergie: She’s razor sharp.

Marshall: Razor sharp and funny.

Hudson: Oh, she’s so funny. That’s what shocked me. When I first, obviously, I remember seeing her the first time and she looks at you and you can tell she takes everything in and you just can’t get out of her eyes. I mean, they’re so phenomenal. And you are looking at them and I remember I was putting on makeup one day in the mirror because I don’t ever really do that, in real life I am really bad at putting a face on. And she was watching me and she goes, and I turned around and she looked at me and said, [impersonating Sophia], “More blush.”

[Everyone laughs]

Fergie: I remember that, I was there.

Hudson: And I went, “Really?” And she was like, “oh yeah, oh yeah,” and I was like, “oh, ok!” and it was so Sophia, you know. And she was right, I definitely needed more blush.

Fergie: And I remember, we went to dinner with Harvey [Weinstein] and I was eating as I did on the set.

[Laughter]

Fergie: And I’m eating and eating a lot, and she comes to me and she pushes my plate aside, because I am eating a lot, and she says, [impersonating Sophia] “no more,” and I said, “really? Sophia, it’s the only time I can enjoy it&” [impersonating Sophia] “No more.” OK, ok.

‘I Love Her So Much

Marshall: There is a great relationship, I have to say, between Sophia and Penelope.

Cruz: I love her so much.

McFadden: Why? Why do you think?

Marshall: Well, I mean these incredible Latin actors who have made this huge mark in the world and I know that over the years Penelope has been compared to Sophia in some ways.

Cruz: I just admire her so much and I love watching all of her movies over and over again and I really wanted to meet her and we, we really connected and we became, I don’t know, friends and I love her I adore her.

Marshall: I think she feels very protective of you too. I really feel that. Yeah it’s a beautiful thing.

Cotillard: When we were doing this photo shoot and she was looking at you, and I was looking at her and looking at you, and there was this warmth, this protection, and she was looking at you as if she knew you forever. As if she’s known you forever. And it was, and I was sitting and I was like I am so lucky to see this moment of her looking at you. It was so beautiful.

Cruz: She can be so kind and warm, I think, with all of us. She’s a queen.

Marshall: She’s a spirit.

McFadden: With the fear that I’m going to get nailed over here by Dame Judi again, I think that people expect that you are not going to be nice to each other.

Cruz: I don’t think people expect that, I think—

Dench: I just want to say, no time!

Cruz: Who cares.

Hudson: This is what I always find is really interesting. People want to pit women against each other. I don’t get that at all, like, it doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever, it’s just I mean

Marshall: Well Judi’s dead right, I mean we were working so hard there was no time to do anything but focus on that anyway, but also I think the support from each other was extraordinary.

Cruz: The little free time that we had, we wanted to be together. Nobody went to their rooms to eat by themselves. We were always together in that one room.

McFadden: So it was never like “she got a better dress than I did,” no? None of that stuff?

Cotillard: No. We were in joggings all the time.

[everyone laughing]

Cotillard: We were sweating.

Hudson: And swapping dance shoes. I still have Penelope’s dance shoes. Because I came to work one day

Cruz: You do?

Hudson: Yeah, the nude ones.

Cruz: See. I don’t even remember.

Hudson: We have the same size foot and I came in and said I don’t have my shoes, and she said take mine.

McFadden: So, I want to ask each of you because obviously it was a very special experience, what you learned about yourself in the course of making this film or your craft if you prefer I am just interested in what the experience felt like and since he is the director, we’ll make him go first. What about it, Rob? What did you learn in the course of making this movie?

Marshall: That& how rare this was. That’s what I felt, and I try to be aware of that as much as I could because I know it doesn’t happen like this often. And I felt so lucky, and I know that sounds maybe cliché, but I did, I felt very lucky. To assemble this kind of cast, for this kind of piece , and also, you know, what you learn as you are working is that the only thing you can control ultimately is the process. That’s it. So to have, to be able to have the process that we had, and the experience we had, was everything. It was everything.

McFadden: T.S. Elliot there’s a line of poetry and I am going to mangle it, but the idea is that the only great tragedy is to have the experience and miss the meaning. So, you know, great things happen, terrible things happens, but in life, you know, the idea is to decide what it means to you, so, Penelope what did it mean to you?

Cruz: For me this movie was a great reminder of how important it is to work as a team. Because it was a little bit like doing theater especially the preparation time, which was like two months. And it is a very important reminder for actors because in other movies, I mean, this only could be done this way. But it’s so important to remember you are not there by yourself and it was very helpful, that energy that Rob created for the set, it was a great invitation to leaving your ego at home. So you could really feel that on set and I know it sounds like blah, blah, blah but it was really like that, [looking at Rob] wouldn’t you say? And also because of what he created, this group just was there wanting to serve him and serve his story. But I know he wouldn’t have allowed any other way of doing things&because he cares too much.

Marshall: I don’t know how to, I mean, honestly, and it’s overwhelming to hear you speak like that but the truth is I don’t know any other way to do it because I can’t, I don’t know how to work unless there’s sort of a sense of joy on the stage. I don’t know how to do it. People can and do it well and there’s angst and friction, but to me it has to be a place of happiness. It’s hard enough making it, so there has to be a sense of we’re all in it together, enjoying the process.

McFadden: Nicole?

Kidman: Yeah, just the spirit. The idea of coming in and working hard and it paying off. I think that was, it just, it’s like, OK here we are. There wasn’t that much time to sort of talk about what we were trying to do, it was more like here it is, let’s go and it was just being, the beauty of being an actor. It just reminded me again of why I do it and why I love to do it. I think we all had that.

McFadden: And you had the baby with you.

Kidman: Yeah, yeah, which was great. But that’s a lovely thing when you’ve just had a baby, she was 6 weeks old, and I got to come back and get a taste of being an actor, and then also still being her, you know, her source of food. [laughs]

[everyone laughing]

Hudson: We were all lucky to get a little taste of Sunday too!

McFadden: So did you bring her to the set? She was there?

Kidman: Yeah and she was very sort of doted on so it was just very nice. But there is a wonderful thing about, you just get in there and you work hard and I love that feeling. So that’s what everyone at this table is, I think they’re all really hard workers.

McFadden: How did it strike you [to Judi], the whole experience?

Dench: Well I hadn’t ever done a musical in film before, I had done musicals on the stage. What is wonderful is what you realize is that you get more chances to get it right, and you go on and on and on until you get it right, and you do until you get it right in Rob’s terms. But it’s true as everybody has said, we were together and everybody said hello, hello, hello, and then it was a question of, it wasn’t no more hellos, when you talk about friction there wasn’t time for friction, everybody was committed. It’s because of Rob, he directs by stealth. He makes you feel, he makes you feel, he makes you feel good about doing it and you do it and he makes you also feel that if you are not in a great strong light where you can’t move, he gives you a way of working that you think you are doing it amongst friends. You just think you’re having a gas and then you do it and he’ll laugh and talk and suggest something and you’ll do it again and then go on and on and on, and on, and on, and on and on and on, because you know you will go until he gets what he wants. But in his hands you feel very, very safe. I swear all of us felt that. But it is working, because we all worked to the same end and that was to tell this story—that’s Rob and John [Deluca], but everybody worked on it. It’s to tell a story, there’s not actually time to think I didn’t like him or her, there’s not time for that. Is there?

McFadden: It’s interesting what you say, the security of knowing that you will go on and do it until it’s right. That’s a tremendous freedom I would think.

Dench: Well it’s just because you can get off on the wrong foot on the stage [gestures tripping] and that completely blows it. But that is what you have to live with for that evening. But then the next night it might be better.

McFadden: And terrifying, no?

Dench: Oh yes, terrifying, terrifying. Life isn’t right without terror.

McFadden: For you? [to Daniel] For you what was the learning experience?

Day-Lewis: I think you know, Penelope you were saying, it was what you were reminded of, rather than what you learned. For me it was the same in a way, but I think for me it was also being reminded that, I guess, no matter how fearful it is, it is invariably rewarding to go into the unknown. And not that we don’t know that but we still need to be reminded of it sometimes, but it’s always in the unknown that you find the greatest reward I think.

McFadden: The stretch is harder than—as some of you know, I was great friends with Katharine Hepburn and she used to say—I would say later in her life, “oh, what do you have to worry about you are a legend, you’ve done it all, you’ve achieved so much.” And she would say, “Oh it’s much more fun getting there than staying there.” [everyone laughs]. And I wonder, when you say the unknown part of what you are saying is to continue to not just try to stay there but to do something new.

Day-Lewis: Yeah, I suppose we all, I think at times, especially if you have been working for quite a few years, you begin to worry whether you will reach a point where there is nothing more to explore—there’s always something more to explore, whether you lose the capacity to explore, and you know we, all of us, when we, Judi was saying, you arrive on day one on the rehearsal stage and we all in that moment became children, on day one of an entirely new experience, and the fragility that you feel in those moments is an incredibly invigorating thing. And it’s that vulnerability that gives you the joy in the work, really. Because of course we could all keep going for the rest of our lives, just re-investing ourselves in things that we are comfortable with, that we know. And that would be a sad thing to do that.

McFadden: So as the baby of the group, Kate?

Hudson: Well, I mean, we all feel the same way, but if I was to put a moment to what this movie felt like for me, it was that all of this work and all of the rooting that everybody was doing for each other, and all the support and the laughs and fun and late nights, and you know, when it came down to doing the work I was working with a group of dancers that were so incredible, that were so supportive, as well, and we were doing this number and there was one particular take, and we were all—had lost and inch already, and there was one particular take that we were all back behind the curtain going like, OK, [clapping] we were pumping ourselves up like an athlete, and you’re getting yourself ready to go, and Rob calls action, and we all went out there and did this number and gave it our all. And you can’t see the person next to you and you don’t know what they are doing, but there was a collective hoot and holler at the end because we all nailed it. And that feeling, that exhilarating feeling of nailing something that you have worked so hard for together, which is what I think we all feel, you can’t ,there’s nothing in the world that can take away. That’s why I do what I do. That’s why I love doing what I do. That’s why I wanted to be an actor and performer. You know, I mean you feel that there’s only, there’s not many moments where you have that feeling.

