Isabelle Adjani “atrocious”? This shoot that would have gone very badly

Shooting from Hell! Almost 30 years ago, in 1993, viewers discovered Isabelle Adjani at Toxic Affair movie poster by Philomène Esposito. The 38-year-old actress at the time lent her features to the character of Penelope, a young woman who is trying to recover from a painful breakup and who finds a taste for life again. The story of the film is not unknown for the artist since it echoes his rather complicated relationship with actor Daniel Day-Lewis. This is what made Isabelle Adjani and Philomène Esposito very accomplices. “We met, we never left each other!” explained the French actress in an interview for Studio in February 1993.

“We carried around with our toothbrushes, our things and our things, we slept at the hotel together, we slept at my place, we slept at her place. says Isabelle Adjani. Thomas Chevalier, the production designer of the film Toxic Affair testifies to this special relationship between the two women. A “collusion” that will very quickly take a rather surprising turn. All the complicity that linked the actress and the director seems to have disappeared after the rewriting of the scenario of Toxic Affair. To the point that today, Philomène Esposito does not keep “strictly no good memories” of this shoot.

Isabelle Adjani “was atrocious”

“I can only speak with horror of what happened to me. Adjani was atrocious. The producers were atrocious.” entrusts Philomène Esposito to BFM, thirty years after the facts. The one who felt “dispossessed” of all accuses them of havingdestroy [sa] film career”. “It was toxic from all sides.” she specifies. “I imagine that it was all the more appalling for Philomène, that Isabelle had played it to her in friendship” explains Thomas Chevalier. This film will also mark the end of the friendship between the two artists. “She completely zapped me” regret the director. “I became the nerdy of the cinema. It was finished.” she added. Despite the palpable tensions, the film crews still have good memories of this experience. “I can tell you that he is a very direct person. When she doesn’t like something, she says so. It is much easier than they say. She is not in the caprice” says a technician about Isabelle Adjani. This last also organized a party to celebrate the end of filming. “She had Berber tents set up, she served the couscous herself. It was wonderful. She is really very generous” says the technician. Thierry Jault, chief operator, think that the two women did not know how to make the difference. “Everything was mixed up. There was too much affect to work calmly afterwards” he says.