Podiums, one of the magazines, cinema, theater… Laetitia Casta is a complete artist. For the fifth time in his career, the 45-year-old actress walks the stage. After several classic roles, as in Ondine by Jean Giraudoux in 2004, she opposite Roschdy Zem in A particular day. In this theatrical adaptation of Ettore Scola’s cinematic masterpiece, the two actors reprise the characters played by Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. At the Atelier de Paris theater, Laetitia Casta will play, from December 2, 2023, the role of Antonietta, a mother of a large family in Benito Mussolini’s Italy. A woman she would not have “never been able to embody a few years ago”as she analyzed with the Parisian weekendon December 1, 2023. And for good reason, this Italian woman from the 1930s “brought too many familiar figures together” like that “mother or [s]to grandmother”. But today, Laetitia Casta feels ready. Ready to enter into communion with her scene partner but also, and above all, with the spectators.
Laetitia Casta has her technique to “ward off fear”
“Meeting the public every evening, hearing them breathe and react, it’s precious. There’s even something sacred in that”, entrusts the wife of Louis Garrel to our colleagues. On the scene, Laetitia Casta says she is transforming. “When the show starts, I’m in a dynamic, I play a mother who has to wake up her six children, be in the action. I’m not really afraid”, says the actress. But before the curtain opens, the mother of four children may be overcome by stage fright. As she explains to Parisianshe found a solution for “ward off fear” : that of arriving “at the theater four hours before”. Behind the scenes, Laetitia Casta immerses herself in her thoughts and concentrates before going on stage. She “locks himself in, says goodbye to everyone. We can’t approach him anymore”, adds Roschdy Zem. And if the actress admits it, this ritual “isn’t very nice”, his partner does not hold it against him. Because he also needs habits. “I always leave my dressing room at the same time and, backstage, I always sit in the same chair, he confided to the weekly. I also have a small altar in my dressing room with photos of deceased people who are dear to me, and whom I kiss every evening before playing.”