McFadden: So that moment is as important as the results, you’re saying. That that moment is as important as seeing it finally on film?

Hudson: But it’s a collective—it wouldn’t be happening without all the people around you doing it together. You know, you wouldn’t, you know, it’s not alone, you don’t get those things on your own. You get them through the company and through the team. And so, it’s an unbelievable feeling.

McFadden: [To Daniel] Did you want to say something to that?

Day-Lewis: No, no, it just made me think, it reminded me that you know, Rob has said this a number of times. The reason we are doing this is for the work itself. And that’s exactly what it has to be and it’s easy to imagine, I think, for most people outside of the work, that this for us is the moment we have been waiting for.

McFadden: Right, the film.

Day-Lewis: But it’s not. This is actually a moment of sadness.

[everyone laughs]

McFadden: You have to do the interviews, right.

Day-Lewis: Well, there’s that too. But the time when we are going to be in the same room together sharing part of the experience of doing this work are getting fewer and fewer, and as much as we wanted it to be a wonderful thing, this film, and as much as we worked hard to try and make it as good as it could be, the work is the reward and that’s also something that you should never ever let go of. You have to do the work without feeling you have got to make this perfect thing and hand it over and that’s what it’s all about, it’s not.

Hudson: Yeah, I mean, half of that moment—

Day-Lewis: It’s that moment like Kate described, that’s what it is. That’s where it is.

McFadden: It was easier to go first than last, OK, [to Fergie].

Fergie: I know, well I think we were very spoiled in this movie because, you know, they always say you know, when you are in charge you kind of set the tone for an overall project and the tone that Rob set for us was a very tasteful one. He wasn’t pressuring or anything like that, even when, you know, the lighting would be wrong and he would be waiting for them it was in this slow voice, “are we ready for lighting yet?”

[everyone laughs]

Fergie: I don’t think I ever heard him raise his voice and it was just it was, it was very meditational, and it was just a great example of leadership. Also for me on a personal level, learning to, especially with this character and gaining the weight, you know usually for myself, you know, I am trying to fit into costumes and outfits for stage, and you know suck in this or that for the red carpet and for this, you know I could just leave that all aside and focus on this character who embraced all of that. And so I was out of my head, I wasn’t watching myself. You know, I was able to be something else and it was so freeing&so freeing. And I also loved, one last thing, and you guys can tell me, but I think we were spoiled on this too, but the schedule and going to work at a certain time and getting off at a certain time because as a musician we are not used to that. We are going from time zone to time zone and hotel room to hotel room and it was so nice to have a break from that and just be in one spot and get to exhale for a minute.

McFadden: And really concentrate on this.

Fergie: Yeah, I want to do more film. I like that.

[everyone laughs]

McFadden: We’ve saved the best for last, here. [To Marion] So?

Cotillard: It’s hard because there are things that we all feel. I was about to talk about Rob’s voice.

Fergie: Oh no! I took your thought.

Cotillard: No, I think it might have been the first time that I was in a environment with so much love. So much love, [to Rob] from you, and from all of us. We were, there was something very, very, very special about this adventure and I will remember everything. What we shared, with each other, with Paul [Bogaev], with the dancers, I mean it was so, I don’t know, I never know how to answer actually, what did you learn because I think for sure you learn something, but what you will carry and I, for sure, I will carry, it was my dream to do musicals since I was four years old. And my dream became a dream. Really.

McFadden: Well it’s hard to imagine, I mean what an experience here. Fergie and I are the only ones not to be nominated for an Oscar and I am the only one who is never going to be, so, it was really wonderful to sit and talk to you about this, magnificent film. I have to say, I did speak to Harvey Weinstein last night and asked him what I should ask all of you, the film’s producer, so what do you imagine he asked?

[laughter]

McFadden: Harvey wanted me to ask you who your favorite producer is.

[laughter]

McFadden: That goes without saying, but Dame Judi, he did say that you once said in an interview that you had Harvey tattooed on your bum.

[laughter]

Dench: I showed him it, unfortunately, [inadubile]

McFadden: It’s not that kind of show.

Dench: That’s between Harvey and me, for him to say and for me to keep quiet about.

[Laughter]

Marshall: I think, hats off to Harvey because who would take a gamble and let us do something like this—it’s very& we know, we know. He’s brave and we are very lucky.

McFadden: So the final question I have is, at the very beginning of the film, Guido says you must never talk about your film—

Day-Lewis: Uh-huh. Yes.

Dench: What have you done to us?

[laughter]

McFadden: The end. Thank you very much. It’s really been fun.

from Variety / by Shawna Malcom

Oscar winner sings, finds unlikely role model

The star-studded “Nine” may be adapted from the Tony Award-winning musical and loosely based on Federico Fellini’s 1963 masterpiece “8½,” but Marion Cotillard drew her greatest inspiration for her role as Guido’s long-suffering wife, Luisa, from an altogether different source: “Hearts of Darkness.”

“I was looking at Eleanor,” Cotillard says of Francis Ford Coppola’s wife, who appears in and narrates the acclaimed doc about the troubled production of “Apocalypse Now.” “You can feel that she’s found her place in the world through her relationship, by being the support of the man she loves.”

If love for Guido fulfills Luisa, then losing him to his creative crisis — and the other women in his life — devastates her. That raw grief drives “Take It All,” a song performed by Cotillard and created especially for the film by Maury Yeston, who wrote the original music and lyrics for the Broadway production.

“Luisa is someone who keeps emotions inside,” Cotillard says. “It becomes too much and she screams it out. The song is her release and a gift for me as an actress.”

Landing the role in the first place fulfilled a long-held personal fantasy for the French actress, who won the Oscar for her masterful take on Edith Piaf in the 2007 biopic “La Vie en rose.”

“Since I was a little girl, I’ve always dreamt of doing an American musical,” says Cotillard.

from Empire (UK) / by Ian Freer, Phil de Semlyen

London, Paris, Geneva, Madrid, Adelaide, Los Angeles, Nashville… Empire has scoured the globe to talk to the seven women of Nien – the cast of 2009…

At the end of the day, when we had the whole cast together, there was that moment where I thought, “Oh my Lord! Look at this cast! How lucky did I get?!” says Nine director Rob Marshall, currently in post-production on his first musical since the Oscar-laden Chicago. “It was an amazing experience – working with the crème de la crème.”

Riffing on the Tony-winning Broadway show based on Fellini’s 8 1/2, Nine may centre on the artistic neurosis of celebrated film director Guido Conini (Daniel Day-Lewis, in his first hoofer), but perhaps the real hook is the bevy of women who populate Guido’s reality, memory and fantasies.

Marshall had seven key female roles to cast, and what he has come up with is hands-down the ensemble of the year, a heady mix of pure acting chops, stunning looks, iconic talent and irrepressible chutzpah. He also demanded something else: no divas.

“For me, they have to be lovely people,” he says. “As I get older and as I move into more films, the process is everything and I wanted to make sure that I love these people and loved working with them. To me, that’s very important.”

Marion Cotillard – the Wife

Tell us about Luisa Contini
I love Luisa because she’s an authentic lover. She’s more than his wife: she’s his confidante, his best friend. She’s really a person committed to this relationship. She loves him. She lives for him. She stands by her man. What she gave up for him is not painful – what’s painful is how the relationship turned out to be, because she realises that the confidence they used to share is collapsing, and what she lives for is going away.

Your big number is My Husband Makes Movies.
I love this song, Lisa is a very internal character – am I right to say that? – but sh really keeps things inside because she doesn’t really know how to deal with the fact that she’s been left aside, so she tries to protect him. At first she tries not to show how much she’s suffering, but when you’ve suffered for a long time, it’s hard to keep it inside. So she’s struggling with trying to stand by her man, but standing alone at the same time.

You also sing a song created especially for this movie.
Yes. It’s called Take It All. What she says is very close to Be On Your Own. That she was there for him, but if he doesnt’t look at her then she can’t live in a relationship where it’s only one-way. She needs love, to love. To be able to give love, you need love.

What were your favourite musicals growing up?
It was definitely Singin’ In The Rain and Annie. I knew all the songs and all the choreography! I’d spend hours in front of the TV with a video-tape of Singin’ In The Rain trying to do the choreographies in my living room. It was kind of funny.

People keep pronouncing the deathof the musical, but every year there’s another monster musical at hte box office. Why are they still so popular?
Musicals are very demanding in terms of working, so I think it’s a good thing that they’re kind of rare, but I don’t think it’s dying… America is the musical country. Maybe there were more musicals before, but people need more reality in movies so maybe that’s why they may have looked like they were dying. But when you have too much reality, you also need dreams, so maybe that’s why they’re coming back.

from Harper’s Bazaar (UK) / by Cath Clarke

Oscar-winning actor Marion Cotillard is taking eco-campaigning to the charts, on a new single with Mark Ronson, Lily Allen and Duran Duran.

For Marion Cotillard, the environment isn’t just a recent concern; she was a Greenpeace spokeswoman and eco-activist long before her soulful turn as chanteuse Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose won her an Oscar last year. Since then, her life has been transformed from that of a hardworking French actress into one of an international star. Along the way, she has acquired a reputation for being outspoken – which is true, by Hollywood standards at least; Cotillard has that very French knack for plain-speaking.

Today, the 34-year old is in Paris, taking a break from the set of her new film Les Petits Mouchoirs – directed by her boyfriend, actor Guillaume Canet. Despite the best efforts of the French press to turn the couple into the country’s Brand and Angelina, they refuse to discuss their relationship. But both have lent their voices to ‘Beds Are Burning’, the single that has become the soundtrack to a campaign called ‘Tck Tck Tck’, set up to rais awareness of global warming. The group aims to put pressure on world leaders ahead of December’s UN climate-change summit in Copenhagen. Cotillard, 34, is persuasive on the issues. ‘Reality is scary at the moment,’ she says emphatically. ‘The message needs to be loud. We need to tell politicians that we will be watching them. Our eyes are open.’

