PortraitFrench cinema is rolling out the red carpet for him. The César for Most Promising Actress in 2020 is on the bill for Wes Anderson’s latest film, in competition at Cannes. Her dazzling trajectory, she owes it to her choices of demanding roles, far from clichés. And his mastery of the codes of the star-system.
She spends hours getting ready. Hours… in front of his screen. Lyna Khoudri is obsessive about replay: a few days before the evening of the Césars 2020, which consecrated her best female hope for her role in Papicha, by Mounia Meddour, she dissected a dozen of the previous ceremonies.
Before he started touring with Wes Anderson in the highly anticipated The French Dispatch, film selected this year in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, the 28-year-old actress has revisited several times the entire work of the American director. She has seen and seen it all again, Bottle Rocket (1996) to Isle of Dogs (2018) through The Tenenbaum Family (2001) or The Grand Budapest Hotel (2013), not to mention his short films and press conferences.
After our meeting on June 17 in a Parisian hotel, Lyna Khoudri was to go to the set of “C à vous” to defend Gagarin, by Fanny Liatard and Jeremy Trouilh. In this dreamlike tale about a city in Seine-Saint-Denis, she plays a Rom close to a teenager who dreams of transforming his building into a spaceship.
Even for these few minutes live, she took the time to watch old editions of the France 5 show. She says that it reassures her, that it helps her to ” keep control “, that has “Nothing escapes him” : “I am very stressed when it comes to my image. I absolutely want everything to go well. ”
The look of others, she worries about it since she was a teenager. She admires the ease and confidence of those whom the direct does not frighten: “I was fascinated by Thierry Frémaux [le délégué général du Festival de Cannes] when he presented the Official Selection during the press conference. It seemed so easy! “ Lyna Khoudri is afraid of hesitating too long before answering, she is afraid of stammering, afraid of her hands going all over the place when she gets enthusiastic.
“My doubts always push me to try to do better. Anyway, what is this job if not the quest for recognition? »Lyna Khoudri
The last time her mother watched her on TV, she thought she was opening her mouth too wide. Her daughter laughs: “How do you expect me to speak with my mouth closed?” “ Despite everything, she thinks that this lack of self-confidence is a driving force: “My doubts always push me to try to do better. Anyway, what is this job if not the quest for recognition? “
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