Is there any star working today with a career as varied as Marion Cotillard? Anyone who has moved as effortlessly between Hollywood blockbusters — Inception, Dark Knight, Public Enemies — and indies (The Immigrant and Macbeth), from slapstick action comedy like the Taxi films — the French pre-Fast and the Furious car racing franchise that first made her a star — to auteur dramas like Rust and Bone, Annette, and Two Days, One Night?
“I just read scripts and, no matter the genre, if it’s a comedy or a drama, when I feel I can bring something to the movie, that’s when I choose to be part of it,” Cotillard says, speaking via Zoom from her home in Paris. “I don’t plan anything [but] I feel very lucky that I can go between totally different worlds.”
The world Cotillard enters in The Ice Tower, which has its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival on Feb. 16, is one caught between fairy tales and cinematic fantasy. In Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s loose adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s fable The Snow Queen — the inspiration for many a movie adaptation, most famously Disney’s Frozen — Cotillard plays a dual role. She is both Cristina, a 1970s film star shooting a version of The Snow Queen, and, at least in the fantasy of a teenage runaway who falls under her spell (Clara Pacini), the winter monarch herself.
The film marks a dual return for Cotillard. It’s her first film with Hadzihalilovic since the director’s 2004 debut Innocence. And it’s Cotillard’s first time back to Berlin since 2007, when La Vie en Rose had its world premiere, starting a journey that would take Cotillard, and her riveting portrayal of legendary chanteuse Edith Piaf, all the way to the Oscars, where she would become only the second French actress ever to win the best actress honor, and the first to win for a performance in French.
“[Berlin] was the beginning of a great adventure,” she recalls, “I had no idea how much my career and life would change.”
Goodfellas is selling The Ice Tower at the EFM in Berlin. Metropolitan will release the film in French theaters this fall.
Cotillard spoke to THR’s Scott Roxborough about the film, Berlin and what’s outside her comfort zone.
What drew you to this role in The Ice Tower?
I did this movie because of Lucille. I did a movie with her [2004’s Innocence] many, many years ago and I love her. I love her as a person. I love her as a director. I love that she’s an artist, and that she has her own style. I was very happy to work with her again. Also because she has such a peculiar universe, she’s someone who really creates her own world. What I loved about the script was the sense of strength and despair of these women who are going through hard times in their lives.
And as an adaptation of The Snow Queen it’s really interesting. Because there are a lot of different adaptations and many are very far from the original story. Of course there’s the Disney one [Frozen], and also this one, which focuses on where fear takes a woman in her life. The two women in this film are going through different kinds of fear because they’re not of the same generation, but it shows how, when you don’t respect yourself, you can be taken away from who you are, and from your own path. That’s what I loved about this version.
What version of The Snow Queen did you grow up with?
As a kid, I was familiar with a lot of tales, but not this one. I really discovered this one with the Disney movie, which I love. I didn’t know the original story. Then maybe 3-4 years ago, I saw a stage version of the tale, which was very close to the original story. That was the first time I had heard that version. When I read Lucille’s script, I had to go back to the Anderson version to see how close it was to the original. Our version is very different, not so different as the Disney version but quite changed from the original, but there still is, I think, this sense of how fear affects who you are and your emotions. That’s in the original and, in a different way, in Lucille’s version as well.
Lucile’s work often has little dialogue, she says she’s inspired by silent cinema. Was that a challenge for you?
Well, there is dialogue, but I love how she tells these stories of very mysterious women where you never really know what they are thinking, they remain a mystery. She had that already in Innocence. It’s very interesting to build a character based on a lot of silence. In The Ice Tower, there are many scenes where the characters just live the moment without expressing what they feel with words. I find it very interesting to build emotions with this mystery. My character expresses her emotions with her eyes and with her body.
You’re back in Berlin, where La Vie en Rose premiered. What’s your strongest memory from that time?
It was my second time in Berlin. The first time I went to the Berlin Film Festival was, wow, ages ago, with a movie from Switzerland [in 1999 with Francis Reusser’s War in the Highlands] and then [in 2007] with La Vie en Rose. The movie was also about to come out in France, it was right before the French release and we could feel that people really loved it. It had been a very intense shoot and we were sharing this movie we had all put our hearts into. Speaking now, I’m starting to see the images again, when we screened it in Berlin, how moved people were by it. It was the beginning of a great adventure.
That film certainly changed a lot for you, and your career.
But at the time, we didn’t know it would be such a huge success. It was just the beginning, and I had no idea how much my career and life would change. It was a huge success in France and then worldwide. It was really the very beginning. I didn’t know that my career and life would change as it changed.
You seem to seamlessly move between genres, from the broad comedy of something like Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom, to social drama in the Dardenne brothers’ Two Days, One Night, from U.S. TV with The Morning Show to experimental cinema like Little Girl Blue. How do you approach such varied roles, shifting tone so radically from one project to another?
The thing is, I’m very lucky to have offers that are very different from one another. Cinema is so rich in generous. I never wanted, I never told myself, OK: I want to do only dramas or only comedies, or only films d’auteur. When I read a script, it’s just when I feel that I have something to say, and I feel that I can bring my understanding to help bring the vision of a director to the audience that I say yes.
I don’t plan anything. I just read scripts and, no matter the genre, if it’s a comedy or a drama, when I feel I can bring something to the movie, that’s when I choose to be part of it. But I feel very lucky that I can go between totally different worlds. I feel very lucky about that.
Have you ever loved a script but felt you couldn’t play the role?
It happened a few times, whether it was because I didn’t understand the character, or I felt that I was not the right person, or I felt I wouldn’t have enough time to be fully ready. I had this amazing offer a few years ago and the movie was beautiful, but I felt that I wouldn’t have enough time to work on the accent, because it was an American character, an American woman. When I feel I won’t be able to deliver what the character needs and deserves, I say: ‘No, I’m not the right person.’
I’ve never regretted any of the movies I said no to. Some when I’ve seen them, this one I said no to the actress was brilliant, she did an absolutely amazing job. Watching I knew I couldn’t do that.
Is there a type of role you haven’t played but would love to?
Actually, I would love to do more comedies because it’s really out of my comfort zone. It’s a lot of work for me to find the right rhythm. Comedy, I think, is more difficult than drama. It’s almost a different job. I would love to do more comedies and really explore a world where I’m not sure I would do a good job. Now, I’m a hard worker, so I would do anything possible to do a good job, but I know comedy is a world where I have a lot to learn and a lot to work on. And that’s exciting for me.