It was as a teenager, after moving to fume-filled Paris aged 17, that she first became aware of pollution and started recycling. This being Paris in the early 1990s, it wasn’t easy, and Cotillard would find herself lugging bags filled wih batteries and paper around on the Metro. ‘People thought I was weird,’ she says, laughing. These days, she readily admis that flying is the ‘black shadow’ on her carbon credentials, but otherwise, she is pretty clean. ‘When I buy something, I want to know where it comes from, how it was made,’ she says. ‘I will never eat a strawberry in the middle of the winter.’

‘Beds Are Burning’ has been called ‘the Band Aid for the internet generation’. It’s a cover of a track by Australian rockers Midnight Oil, and was Cotillard’s favourite song as a teenager. She says she wasn’t nervous about singing alongside its all-star cast of musicians – including Youssou N’Dour, Mark Ronson and Duran Duran. ‘I love singing,’ she says. ‘Lip-syncing is more difficult’ – referring to the art she perfected to play Edith Piaf, to the extent that most people assumed she was performing for real. She does, however, get to belt out a few show tunes in the upcoming film musical Nine by Chicago director Rob Marshall, which is based on Italian director Frederico Fellini’s 8 1/2. ‘When I was a little girl, I always wanted to be in a musical, an American musical,’ she says. ‘I knew Singin’ in the Rain by heart. My favourite movie was Annie.’

As for environmental issues today, Cotillard is cautiously optimistic. ‘People used to say I was crazy. Now, we are more and more crazy people.’

For details of how to get involved in the ‘Tck Tck Tck’ campaign, visit www.timeforclimatejustice.org.

from FemaleFirst.co.uk

To celebrate the release of the excellent Public Enemies, out on DVD and Blu-ray 2nd November, we caught up with one of Hollywood’s hottest actresses, Marion Cotillard.

Her rise has been nothing short of meteoric – from a range of movies in her native France to proud owner of an Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose.

- Do you still consider yourself as being from France? Or are you now from Los Angeles or a New Yorker?

I live where I work. So I was African this past month. I’m still from France, definitely, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been in my country. I love to travel. I miss my friends and family, that’s all.

When I did Michael Mann’s movie, we were for four months in Chicago so I lived in an apartment there, because I’m French so I need a kitchen to cook sometimes! To have a healthy life, you need to have your home bedroom and make the bed in the morning.

- Do you like this gypsy kind of life?

Yes, for the moment. I know that it will not be my whole life and one day I will maybe take some time off and stay in my house in France. But I love to meet people.

I love to make different contacts. The world is rich with so many things that I want to discover that I’m very happy with this gypsy kind of life.

- Is it a stereotype that the French women are obsessed with cooking and food?

I love to cook and French love good food. In Chicago, you can find very good food. It’s just that I like to know what I eat.

- What made you feel ‘I have to be in Public Enemies’?

I didn’t know anything about the [John] Dillinger case and I read the script and I started to do some research about American history, native American history, this very special and tough period of the depression and the creation of the FBI. I thought it was so interesting. I love to learn things, I love to learn history.

What I loved in the movie is that you can feel in each character the failure and the violence, the pain of this period. You can see it in Dillinger, you can see it in [FBI Agent Melvin] Purvis, you can see it in [her character] Billie Frechette.

You can see it in all the characters and I think it’s beautiful to manage to make you feel what was the period, just by seeing someone live. Without a word, you feel this failure.

- You are doing more and more American movies. Is it something you did on purpose because people in the French film industry were jealous of you and you needed to escape?

No. I have never thought of my work this way. I was in Los Angeles and I had this amazing opportunity to meet Michael Mann. I couldn’t believe it. I loved him right away.

I wanted to give everything I could to that guy because, as I said before, I loved the story and it was more than a gangster movie. It tells you much more than just guns and robbing banks.

And it was not ‘I have to do that and I have to do this.’ I just couldn’t do something that I don’t believe in – I would be very bad at it.

- How much did the Oscar change your status in Hollywood?

I think that what has changed things in my life was the movie La vie en rose and the Oscar is like the proof of the change. You know, it has changed but I’m not more confident.

I wish I could be but I’m not. It brings me all these beautiful opportunities to meet people that I loved forever, that I’ve admired forever.

Each time my American agent calls me and says, ‘This director would like to meet with you’, ‘This director would like to offer you a role,’ it’s magical. I will not get used to it. It’s amazing.

Public Enemies is available to own on DVD and Blu-Ray from 2nd November

from Vogue / by Plum Sykes

What actress doesn’t dream of reliving Fellini’s magic? Here, a head-spinning lineup of A-list stars join forces in Rob Marshall’s movie-musical Nine. Plum Sykes visits them on set. Photographed by Annie Leibovitz.

Shepperton Studios, London, on a bleak December day. Shrouded in a freezing fog, the lot seems faintly neglected, as though abandoned. The various buildings—prop shops, costume houses—look like little more than sheds. A car drops me off at a side door to a soundstage, where a harried but friendly publicist meets me.

Inside, it’s as though a magician has waved his wand. Suddenly I am transported half a century back in time to the Italy of La Dolce Vita. To my left is an empty set-within-a-set of a Roman piazza, and to my right is a bustling re-creation of a 1960s movie studio. An intricate scaffolding of iron balconies and stairwells has been built in front of the corrugated walls of the soundstage. Nowhere, it turns out, could be more perfect for Rob Marshall to direct the song-and-dance numbers for Nine, his latest movie, because the bones of Shepperton have an uncanny resemblance to the Cinecittà of Fellini’s 8½, the inspiration for Maury Yeston’s 1982 Broadway musical Nine, on which this film is based.

Bang ahead of me, Daniel Day-Lewis, playing the lead, Guido, is dressed in a forties-style waistcoat, a white shirt, and beige pants. Nine is Guido’s story—the tale of a legendary director who can’t find a subject for his next film or a way to control the many women in his life. Day-Lewis is seated on a crane, “directing” a scene.

I stand and watch for a while. Well, actually, I stare in a fanlike manner, rather than a professional-Vogue-journalist kind of manner. Day-Lewis’s cheekbones are as mesmerizing as his acting, and his performance is so intense he literally is his character. Suddenly an arm appears and gently repositions me about two yards to the left. “Could you please move out of Daniel’s eye line, Miss Sykes?” asks a crew member. I am politely informed that since Day-Lewis is a Method actor, he doesn’t like to see anyone besides cast and crew while he is working. Nor would I, if I were taking on a role originally played by the iconic Marcello Mastroianni. (On Broadway, Guido was played by Raúl Juliá in 1982 and Antonio Banderas in 2003.)

No matter; there is plenty else to look at—and what a show it is! Behind Day-Lewis, the scaffolding is peopled with 100 extras and 24 dancers, immaculately choreographed and dressed in glittering gradations of white: Dancers in flapper dresses preen on the stairwells; girls in corsets flirtatiously drape themselves over the balconies; buxom ladies in bustiers and hot pants twirl giant fluffy ostrich-feather fans. This is the spectacular, over-the-top ensemble number “Folies Bergeres”: Guido’s imagination come alive.

One by one, six of the seven leading ladies in Guido’s life appear through a doorway high up in the rafters and slink down the stairs, positioning themselves languorously around the set. First, to the grand orchestral music of the “Overture Delle Donne,” the singer Fergie, who plays Saraghina, a prostitute, appears in a gray, corseted frock, all cleavage and russet hair, her eyes kohled into a smudgy, sexy mess. She is followed by Kate Hudson, perky as ever, in a white fringed sixties minidress and go-go boots, her blonde tresses teased into tumbling curls. The outfit perfectly suits her character, Stephanie, a Vogue journalist. Next, Judi Dench, playing costume designer Lily, appears clad in black and smoking a cigarette. Then comes a saucy Penélope Cruz, as Guido’s mistress, Carla, in a polka-dot cocktail dress that gives her the silhouette of a fifties pinup. Nicole Kidman follows, striking a powerful pose in a nude-colored strapless, sparkling gown as movie star Claudia, Guido’s inspiration and obsession. Finally, an astoundingly well-preserved Sophia Loren, playing Guido’s mother, makes her entrance, leaning over the balcony and shooting a stern but loving look toward Guido far below. (Marion Cotillard, who plays Guido’s long-suffering wife, Luisa, is not in this scene.)

“You could call it an iconfest,” I scribble in my notes. Then, rather unimaginatively, I add “razzle-dazzle-pizzazz musical great antidote to misery-gloom-doom of credit crunch” before, thankfully for the reader, I am diverted by the whisper “Ciao! Plume!” from behind me. I turn to see a vision of toffee-colored Loro Piana cashmere before me—Mr. Valentino and his partner, Giancarlo Giammetti.

“We’re here to see Sophia,” explains Giammetti. “She said to me, ‘It’s the best movie I’ve ever done.’ ” Mr. Valentino adds, “She said, ‘It’s the most expensive movie I’ve ever done.’ ” From the rear, producer Harvey Weinstein, dressed in a white shirt and black pants, booms, “Judi Dench said to me, ‘I have to make Ten and Eleven!’ ” Just then, Pedro Almodóvar walks by, plus entourage, in search of Penélope Cruz’s dressing room. I scrawl “icon overload” on my legal pad.

A few minutes later I find myself climbing a very steep ladder up to a small stage where Rob Marshall has been perched for most of the last twelve weeks. Dressed in dark jeans and a navy sweatshirt, Marshall, 49, is good-looking—and dead serious. He has four screens to monitor and multiple cameras, and is shouting directions at the actors, who are repeating the scene over and over. The only line in the scene comes at the end, when Day-Lewis says, “Action!”

The pressure doesn’t faze Marshall, who is thoroughly enjoying himself. “I was born in the wrong time,” he says, sighing. “I wish I’d lived in the MGM era, when they churned out musical films one after another.” An ex-dancer and choreographer whose exhaustive résumé includes codirecting, with Sam Mendes, a revival of Cabaret that won four Tonys, and directing the movie Chicago, which won six Oscars, Marshall is in his element. “One of the joys of working on a musical is that you rehearse for two months. You actually get to create a company, which you never do usually in film,” he says.

