PortraitThe American is, at 37, one of the most sought-after actors of the moment. On the bill for “Annette” by Leos Carax, presented at the opening of the Cannes Film Festival, he is illustrated by his demanding choices and his discretion.
On July 6, Adam Driver will be at the Cannes opening. As in 2019, during the last “physical” edition of the Festival, the actor will walk the red carpet, climb the steps and, at the top, greet the president, Pierre Lescure, and the general delegate, Thierry Frémaux. He will take place in the large Lumière amphitheater surrounded by Marion Cotillard and Leos Carax. Annette, the sung film of the French filmmaker, in which he stars, alongside the actress of The kid, will launch the competition. And even before the song So May We Start, Sparks, does not sound in the introduction, Adam Driver will have eclipsed himself. For more than two hours, he will hide in the Palais des Festivals. As the end credits approach, he will return to the room to greet the audience and receive the applause.
The presence of the actor on the screen is eagerly awaited. On the one hand, because it is a film by Leos Carax, a rare filmmaker – only six feature films in thirty-seven years – enjoying an aura unparalleled for film lovers, who comment on his elaborate shots as much as his crazy shoots. On the other hand, because the film, presented at the opening of the 74th Cannes Film Festival, after a truncated 2020 edition and months of cinemas closed, heralds the big comeback of cinema. It tells of the tragic love, in a twilight Los Angeles, between a comic with animal play and a soprano with fragile grace, the career of one that crumbles and that of the other that soars. And the child, Annette, born from this union.
Adam Driver is not embarrassed by his performance in Annette. But he doesn’t watch his own films. As during his last visits to Cannes, for The Dead Don’t Die (2019), by Jim Jarmusch, in which he plays a police officer confronted with zombies, BlacKkKlansman (2018), by Spike Lee, where he plays a Jewish FBI agent infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan, or Paterson (2016), by Jim Jarmusch, in which he plays a poet. When asked if this one will be an exception, he replies: ” No, no and no. Still not seen. “ On the screen through which the interview takes place, he can be seen shaking his head for several seconds. Then add, after a long silence, that he will not see it.
Cloudy image
The break dates from 2011. Adam Driver did not shoot very much when actress Lena Dunham gave him a role in Girls, the series she has just created for HBO, which chronicles the pangs of four young New York women, a modernized version of Sex and the City. She shows him her scenes. On the young woman’s computer, he sees himself naked, in the middle of a sexual act, in the role of his occasional boyfriend, actor by profession, with fragile psychology and raw sensuality. “I told myself that I will never have the strength to look at myself on a screen again. “
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