Alexandra Lamy: Inspiring, the actress looks back on her career and the place of women in cinema

On August 19, the film is released Beautiful girl. If you should not miss it, it is because we will be able to see an unprecedented female duo. Beautiful girl, directed by Méliane Marcaggi, brings together Alexandra Lamy and Miou-Miou on screen. Bright and touching at the same time, they embody a nameless sorority in this new film. Alexandra Lamy plays Louise, a devoted mother, who discovers that her husband is cheating on her. After this discovery, she simply decides to leave and treat herself to a weekend in Corsica. There she meets a handsome stranger with whom she spends the night. But the next day, her lover does not wake up. Louise discovers him dead … It's panic! But this is only the beginning. Everything will change when the mother of the deceased arrives and she takes Louise for the daughter-in-law she has always dreamed of. This misunderstanding will become a lie that will take enormous proportions that Louise cannot get rid of.

What did you like about this scenario?

I liked it a lot, because it was extremely funny at the same time, but with real background topics. We always say that we don't choose our family. But these two women, ultimately, end up choosing each other. It talks about a lot of subjects around mourning. It's like a third character. Then, I found the pitch extraordinary. This woman married for 20 years, we feel that she has finally endured the life which, in the end, has never done anything for her.

How would you define Louise, the character you play?

I think she's a woman with a pattern. She got older, didn't allow herself to think about herself during all these years. And that's often it, by the way. Sometimes we forget each other and Louise no longer knows how to authorize anything. I think she's a real nice girl who doesn't dare to hurt. These kinds of characters are touching. We love them because they are women who have never dared before. Louise suddenly finds herself finally embroiled in this madness. She took a bit of revenge on life.

© Angela Rossi

We notice that in recent years, you have played the roles of women in nuances, damaged by life.

Yes. It makes me happy because that's how I feel too. Lots of people on the street and tell me that too. When I play, I always think the opposite of what one might think. When I see in a script that there is a scene where it says "She's crying", I'm going to be like, "No, you're not going to cry there." Obviously, when we talk about something sad and we cry, it goes together. But someone who tells you something terrible with a smile almost moves you even more because there is something contradictory that makes the situation more touching. It's something that I try to work on. I fight precisely against these clichés there on the emotions. I'm breaking the clichés of what is usually expected.

You seem to attach a lot of importance to the feminine gaze in cinema. You have worked a lot with Eric Lavaine, a man, but who still manages to bring a feminine outlook to life.

Yes, of course, I attach great importance to it. At the time of Romy Schneider, for example, we had magnificent roles for women. Afterwards, in the 1990s to 2000s, women served more soup in supporting roles. We didn't even really see them anymore. So we had to fight to get back to the top of the bill a bit. For that, the cinema had to give a little more depth to female roles and show that we could also be heroines. So yes, we had to fight a little bit for the women of today to exist and to find themselves on the screen. For me, you have to give them importance.

© Nathalie Mazéas / Same Player / Gaumont

So, indeed, in a lot of my films, whether it's with Eric Lavaine or whatever, I really care about it. I remember making a movie called With all our strength directed by Nils Tavernier, with Jacques Gamblin. I played the mother of a disabled child. When reading, she was just the mother who was afraid of everything, who said no to everything. I said to myself, for 20 years, she endured everything, why suddenly, is it she who becomes unbearable? Of course she's scared, but you have to give her something else. She must also want to help her son. It needs to be much more nuanced.

Otherwise, we tell ourselves that she has had 20 years of horror. And finally, when her son decides to do this Ironman triathlon, she's the one who blocks everything … No. So we reworked that because for me, women had to find themselves in it. And when we went to do the tours in the provinces and the women told us "Ah thank you madam!" This is where we thought we had succeeded. Because in life, we are much more nuanced than that. We are not just one color. At one point, we lost women in cinema because we were only given one color.

Do you think that, in fact, there has been a change in recent years concerning the place of women in cinema? Compared to the scenarios you receive for example?

Yes, I think, completely. Look: we finally have women headliners. We really have authentic characters, with real heroines. What is crazy and terrible is that we are still saying "It's a film of women". While we never say of a film that it is a film of men … We are still in transition, there is real work being done but we still have a little way to go.

© Gaumont Distribution

For you, what is a well-written female character that will make you want to work on a film?

What I like is when a female character is as in life: we laugh, we cry, we are in bad faith, we lie … That's what I like in a character. I can have fun with it. For example, when we did the Harlan Coben series (editor's note: One too many chances), at the start, the role was written for a man. It was the director who decided to change that. What's interesting is that a man, we know he can fight, we know he can punch us. A woman, one wonders how she will manage to get by … Because she is a woman. She has less physical strength, does she have to get out of it otherwise? Suddenly, we are more touched, because she is more human. She's more like everyone else in the end. We have been so used to seeing men do everything that it is surprising. We say to ourselves, "Wait what, is she going to do? Usually we see her cooking." (laughs)

Coming back to the film Stepdaughter, what do you think is her message?

There are a lot of them I think because it talks about so many things. There is mourning of course, but what strikes me the most about this film is the way these two women choose each other. And I find it so pretty. It talks a lot about sorority. Then, Louise in this role of widow and that brings a lot of dimension to the subject. It is often said that it is the men who decide but here, we feel that it is the women who have their bare hands. There is this head of the family side too, with the character of Miou miou. This whole film encompasses different themes.

© Angela Rossi
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