Still, even a multiple-Oscar-winner cannot escape the provenance of Nine and the expectations that it brings. Fellini’s 8½—so called because it was, literally, Fellini’s eight-and-a-halfth film—which was released in 1963, is extraordinarily iconic to moviemakers because of the surreal and beautiful way it dealt with the subject of creative procrastination. To the fashion crowd, 8½ is simply a diabolically stylish movie that defines 1960s European chic. The curvaceous women of 8½ are clad in shockingly sharp shift dresses, demure gloves, and enormous, veiled hats from under which their immaculately lined eyes gaze blankly out. Shot in cool, grainy black-and-white, 8½ starred the sexiest actresses of the day, including Anouk Aimée and Claudia Cardinale. “This movie is not a remake of 8½!” exclaims Marshall nervously. “I could never remake that movie in half a million years. I could never touch Fellini and the brilliant, genius masterpiece of all time.”

A break is announced, and Weinstein escorts me back down to the set to meet the actresses, who are chatting while they wait for the next take, Penélope and Kate dwarfed by the ethereal-looking Nicole in her glittering gown. Her hair, colored a beautiful shade of palomino, is curled and immaculately pulled back from her forehead, and her clear blue eyes and pillar-box-red lips are like exclamation points against her alabaster skin, showing off the enormous Chopard diamonds around her neck to perfection. I tell her I cannot believe she had her baby, Sunday Rose, only six months ago. “My baby gives me energy. I don’t feel tired,” says Nicole. Claudia was played by Claudia Cardinale in 8½. I can’t resist asking Nicole how she feels about being a movie icon playing a movie icon who was once played by an Italian movie icon. “No!” she insists. “I’m not playing Claudia Cardinale. Even when I played Virginia Woolf I didn’t take the real woman into account.” Nevertheless, Marshall says he picked Kidman for the role because “when Claudia comes on, she has to be the iconic film star, and Nicole has really attained that in her life.”

Nicole turns to Kate, who has covered her costume with a white terry robe. Her feet are now clad in a pair of UGG boots. “Kate should be on Broadway,” says Nicole. “She should be the lead.” Kate’s eyes sparkle with excitement when she talks about her number “Cinema Italiano,” which was written especially for her by Yeston. “I spent most of my childhood singing and dancing and just never had the chance to do it professionally. So when I got the chance to work with Rob, I was so excited, I was out of my mind.”

Hudson tells me that rehearsals felt like “being at summer camp,” although she adds, “I don’t think there is any actress who looks forward to missing those days with her kids. But at the same time there is no one who wants to stop acting.” Nicole admits, “I had no desire to work after I had my daughter, but to lure me back, this movie was the only way.”

Penélope also plans to work less in the future. She says that she is so often cast in tortured-female parts that she needs to put in more and more energy and time to play them. “Luckily I don’t have to identify with my roles, because if I did I would be dead by now!” she says with a laugh. “I’ve been working since the age of seventeen, and I really haven’t stopped. I want to balance it a little more. Instead of making three or four movies a year, I will do one.”

Still, it isn’t as though the girls haven’t had fun. Penélope loved living in the same apartment building as Kate and Fergie. “I’ve had some very long dinners with Kate, because she loves eating,” she says. “I mean four-hour dinners. We are exercising so much we don’t feel guilty at all.” Fergie then walks over and adds that because she had to gain weight for her part, she stopped working out and “started eating crap. I ate everything fried.”

Later I visit the wardrobe department, which turns out to be an entire floor of another building. There are so many racks of forties frocks, sequined gowns, and beaded dresses that I literally can’t see where they end. Costume designer Colleen Atwood, who won an Oscar for Memoirs of a Geisha (directed by Marshall), had a fashion challenge on her hands with Nine: The film is set in the sixties, but the women in Guido’s life go back to the mid-twenties, so the costumes had to reflect all the different eras. Colleen used vintage clothes for the extras but created all the period looks for the principals because they had to sing and dance in them—350 costumes and 200 pairs of shoes in all. She sewed couture-like corsets for Nicole Kidman to give her the silhouette of a goddess and was inspired by a print from a sixties Pucci purse to make a blouse for Kate Hudson. “We have given you a major fashion moment,” says Marshall. Even the period lingerie for the women was handmade, whether it was frilly garter belts or satin-and-lace bras.

In the makeup studio, I meet Peter Swords King, Oscar-winning hair and makeup designer, who has a team of 28 working with him. The walls are covered in inspirational black-and-white photos of sixties stars like Monica Vitti, Brigitte Bardot, and Julie Christie. “Those girls always looked like they just got out of bed—in a good way,” says Peter, confiding that authentic bedroom hair is achieved by running your fingers through your hair instead of brushing it, after you curl it. “I was completely inspired by the Italian New Wave-film look—Sophia Loren and Claudia Cardinale.” As for the makeup, think false eyelashes, eyeliner, and pancake foundation. “There’s something incredibly sexy about the dark eyes and the pale lips,” says Marshall. “That era worshipped the beauty of women.”

A few minutes later Weinstein picks me up in a chauffeur-driven car. En route, he tells me, “I’ve made more than 100 movies, but I’ve never, ever made a movie like this. I’ve been working on Nine for nearly five years,” he says. “It’s been a real passion of mine since I saw the original with Raúl Juliá.” When we arrive at the office the first clip I see is Penélope performing “A Call from the Vatican,” which she sings wearing a white satin-and-black lace teddy and fishnets. It’s sexy and fun. Kate Hudson’s go-go-dancing turn is more than a little reminiscent of her mother, Goldie Hawn, in the sixties comedy-sketch show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. Finally, I see Marion Cotillard singing “My Husband Makes Movies” while performing a dazzlingly chic striptease. When I talk to her by phone a few weeks later, Marion, who speaks with a delightful French accent, tells me, “It’s been my dream to do an American musical. When I was a child, Annie was my favorite. I just never thought I would get to do it.” Of playing opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, Cotillard says, “It’s easy to work with such an amazing artist.” Because he was always in character, “it gives an energy to the crew. He creates this desire in everyone to be at their best.”

At five o’clock, I go back to the set, where it’s a wrap. The soundstage is littered with the debris of moviemaking—giant wind machines, a double-decker bus, bunches of cables, a child’s bed, lampshades. Actors rush for their coats and bags. A troupe of good-looking extras dressed as priests in white cassocks say goodbye to one another, looking slightly deflated now that it’s all over. Sophia Loren walks alone to her dressing room, a fat mink coat draped over her costume against the cold. A dancing girl covers herself in a dull green mackintosh and heads home. The spell is broken—I am reminded of the bleak London day outside, and venture out into the mist.

from Sunday Express:S (UK) / by Simon Button

Since scooping an Oscar for her stellar performance as Edith Piaf, Marion Cotillard has become a megastar – just one of the things she’s tickled pink about. Simon Button met Hollywood’s happiest actress

Marion Cotillard lets out an infectious gigle. “That’s so funny,” she says, looking down at the tape recorder that has been placed in front of her. “I can see it whirling round.”

You’d think from the look of amusement on her face, that Marion had never seen one before, which is odd considering the world’s press has courted the French beauty since her Best Actress Oscar for La Vie en Rose last year.

“But I still haven’t gotten used to all this,” she says demurely. Yes, she has an Oscar back home in Paris – as well as a Bafta, César and Golden Globe – yet however crowded her mantel may be, the 34 year old is as down-to-earth as international stars get.

Her stunning turn as tragic chanteuse Edith Piaf is strikingly accurate, but in the flesh Marion is fresh-faced, a genuine ingénue. And there’s certainly no air of tragedy around her.

“Every day is magical,” she smiles. “When I start thinking, ‘Oh well, it’s just another day’ I would have to do something else, but it’s still magical.”

Magical is ne of Marion’s favourite words, and her enthusiasm doesn’t wane as she talks about her most recent movie, Public Enemies. Set in 1930s Chicago, the filmm stars Johnny Depp and Christian Bale and follows the story of gangster John Dillinger. Marion plays his beguiling moll, Billie Frechette, a part she was hand-picked for by notoriously hard-to-please director Michael Mann. “When he asked me to be in the film I couldn’t believe it. I read this beautiful script and I fell in love with the movie – and Michael.”

Not literally. Her heart belongs to actor and director Guillaume Canet, her co-star in the 2003 French production Love Me If You Dare. She prefers not to talk about the relationship (“I get nervous that things I say might be misunderstood or misinterpreted”) but her smile indicates she’s in a happy place.

As befits the face of the new Lady Dior campaign, Marion is looking lovely in a blue dress, her dark hair bobbed. “If it were left to me I’d be wearing jeans and a T-shirt,” she says. “But I see fashion with different eyes now I’ve met John Galliano.”

Marion says all this in a heave French accent, stumbling over the occasional word as her joie de vivre gets the better of her. “Speaking ‘American’ in Public Enemies was very hard,” she admits. “When I started I thougth it wasn’t possible at all, but fortunately the character is half French. It’s very technical and you really have to work and work to crack it. It’s about using your whole face, jaw and tongue in a totally different way.”

Were there any words she struggled with? “‘Particularly’ is particularly difficult,” she says, mangling the consonants, “I would spend hours in front of the mirror with my dialect coach to observe my tongue.”

Growing up the daughter of actor parents, Marion is used to thespians practising their craft. “There were so many people in the house,” she recalls. “Everyone was enjoying themselves, rehearsing, having fun. It was like a playground.” When work took her parents away from home it wasn’t a wrench but a source of great excitement. “It was amazing to get letters from them when they were in Hong Kong or Peru or wherever. And they would bring me back ponchos and all sorts of gifts. It was magical. My parents definitely sparked something in me. I saw how happy and fullfilled they were, and I knew I wanted the same job.”

She took drama lessons and stage and TV parts before breaking into French cinema in the mid-90s. She won a César for a small role in A Very Long Engagement in 2005, but only received global recognition for La Vie en Rose – a project she didn’t think was right for her when director Olvier Dahan first called.

“The idea of me as Piaf was completely crazy, but it seemed obvious to Olivier. Then I read the script and thought, ‘I want to be as crazy as him’. After that, it was all about the research. I only knew three or four of her songs. She was just an amazing voice in a little black dress and I knew nothing of her private life.

“The main thing about how I work is that I need to understand the character,” she continues. “I need to read every little thing I can read about her. I love to work this way. If you feed yourself with all the information, you get to understand who the character is. Then you can really be her.”

