In a new adaptation of The Island of Thirty Coffins by Maurice Leblanc, the actress plays Christine Vorski, a woman who returns to her native island to find her son whom she believed to be dead. Monday March 28 at 9:10 p.m. on TF1.
Can we say that Christine, your character, is a mixture of strength and vulnerability?
Virginia Ledoyen: What is very exciting with Christine is that she could only suffer, only be a victim. However, even if she has in her the trauma of the loss of her child, she is very determined, built, and has interiority. Fortunately, there are more and more characters of this kind, who come out of the binary and represent the woman in all her complexity.
When reading this scenario, what were you most sensitive to?
Everything touched me. The deadly atmosphere, this completely failed homecoming, the strangeness of the story and the fact that each of the protagonists has their own trajectory. And also Christine’s love story with her husband which structures and weakens her at the same time.
Can we find in this fiction, taken from a novel by Maurice Leblanc published in 1919, echoes with our time?
Yes indeed. There is a real resonance with the effects of the pack that we observe today on social networks. On the question of gossip, withdrawal, the fact of getting together to attack the other, we have not evolved enormously… And it is precisely because The Island of Thirty Coffins has these very current springs that it works just as well.
Has this series centered on motherhood shaken up the mother that you are?
Fortunately, I never went through what she faced. But when I played it, I told myself that such mourning could only be experienced as an amputation. For having seen it around me, I know that it is like a part of oneself which is dying. But the imprint that my roles leave on me is very unconscious and underground… I didn’t realize that until much later.
To work with a director, do you need him or her to project something onto you that you didn’t suspect?
What I expect is that he or she has a point of view on my character, that it has layers and that there is material around it. It doesn’t just have to be a heroine.
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