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Why did you say yes to RED LIGHTS?
- I said yes to the project and yes to Cédric Kahn, whose work I admired and I’m pleased that I did, because I like the film enormously. Even during the shoot, I sensed we were heading in the right direction, in relation to our original intentions. What can I say? Cédric is a talented filmmaker. There's a space in his brain for cinema and it's been there a very long time. A director faces a thousand problems and Cédric reacts very swiftly, he doesn't dither… Everything comes freely and spontaneously, and when it does, it's right. The funny thing is that in life he’s a shy, reserved young man.
Intuitive but sure: is that your own approach to filmmaking?
- Recently, during a screening of Bunuel's films for History of Art students, Jean-Claude Carrière spoke about the Surrealists' collective approach to art. They had what they called a 'right of veto', a three-second window in which to say yes or no on a project. No more. I don't mean that this should be a universal rule but it certainly works on a shoot because everything is possible (everything and its opposite), it's essential that someone should be there to decide, to say they want something specific. That's Cédric's great talent. His nervousness does not show. What does show is an immediate, clear aptitude for taking decisions that stand up. He has vision.
How did you adapt your technique to this way of working?
- I'm not methodical. I like to work fast, it's essential. It feels close to a way of working that seems most natural and I had no problem with that on this set!
Your part in RED LIGHTS is almost a metaphor for an actress' part: you aren’t on screen for long, but still remain very much a presence off camera, in the imagination of the characters and also in the audience's.
- What appealed to me most was the straightforward and realistic quality of the screenplay. I found it a plausible account of the spiral into which a man or a woman can fall. In this instance a man who starts drinking and the consequences of falling into such a spiral both for the person involved and those around him. The screenplay provides a fine way to show this process, harsh, yet appeased by a generous ending which is very much Cédric's own choice. He does not labour the guilt and allows a lightness to flow back. I might have been tempted to emphasize the pain, but Cédric's approach is probably the right one. He keeps the door open, an idea that redemption is possible.
How did you keep up the intensity of emotion in your acting with such little time in front of the camera?
- I didn't want to make the most of every frame I appeared in, thinking 'I’m out of shot for half the film so I have to make up for it'. That would have been a mistake. The mysteriousness of my character, the impact she has is in the screenplay and in the way it is shot.
On the other hand, I did bear in mind that there is a burden of sadness in the character from the start. She is going through hell. The story would not be credible otherwise: a couple does not reach such a state of crisis unless there is some history. Their nocturnal separation is not just a fit of madness; it is the fruit of the past, of several years' living together, of things left unsaid.
And so, RED LIGHTS is a tale about the truth of being a couple?
- Absolutely. It is an issue which I find more and more interesting in films, almost the only interesting issue. The things that life as a couple are about: love, compassion, tenderness, forgiveness. RED LIGHTS is a film which brings back something I remember from the movies as a child, the feeling that you are peering at other people's lives through a keyhole.
What was it like working with Jean-Pierre Darroussin?
- You would think that we made a surprising couple but on screen I think it obviously works. This is clearly because of the strength of the screenplay and the way Cédric uses his camera, but it's also down to Jean-Pierre. Working with him was a pleasure, a source of joy and discovery. The poor man was alone most of the time, with this brutal, awkward character to play… When I returned to the set after being away from some time, I felt sorry for him. I played Phèdre on stage in 2002, and even though I am not a method actor in any way, I know that words and atmosphere engrave something on your soul, they stick to you, there are no two ways about it. Souls suddenly darken.
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