Dragging herself to the dark depths of human tragedy is a part of the job she relishes. “I love extreme scenes,” says Marion, whose character in Public Enemies endures a brutal beating from a wayward cop. “After a scene like that I feel kind of empty but also filled in.” She giggles at the gaffe and corrects herself. “I mean fulfilled. It’s like in sport you have a competition like the 100 metres, and after that you feel tired and empty but fulfilled because you did something that was intense. It’s the same feeling with acting and I really love it.”

Next up is her role alongside Daniel Day-Lewis in the American musical Nine, which also stars Nicole Kidman, Penélope Cruz and Sophia Loren. That must be daunting even for someone as down-to-earth as Marion.

“I don’t have much confidence in myself anyway,” is her surprising admission, “but one thing which helps me is the fact I’m not afraid of hard work. And to be in an American musical was a dream come true.”

This star-studded movie will up her profile and could come at a price for someone who values her privacy. “OK, acting is a hard job because you have to play with your emotions, but if I’m thirsty somebody will bring me a glass of water. It would be crazy to complain.

“I didn’t expect all this. I don’t know a word strong enough to describe what I’m living right now, but it’s an amazing feeling.”

Public Enemies is out on DVD on November 2. Nine is in cinemas from November 25.

from CanMag (Canada) / by Fred Topel

Marion Cotillard came to most people’s attention when she won the Oscar for Best Actress in La Vie En Rose in a surprise upset. Now she plays John Dillinger’s final love, Billie Frechette, in the summer true crime drama Public Enemies in a Hollywood adventure that continues to amaze her.

Marion Cotillard Falls in Love With Public Enemies

“I didn’t expect all this,” she said. “I might have dreamed of this but very deep, that I didn’t know I dreamt that big and that it’s actually happening. I have the opportunity to meet and work with amazing directors and actors. When I was a kid my favorite movies were all American and when I started to be an actress, the only think I wanted was to tell great stories. I mean, there were a lot of directors I wanted to work with but the most important thing for me was and is the story. So I think that having no limits, having no impossible things in my head led me here today and, and my Hollywood adventure has been, I don’t know what is the word strong enough to describe what I’m living right now. It’s bigger than a dream. It’s a reality and I’m still dreaming in this reality, it’s an amazing feeling.”

Cotillard is French, as she appeared in her Oscar winning film. She has worked in English language films like A Good Year and continues to grow more comfortable in the language. “It depends on which character, because for Public Enemies I really had to get a Midwestern accent. I knew from the beginning that how hard I would work. It would never be a hundred percent perfect, and it’s kind of frustrating that I really wanted to do my best. Fortunately Billie had some French blood, even if she’s not supposed to have a French accent, but also in the ‘30s there were many accents, still many accents from Dutch and British. You can even hear in most of the movies of the ‘30s, you have different kinds of accents, so it’s not totally out of context and especially a flavor of French because she had some French blood. So I have to say that it was really, really hard for me to think about the language and then the accent and to, at the same time, let it go to be able to give flesh and blood to Billie Frechette.”

At least in this way, language and accent become a tool of the character. “You really have to work hard to be able to give some aspects, many levels of feelings. You have to work hard because I’m more and more aware of the way Americans or English speak, but to understand all the aspects, I think it’s when you really want to understand all the little corners of language, you really have to work and work and work to, to be able to give all he aspects of something. There are many aspects on the same thing and if you really want to give the richness of the whole thing, you really have to work and work and work.”

Since English is the language most susceptible to misunderstanding with all the double meanings and grammatical constructions, Cotillard has her work cut out for her. “The English language is more into action because there is more stress, that the words aren’t really stressed. It’s like more singing, and so it’s really close to the action whereas the French is really not flat but flatter in a way. I love English language but it’s really, really rich and to be able to give all the richness of it, you’re going to have to work hard.”

Public Enemies is out in theaters now.

from Independent.ie (Ireland) / by Evan Fanning

Racked by self-doubt, Marion Cotillard tells Evan Fanning she feels more secure by taking someone else’s voice

As I enter the room, Marion Cotillard is grappling with a book on Expressionism. She’s grappling in so far as she is attempting to remove it from within a pile of thick, heavy books, rather than struggling with its subject matter — on which, as a cultivated French woman, she has, I assume, a fair handle.

Expressionism is an appropriate theme when talking about Cotillard. The 33-year-old, who won the Best Actress Oscar in 2008 for her performance as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose, has quickly gained a reputation for the kind of all-encompassing roles which take everything she has to give, and more.

The American film critic Stephen Holden described her portrayal of French singer Piaf as “the most astonishing immersion of one performer into the body and soul of another that I have ever encountered in film”. It was a performance that made Cotillard not only the first French actress to win an Oscar for a performance in her native language, but also earned her a Bafta, a Golden Globe and a Cesar, France’s highest acting honour.

The latest of these demanding roles is in Public Enemies, Michael Mann’s tale of John Dillinger and the Depression-era bank robberies across America. Cotillard plays Evelyn “Billie” Frechette, girlfriend to Johnny Depp’s Dillinger. Frechette is more than just a gangster’s moll, however. The daughter of a French father and a Native American mother, she had been drifting through the seams of Thirties Chicago when Dillinger came along and promised to sweep her off her feet.

She insists that it was not just a case of a bored girl being seduced by the danger on offer with Dillinger and his gang. “It was the man,” she says emphatically. “He was the first man to take care of her. She was a young Indian girl in Chicago in the Thirties. It was really tough and she was by herself. Suddenly this man tells her that he will take care of her. There’s nothing like it.”

Cotillard admits she had never heard about Dillinger while growing up in Paris and then the French city of Orleans where she lived with her father (the stage actor Jean-Claude Cotillard), her mother Niseema Theillaud (also an actress) and her two younger brothers. “I didn’t even know his name,” she says with astonishment.

There was also the case of mastering Frechette’s curious French-Canadian-Wisconsin accent. Cotillard worked with a dialect coach every day for four months in order to get the accent as accurate as possible. “I knew that it wouldn’t be 100 per cent perfect,” she says modestly, admitting that it was one of the most difficult tasks of her career.

“It was really, really hard but interesting, though, because I like when I start a movie and I don’t know if I’m going to do a good job. If it’s really easy, it is fine, but when you really have to work on something in order to make it good and if you don’t work at it, your job will be really bad, I find it very interesting when you really have to do that.”

During the three-month shoot she spoke English almost exclusively for fear that she wouldn’t be able to regain the accent if she was to slip back into her native tongue. “I would speak English all the time. Even on the phone to my family in France. It was very funny because they had this French accent obviously, but they were very helpful with me. Even when I wanted to talk in French they were like ‘you know, yesterday when we spoke on the phone you said you were going to have to stick with the English because when you speak French it’s really hard to go back’. So my brothers, my boyfriend, my mother and my father, they would all speak to me in English.”

The boyfriend she speaks of is the French actor and director Guillaume Canet, director of Tell No One, whom she met when they starred together in Love Me If You Dare. They live together in Paris and are about to start shooting a film together again. The French media have attempted to dub them the “Brad and Angelina” of France, but Cotillard is adamant that they won’t be pursuing the same kinds of self-publicity as America’s favourite couple. In fact, in certain interviews she has avoided even saying his name when asked directly, only alluding to being in a relationship with a French actor.

“I don’t know how to talk about my private life and I don’t want to,” she says when I ask why she is so guarded. “I think you can talk about your private life when you know that it will bring something to people. For example, when Kylie Minogue found out that she had cancer and she shared this, this makes sense because it will help people in a way. Saying, ‘I’m in love and I’m very happy’. What’s the point?

“I do understand because we live in a world where you turn on the TV and there’s someone’s life on TV and then you turn to another channel and there’s someone else’s real life and we supply ourselves all the time. I know that because I live in this world, but I don’t want to add some water to this river. The more you forget about your life by watching all this, the more you send a weird energy to the world, and I don’t want any part of it.”

She says she would like children “at some point” and would be prepared to put these demanding roles to one side when that day arrives. Despite being raised in a loving, bohemian household, her own childhood had its difficulties. She claims to have been racked with self-doubt and anxiety throughout her teenage years and beyond.

I ask if she was sad as a child. “Not really sad, but yeah, I still wanted to know what I was doing here. But when you are very young this kind of question can be very disturbing. I didn’t know how to express myself. You just don’t feel comfortable at all with people. I struggled to talk to people.”

It seems odd that a charming, beautiful, stylish (she is the new face of Dior) and hugely successful actress could have a past where she felt so vulnerable. “When you are acting you’re not really yourself,” she says. “I mean, you’re yourself but you take someone else’s voice and attitude. I find it more secure.”

Despite this apparent lack of confidence, she has been performing since she was five when her parents’ friends put her on stage. She went to drama school at 15, subsequently appearing in numerous French television shows and films (including Luc Besson’s Taxi series) before Tim Burton cast her in his fantasy Big Fish in 2003. It was her first international role, but ironically it was La Vie En Rose, a truly French film, which made her an international star.

Following Public Enemies, her next appearance will be in Nine, where she once again pushed herself to her limits, singing and dancing alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench and Sophia Loren in an all-star musical inspired by Fellini’s 8.

Surely, with this phenomenal run of success, all the anxieties of her childhood have long disappeared? Not entirely, it would seem. “I’ve always had a lack of confidence,” she replies. “But it is getting better.”

Public Enemies is in cinemas nationwide

from California Chronicle (US) / by Donald Clarke

For Marion Cotillard, subsuming herself into the exhausting role of Edith Piaf was simpler than mastering an American accent in her latest film

SO FEW French actors – or Germans or Italians for that matter – break through into English-language cinema that we feel able to put each of the odd rogue successes into one of half-a-dozen boxes. This one’s a lesser spotted Bardot. That one’s a great crested Depardieu. And so forth.

To date, Marion Cotillard has defied this moronic class of pseudo- ornithology. When she first nudged her head above water in French comedies such as Taxi and Love Me if You Dare, she appeared to be shaping into a less blonde Catherine Deneuve. Or was she a less surly Anna Karina? Not at all. Two years ago, in La Vie en Rose, she delivered a performance of such contorted defiance as Edith Piaf, the great nicotine-coated chanteuse, that all comparisons seemed absurd. She went on to become the first actor to win an Oscar for a performance in a French film. With apologies to Audrey Tautou, Marion, who turns up this week in Michael Mann’s barnstorming Public Enemies, might now be the leading French actress of her generation.

“It was a total surprise, winning the Oscar,” she says in her strong, only occasionally eccentric English. “I didn’t think about what might happen if I won. I just wanted to live in the present all the time, because it was so entertaining being in Hollywood for two months, meeting all the amazing people while I campaigned. Because it seemed so weird that I might win, there was no pressure.”

If she’d been 50 years old and looking at a potential fifth unsuccessful nomination, then she might have felt differently. “That’s exactly right. I was more nervous for the people I worked with than for myself.”

So where does she keep the statuette? “It is in my apartment in Paris. I have not put it in the middle of the room or anything, but it’s a small apartment so you can’t miss it.”

Dark, with wide, slightly restive eyes, Cotillard is, in person, more delicate than you would expect. Indeed, she is so thin that when her arms shoot out – as they do, from time to time – she takes on the character of a very well-dressed multiplication symbol. For somebody who, at 33, has been in the business for 15 years, Cotillard seems surprisingly nervous within her own skin. Her hands rub over one another and she never quite seems to get comfortable in her seat.

Perhaps she does not enjoy the promotional side of the business. Hawking your wares in the posh hotels of Mayfair can be a little undignified. “You know I love this movie, Public Enemies, so that makes everything easy. Sometimes you do movies and you don’t know what you are getting into. Then you have to go out there and you have to lie about it to the press. It’s true, I’m afraid. But I love this movie. So, I tell you that I do not have to lie today.”

Public Enemies, a defiantly grim addition to the gangster genre, stars Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, the most charismatic of the bank robbers who gained anti-hero status during America’s Great Depression.

Cotillard takes the modestly sized role of Billie Frechette, a singer of French and Native American blood who won the hoodlum’s heart, and makes something impressively nuanced out of it. Watch out for the annihilating look she gives the camera in the last scene.

“The offer came after I had finished La Vie en Rose, but before it took off in America,” she explains. “I did get a lot of offers, but the thing that won me over was to work with Michael Mann. This is more than a gangster film.”

Lauded for directing such glossily beautiful films as Heat, Last of the Mohicansand The Insider, Mann is famous (notorious, perhaps) for his fastidious attention to detail. Every shirt collar, every raised eyebrow, every hubcap is the way it is because Mann deems it so. Yet actors rarely complain about the atmosphere on his sets. He appears to impose his will with some delicacy.

“I love that he is so precise,” she says. “I love to work with a perfectionist. I feel his confidence and that confidence makes you confident. That’s very good for an actor.”

MARION COTILLARD was born into a theatrical family. Her father, Jean-Claude Cotillard, ran a theatre company that toured the world, and her mother, Niseema Theillaud, also acted and taught. Born in Paris and raised largely in Orleans, the young Marion must surely have been destined to live life on stage and in front of the camera. Not many folk escape that environment into a stable life as a gynaecologist, train driver or fitness instructor.

“I think I actually wanted to be all those things,” she laughs. “And the best way to have a lot of jobs was to be an actress. You get to be everything. But, yeah, you know when you are in school and have to answer questions about what you are going to do? I never had a problem answering that.”

Cotillard, whose early heroes were Greta Garbo and Louise Brooks, enjoyed a relatively steady ascent to her current enviable position. “To be honest, I never dreamt about Hollywood or anything. I went into acting because I like telling stories and it’s the stories that are important, not where I get to tell them.” Early roles were small, but regular, and, before she was 30, she had gained sufficient prominence to catch the eye of Tim Burton, who cast her in his peculiar fantasy Big Fish. It was, however, that eye- watering turn in La Vie en Rosethat truly kicked her into the big leagues. By the close of the film, as the singer succumbs to drugs and decrepitude, Cotillard has become so absorbed in the role that she is virtually unrecognisable. Yet, oddly, she views getting her accent right for Public Enemiesas a comparable challenge.

“I had to work every day to get that accent,” she says. “Even becoming somebody old and on drugs was easy in comparison to that. The difference is between a technical thing and an emotional thing. It takes longer to get a technical thing right.” Despite her slightly fragile demeanour, Coltillard is clearly a serious woman with significant reservoirs of determination. Eager to get that voice right, she spent weeks talking only in English. She claims that her romantic partner, the actor and director Guillaume Canet, and her other pals were happy to get the chance to improve their own English. Still, I find it hard to believe that the experience can have been as taxing as creating her version of Piaf.

“Well, of course, it was different because I was every day on the set of La Vie en Rose. I would go to bed very late and then go to the set very early. So, maybe, when I was sleeping, I was a little bit myself. But the rest of the time I was Edith Piaf. I was in every scene. I needed to stay with her, because it took a lot of time to get inside her.”

At any rate, the performance and the Oscar it generated have now caused her to be highly sought-after by smarter directors. She admits that although she rarely “dreamed of Hollywood” as a kid, she did occasionally imagine that she might appear in a big American musical and, sure enough, at the end of this year she turns up alongside another clutch of Oscar-winners in Rob Marshall’s Nine. A musical version of Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 , the film stars Daniel Day Lewis as a frustrated film director.

“Of course Daniel can sing,” she replies to my mischievous query. “He can do anything.” Yet the increased exposure has had its downside. As the Oscar campaign gathered speed, some bright spark dragged up an old television interview in which Cotillard appeared to question the official story on the collapse of the World Trade Center and wonder whether the moon landing was a hoax. A glance at the transcript clarifies that she was consciously firing out deliberately absurd theses. Listen to her speak for a moment and you realise that, although a little unfocused, she is no sort of fruitcake. Still, fame does bring this sort of unwanted attention. Does she ever regret that a window has now opened on her private life?

“When I hear questions like that I always remember that the world is full of people who do really hard jobs,” she says.

“Hey, if I am thirsty, somebody will bring me a glass of water. Okay, it is a hard job because you have to play with your emotions.” She smiles and ventures a very Gallic shrug. “But I cannot complain. It would be crazy to complain.”

…

Public Enemiesis on general release

from The London Paper (US) / by Stuart Mcgurk

The Oscar-winning actress talks Piaf, Public Enemies and why her relationship with Guillaume Canet is private

Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard is not totally comfortable with her superstar status.

The 33-year-old Parisian shot to fame courtesy of her gong-scooping turn as French songbird Edith Piaf in 2007’s La Vie En Rose, and she’s back on screen this week, ­carousing Johnny Depp in Michael Mann’s ­Depression-era crime picture Public ­Enemies, playing gangster’s moll Billie Frechette.

“It still feels something like an adventure,” she smiles, “working with Michael Mann, and playing Billie. I love her. It’s totally different, but inside of me, it’s the same. For me, this job is all about trying to understand someone, so you can be that person.

“And the great thing about working with Johnny Depp is that you can see that while he’s a movie star, he’s also a very normal person.”

Cotillard craves normality. She has been a notable figure in France for some time, coming to public attention via the Luc Besson-produced Taxi trilogy and, in 2003, she appeared in Love Me If You Dare alongside Guillaume Canet. The pair began dating and, since then, they have been treated like a French “Brangelina” by their nation’s press.

As a result, she will not ­discuss her boyfriend. “I get nervous that things I say might be misunderstood, or misinterpreted,” she says.

In person, she is demure. Her large dusty-blue eyes twinkle and she’s ­effervescent at times, but reins herself in quickly if she thinks she’s saying too much. She looks ­stunning in her dark green Dior dress, but insists she has no passion for fashion. “Honestly, it’s not important. If it were left to me, I’d be wearing jeans and T-shirt!” she says.

Which is unusual, when you consider she’s the face of Dior. “Actually, I’ve learned quite a lot from that,” she ­admits. “I see fashion with different eyes now I’ve met John Galliano. Designers like that are artists.”

She is an ­artist herself, ­having grown up in a bohemian household in Paris and then Orléans. Her parents are actors, and they encouraged their three children to follow artistic pursuits. “All the kids from the neighbourhood would come to our apartment, ­because our parents let us run around, painting on the walls. I was destined for a life in the arts.”

Cotillard’s first American movie came in 2003 – Tim Burton’s fantasy Big Fish. It was her astounding performance in La Vie En Rose, however, that made her only the second French woman to scoop the Academy Award for Best Actress, and the first to win for a performance in the French language.

“Playing Piaf was hard, ­because you go that deep ­inside of you, and you pull out something that you didn’t necessarily know was there,” she says. “I didn’t know I could go to such places. For me, that’s the ­reason I love this job.”

from Den of Geek! (UK) / by Michael Leader

Still best known for her Oscar-winning turn in La Vie En Rose, Marion Cotillard told the assembled throng in London about working on Michael Mann’s Public Enemies…

At the recent press conference for Michael Mann’s summer crime blockbuster Public Enemies, the throng of scribblers and hacks were given the chance to chat with lead actress Marion Cotillard. Gracious and winsome, the French Academy Award winner was only fazed by a particularly energetic audio-sensing microphone hooked up to one of the many digital recorders placed in front of the stage.

The quick chat covered many bases, from how she decided to portray John Dillinger’s lover Billie Frechette, her in-depth research and preparation for the role, and her relationship with co-star Johnny Depp, and director Michael Mann. Check out the transcript below.

After La Vie En Rose, you must have been inundated with offers for other films. So why did you choose to go with Public Enemies?

Because I’m a great fan of Michael Mann, and when he asked to see me I couldn’t believe it and I was very happy. And I met him, and I read this beautiful script – I didn’t know anything about Dillinger, but I really fell in love with the movie, and the role.

How was it doing the American accent?

It was a technical issue. It was very hard, actually, and when I started, I thought it wouldn’t be possible at all. But I really tried to do my best. Well, fortunately, she’s half French – but she’s not supposed to have a French accent, though, because she lived in North Dakota and Wisconsin. It’s very technical, you really have to work and work, and practise. And it’s about using your whole face, jaws, tongue, body, in a total different way. And it was very interesting – I love the English language, it makes it easier. It was very interesting, but really, really hard. I would spend hours in front of the mirror with my dialect coach to observe my tongue [laughs]. Because, when you speak, you don’t think about all the things that happen in your mouth and your jaw, how everything reacts. And suddenly you start to think and to watch, all those things. And you realise that we have a totally different use of our tongue and jaw.

There are so many men in this film, how was it being one of the only women on the set? Did you feel excluded?

No, absolutely not. Michael Mann has a great respect for women, he is surrounded by women in his life. And I think that is why the women in his movies – all his movies, are very strong. They have a really strong personality, and they have a very special place in all his movies. So I felt really welcomed.

Michael asked you meet some real life gangster-girlfriends and wives. How was that?

They were actually convicts’ wives. Some of them were not with real gangsters. They were so generous to share their stories with me, their experience – and very painful experiences they had. And we spent a few hours together, and it was very emotional. Because they were emotional, going through the whole story of their life, and actually I have to say that more than the stories – the stories were important – but what they felt when they told me the stories, they went back through all those feelings – the fear, the extreme pain, because you don’t know what’s going to happen. You are alone, some of them have kids. I could see and feel their pain and their fears – because you don’t know if your husband is going to be alive the next day. It helped me a lot – you know, you gather some emotions and feelings, and you learn a lot of things, and it creates your character. And those women really helped me.

You said you didn’t know about Dillinger at all. Of course, he’s an American folk hero – is he known in France at all?

I’m not very sure, but I think that my generation doesn’t know Dillinger. And I didn’t even know his name, actually. So, the first thing I read about him was the script, and then I read the book, Public Enemies. I didn’t do a lot of research about him. My research was more about the period, American history, the Indian history too, because Billie Frechette was half-Indian. Because I really wanted to know about American culture and Indian culture – I knew the era. I mean, I went to school, so I learned about the crisis of the 30s, and the crash of 1929, but I didn’t know that much about American history, and Indian history. I watched a lot of pictures of him, but my research was really on Billie Frechette – the 30s, the American and the Native American culture.

So, more generally – Dillinger isn’t known in France, but how about Johnny? Is he an honorary Frenchman?

Well, he’s known all over the world. And especially, he’s one of our sweethearts – husbands… Although, are they married? [laughs]. We do know about him, of course, and more about him because he’s Vanessa Paradis’ husband.

Do you think, as he’s the main star of the film, French audiences will flock to see it?

Well, I hope! [laughs]

Can you tell us about the process, about how you took the historical research, and your emotional research, and then built the character?

The first thing, the main thing about how I work is that I need to understand the character. So, especially for real people, everything I could read about her, and I met some relatives of her in Wisconsin, and they talked about her childhood. You can understand many things about someone, if you know how they were as a child. And Michael Mann is a perfectionist, and he gave me a lot of things. the first time I met him before I had to go back to do the screen-test – an hour after, someone came the hotel and gave me this big box, and inside this big box there were movies, music, some books, some information about the Menominees, about Indian culture. There were some newspapers from the ’30s. Many, many things. I love to work this way – this type of preparation, when you meet someone, and you have this special relationship, where you have to be this person for two months, three months, four months. And if you feed yourself, in a way, with all that information, you get to understand who she is, then you can be her.

You said the reason you took the role was to work with Michael Mann. What did you take from working with him?

I’ve been a great fan of his work. And, when I met him, right away, when I came in his office, I felt that there was a connection between the two of us. A really strong connection. and I’m always 100% committed to the character, the story I’m in and the director. With him, it was 1000%. I don’t know how to explain this, because it’s really hard – sometimes you don’t have to explain why you care and you love someone so much. I really love him, as a person, as a director. I wanted to be perfect for him. I wanted to give the best of my best of my best. I don’t know if I did, but I was really touched by him.

How different was it working on a Hollywood production, than working in the French movie industry?

You know, when you’re on a set, it becomes just ‘this’. There’s the same difference between an American movie and a French movie, that there is between a French movie and a French movie, or an American movie and an American movie. Because it’s a different story, it’s a different director. The industry in the United States is much bigger, but in France, there are also big movies, especially when it’s a period movie. Well, the set is a different time, so you really feel like you’re doing a movie. But then when it comes to the work, it becomes very intimate.

What was it like filming the [particularly intense, gruesome] interrogation scene?

The difficulty of the scene was that, when you have very emotional and violent scene to do, you really can’t think of the technique. And I had to keep this Mid-Western accent. So it was very difficult, as I had to give up the technique – like, really let it go – but at the same time, not think about it, but feel it. And, actually, I really kind of love extreme scenes. I would say that after this kind of scene I feel empty – but, also filled in…?

Fulfilled…?

Fulfilled! Thank you. Fulfilled. I think it might be like when you do sport, and you have a competition like the 100m. And after that, you feel tired, and empty, but fulfilled because you did something that was intense. And it might feel the same way. And I really love it, so it’s not difficult.

Obviously, Christian Bale is quite into his method acting, and staying in character between takes – were there any others like that on set?

Well, I didn’t work with him. We had just this little scene. There’s an atmosphere in the movie, that even when you’re not rolling – especially in a period movie because we’re all dressed like in the 30s, and all the sets are of the 30s. I think that there’s something that stays in you – for example, if you have a German accent, and you may keep it in between the scenes, because it’s hard to get there. So when you’re there, it’s better sometimes to stay there, even when you’re not shooting, because if you totally get out of it, to come back is the same journey.

So, before, I did La Vie En Rose, I thought that it was dangerous to stay in character – more than dangerous, I thought it was kind of ridiculous, and I had a kind of judgement, because I didn’t know that it’s really hard to go back there. And after La Vie En Rose, my opinion – it wasn’t even an opinion, it was a stupid judgement, because I didn’t know what I was talking about – but, now I know, and I didn’t force myself, when I did La Vie En Rose, I didn’t force myself to stay in character. It was easy, and I couldn’t stop in between the takes because it was so much work to get there – the preparation in the morning, it was a whole process. So I really do understand this now.

Public Enemies is out this week.

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].

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.”

from Twincities.com / by Chris Hewitt

She’s just not aware of the camera

CHICAGO — The night after a screening of “Public Enemies,” Marion Cotillard is fascinated by a question because it also occurred to her while she watched it: How did she not bump into the camera that was practically stuck up her nostril for most of the film?

“It’s a good question,” says Cotillard, rearranging her little black dress and offering me some cranberry juice in a hotel room high atop Chicago. “But the funny thing is that, the whole time I’ve been making movies, I’ve never known where the camera is. It’s just there and I don’t even realize it. But I want to direct some day, so I’m going to have to become more aware of it.”

What makes Cotillard’s camera-unawareness astonishing is that “Public Enemies,” which opens today, features some of the closest close-ups you’ll ever see in a movie. But it must be her absorption in the emotions of her characters that makes Cotillard’s performance as John Dillinger girlfriend Billie Frechette — and her Oscar-winning Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose” — so memorable.

Writer/director Michael Mann approached Cotillard about playing the French/American Indian Frechette shortly after seeing her in “La Vie en Rose.” He gave the actress — who speaks English with a light French lilt in real life and no trace of accent in the movie — music, film clips and newspaper articles to help her understand Frechette. And Cotillard, who refers to all the research material as “informations,” immediately fell in love with Billie.

“Her life was so tough, but she was a very, very nice person,” says Cotillard. “Maybe it came from her Indian roots or from having to survive so much. She was in a boarding school where she learned how not to be an Indian anymore. It’s hard to imagine how awful it would be not to be allowed to talk your own language and live your own culture, but I think it made her into a person who was used to violence.”

Cotillard has never visited the St. Paul haunts of Dillinger and Frechette. She had barely even heard of Dillinger before being offered “Public Enemies,” but she learned about her character on a trip to Green Bay, Wis.

“It’s the first thing I did after I came to Chicago to make the movie,” says Cotillard. “I went to the reservation and met with Michael Chapman, the chairman of the Menominee reservation, and all these women who shared with me their lives. I met with the relatives of Billie and I went to school with the children, who were learning their language, Algonquin.”

Cotillard was intimidated at first.

“I was scared they’d hear me talking with my French accent and wonder what Michael Mann was thinking, but they were so good to me,” she says, grinning widely and pulling her knees up under her on her chair. “Afterwards, a woman came up to me and said, ‘Do a good Billie,’ and I was just overwhelmed by her trust.”

The actress also met with wives of convicts, who helped her understand that, when you’re never sure how much time you have with your man, every moment becomes an adventure. Then, in much the same way that she forgets about the camera, Cotillard put aside that research.

“The preparation is very, very important to Michael Mann, but you also want to leave blank spaces that will be filled in by you, living the moments of these lives,” says Cotillard. “The evolution of the characters never stops until the movie is done. No, I’m wrong. Not then. Because even after that, the characters keep living in the audiences’ minds.”

As Cotillard and I have chatted, I’ve half-watched the sky darken dramatically behind her as a huge storm rolls into Chicago. The room has gone from morning sun to eerie darkness in the space of 30 minutes, but the spell is broken when a publicist enters the room and asks, “Why are you guys sitting in the dark?”

I had noticed how dim it was getting because I could barely see the notes I was taking. But the intensely focused Cotillard had a different — and perhaps predictable — response.

“Oh, is it dark in here?” she asks brightly. “I didn’t even notice.”

from Chicago Tribune (US) / by Michael Phillips

I had never before interviewed an actress in her trailer. Utter cliche. But Marion Cotillard is the sort of actress (Oscar-winning, French, glam, pleasant) a fella doesn’t mind for his first time.

The 33-year-old Cotillard received an Academy Award for her portrayal of singer/perpetual tragedian Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose.” In “Public Enemies” she plays Evelyn “Billie” Frechette, John Dillinger’s lover for a time. Born to a French-Canadian father and a Menominee Indian mother, Frechette kicked around Wisconsin and South Dakota before making her way down to Chicago at 18. She served a two-year prison sentence for harboring a criminal and was behind bars when Dillinger was killed.

Before they met, Frechette ran with anonymous low-lifes and Chicago underworld denizens as she worked as a coat-check tootsie, a dice thrower, a dance hall hostess. After Dillinger’s death — and this part, like so many parts, didn’t make director Michael Mann’s film — Frechette toured in a late-vaudeville-era traveling show called “Crime Doesn’t Pay,” telling her story, fielding questions from a gangster-obsessed audience.

A rich character, says Cotillard. Her trailer is one of four parked outside Chicago’s Union Station, where various interviews for the North American “Public Enemies” press junket are being conducted. If you’re shooting a 1930s gangster picture or a 1930s love story — the movie is both — and you want classy period architecture or need a shot of a train pulling into a station, Union’s your station. (One of “Public Enemies’” highlights is a brief, beautiful shot of a train bearing G-men arriving in Chicago, met by Christian Bale’s Melvin Purvis.)

Mann threw tons of research at his leading lady. In northern Wisconsin, she met with relatives of Frechette’s. “I really wanted to know about her childhood. I remember with Edith Piaf, there were things about her I didn’t understand, and it’s really hard to be someone 100 percent when you don’t understand the person. I found all my answers in her childhood.”

Frechette attended a Catholic missionary school followed by a strict boarding school. “Not being allowed to speak your own language, not allowed to live your own culture … it creates a new personality,” says Cotillard. “I think she distrusted authority. And she had that in common with Dillinger, among other things.”

Mann’s onscreen worlds are ruled by men, yet Cotillard asserts that “in each of his movies there’s a very strong female character. That’s one of the things I love about his movies. I love ‘Collateral.’ Jada Pinkett Smith has a real part to play, even if it’s small. She really has something to defend. Gong Li in ‘Miami Vice’ — such an interesting role.”

The research relating to Frechette, she says, took her down some unexpected paths. “Michael feeds you the information that will bring out of you the emotion he wants,” she says. She met with convicts’ wives. She met with strippers. “I thought, ‘Why am I meeting with strippers?’ [In Las Vegas, no less.] I wasn’t sure why, since Billie Frechette was not a stripper. But Michael told me he wanted me to meet them because they know who has the money. Women in that profession know it’s not always the obvious guy with the good suit buying bottles and bottles of champagne.” In real life and in Mann’s film, Dillinger moved in fast and claimed Frechette as his own; Cotillard believes the seduction was mutual, and that it really was love.

The real homework, she says, related to Billie’s dialect. Cotillard has worked in English-language films before — her first was Tim Burton’s “Big Fish” — but here she tackled a French-Canadian-Menominee-Wisconsin-Chicago amalgam.

“It was kind of … hard,” she says, deliberately, making sure to hit the “h” in “hard” distinctly. Billie’s not supposed to have a French accent. Fortunately she had French blood, so it works with my touch of French accent. But I knew it would never be as I wanted it to be. I started to learn English too late [at 11] to be able to have a perfect American accent. I’m working on it. I love the language, so that helps. But it was hard. It might be the hardest thing I’ve had to do, really.”

She smiles. “Playing Piaf, an old lady on drugs, that was easier.”

from Journal Sentinel (US) / by Duane Dudek

Parisian actress shines as Wisconsin-born Dillinger girlfriend

Chicago — Wherever Marion Cotillard goes, she always takes the weather with her.

As she prepared to film her scenes in “Public Enemies” on Milwaukee’s east side last year, her trailer started “shaking and shaking” when “a huge storm” blew off Lake Michigan.

“And I said to the security guy who was telling us what to do, ‘Can we just go to the basement you were talking about? Because I’m getting scared now.’ ”

Coincidentally, as Cotillard told this story, she was oblivious to the lightning streaking across the downtown Chicago skyline, seen through the hotel window behind her, and the crack of thunder that followed.

She does have reason to fear strong winds, because to call her gamine is an understatement. She was swallowed by the armchair she was sitting in during a recent interview. And her eyes may be her biggest feature.

But on-screen, she is a force of nature herself. Her incandescent performance in “La Vie en Rose,” about the tumultuous life of singer Edith Piaf, won her an Oscar. And in “Public Enemies” – as Billie Frechette, the girlfriend of gangster John Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp – her penetrating eyes and angelic face impart a desperate and almost elemental sense of longing.

Fluent in acting

Cotillard, 33, who was born and raised in Paris, went into the family business. Both her parents are stage actors and directors, and her mother is a writer.

To see them on stage as a child “was amazing. My parents earn their life telling people stories,” she said in fractured English-as-second-language syntax.

“I was fascinated by that.”

She began acting as a child at her parents’ theater, and in the 1990s, she scored small roles in films, including Luc Besson’s “Taxi” and Jean Pierre-Jeunet’s “A Very Long Engagement.” And she began appearing in English-language films including Tim Burton’s “Big Fish” and Ridley Scott’s “A Good Year.”

Cotillard said she “doesn’t have to think about it” when she acts in French, but for English-speaking roles, “you really have to know your lines. And how you stress words.

“I love the English language. And it gets easier when you love it. But I wouldn’t say it’s harder to do. It’s just a different preparation.”

The character she plays in “Public Enemies” was half French and lived on a Menomonee Indian reservation near Green Bay until she was 13, when she moved to Milwaukee. With Cotillard playing her, the character has a French accent, although Frechette did not have one in real life, the actress admitted.

Cotillard visited the reservation, where the residents shared “their culture and stories” with her.

“It’s always so touching when someone is there for you and shares things for you to make a good job,” she said.

Cotillard, who just completed a role in the film of the stage musical “Nine,” said she makes her home wherever she finds herself working – she lived in Chicago while filming “Public Enemies” – and is returning to France to make a film.

She is a citizen of the world when it comes to movies as well, and does not feel there is much difference between French and American cinema.

“We also have big blockbusters,” she said, and smaller films like “Milk.” “But we have less big, huge, easy-laughing movies.”

Not surprisingly, as a native of a country that worships Jerry Lewis, she loves the broad comedy of Jim Carrey (“he’s amazing”), Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell.

“One of my favorite movies is when they are ice skaters. Oh, what’s the name of this movie? I loved it,” she said of Ferrell’s “Blades of Glory.”

“Or what’s her name. I love her. She makes me laugh so loud. The one who was in ‘Speed,’ ” she said of “The Proposal” star Sandra Bullock.

Cotillard just loves all films.

“What I love about movies is stories,” she said. “Moving stories, love stories, scary stories. I go see a movie and I’m moved by a good story. It might be the simplest story. But it’s not just about the subject. It’s how you tell the story.

“You can tell the same story over and over again, with different people. And it will always be a different story.”

from Reuters / by Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – French actress Marion Cotillard has gone from playing singing legend Edith Piaf to portraying the girlfriend of another kind of popular hero, bank robber John Dillinger.

In the movie “Public Enemies” opening on July 1, Cotillard plays Billie Frechette, a woman who fell in love with Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp, during his ill-fated cops-and-robbers war with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation in the 1930s.

Cotillard won the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Piaf in 2007 movie “La Vie en Rose.” Her role in “Public Enemies” as the daughter of a Frenchman and an American Indian is her first since winning the Academy Award.

She spoke to Reuters in French from Chicago about her character Billie Frechette, her love of the Windy City and her upbringing in France in a family of actors.

Q: What did Billie Frechette see in John Dillinger that attracted her to him?

A: “At a young age, she was sent to a boarding school, and it was a very difficult place where they tried to erase everything that was Indian in her. And I think that she encountered there a great injustice, and she shared with Dillinger a suspicion of authority. I think the two of them saw that in each other and they fell in love immediately, and there was a very strong connection between them.”

Q: Growing up in a household of actors, did you often practice scenes with your parents?

A: “Yes, because my parents were actors and theater directors. And my father was a director for children’s theater after having been a mime for a long time. So, seeing actors rehearse was something very familiar to me.”

Q: Did that influence you as an actress?

A: “I was absolutely fascinated that you could make a living telling other people’s stories by imparting your emotion to them. And I always wanted to be an actress. My first work as an actress was when I was about five years-old.”

Q: You played in a scene that young?

A: “I made two small movies for television. And before that I remember acting in a play with my mother, and it was very disorienting because I played the daughter of another actress. They were telling me that she was my mom, but I knew she wasn’t. In fact, my real mom was also on stage. I remember being very disoriented by that.”

Q: How did you prepare for your English-speaking role in this movie?

A: “I worked with a speech coach for several months, and I had to relearn how to use my face and my body, because the way of saying certain letters is so different in French than in English, and it was very hard to train myself in that.”

Q: What did you do for fun while you were shooting this movie in Chicago?

A: “I went to a lot of museums because I love museums and there are a lot of marvelous ones here. Also, I went dancing at the Green Mill (cocktail lounge) and listened to jazz there. I was there often, I liked that place.

“I love this city. I love the architecture. I love the 1930s and there’s a lot of sublime ’30s architecture here. I find the lake so energizing, so vast, so beautiful. I am looking at the lake now through my hotel window, it looks like the ocean.”

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Patricia Reaney)

from MTV Movies Blog / by Eric Ditzian

Everything sounds better with a French accent. That’s just a fact, and it’s something Movies Editor Josh Horowitz learned anew while chatting with Marion Cotillard about her upcoming Christopher Nolan film, “Inception.”

No matter that the Parisian actress wouldn’t give up the juicy inside facts—partly because she didn’t know, partly because declined to say—about the secretive film that we crave here at MTV News. No matter that all she’d tell us about the plot is that it’s “about the mind.” No matter that she teased Josh at one point, “You so want to have information—I can see you!”

Cotillard simply sounds so sweetly agreeable when she’s speaking, it’s hard to complain. We did manage to learn that the majority of her scenes will be alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, who is set to play her husband. We did learn the movie itself is chockfull of action sequences. And she did go into detail about her first reaction upon reading the script for the film, which also co-stars Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Caine.

“[Nolan] is so interesting,” she said, while promoting “Public Enemies,” her Johnny Depp-starring gangster flick. “He writes his own scripts. He seems to be, from what I saw and what I read, so rich inside. He’s got so many things to say and share and he’s a very, very smart guy. You really can feel it in his writing.”

What else did we learn? That Cotillard could read me the phone book for the entire July 4th weekend and I wouldn’t protest. Check out the rest of the video to find out more about “Inception” and why Cotillard finds Nolan’s film très complexe.