‘What we said was true but, come on, it’s art. The comic has these scenes, and I loved the comic, and I trusted Abdellatif.’īut both you and Seydoux have said that you hated making the film. It’s organic between these two girls, it’s natural, and sex is an important force in life. We decided to treat those sex scenes like any other, like scenes where we’re eating or talking the important thing was to be natural. What do you say to people who think the film is a male fantasy of sex between women? Even the author of the comic has suggested that. Then I read the comic, and one day they told me, “It’s you.” ’ He’s very spiritual and likes to take time to think. We went for coffee, and sometimes we talked, sometimes we didn’t. You don’t want to be like, “Hey, I like your movies!” You want to be more deep! He doesn’t speak a lot. I love how he starts from a simple story and builds something powerful, and I love the way he does justice to women in his movies.‘It’s always intimidating meeting someone when you like their movies. ‘Yes, he’s one of the greatest, most famous directors in France, and I love the trance-like feeling that you get with his cinema. Were you already a fan of the director Abdellatif Kechiche before you first met him? But she never gave me advice I just watched her work.’ We shared so much and I learned a lot from her. So it was like, “Hey! You’re naked, me too! Weird.” But it was like a game, and like having a crush on her, a friend-crush. ‘We met twice before the shoot, but quickly. I caught up with Exarchopoulos in Paris, to find out what it’s like to be a teenager at the centre of such an extraordinary storm.ĭid you get to know Léa Seydoux before shooting the intimate lesbian sex scenes in ‘Blue Is the Warmest Colour’? As if that weren’t enough, the author of the graphic novel on which the film is based, Julie Maroh, accused all three of colluding in a straight fantasy of what lesbian sex might be… The director hit back, saying he was ‘humiliated’. Outrage followed when Seydoux and Exarchopoulos suggested they had been exploited during several weeks of explicit sex scenes. Back in May at the Cannes Film Festival, jury president Steven Spielberg decided to split the coveted Palme three ways, awarding it jointly to Exarchopoulos and her onscreen lover, 28-year-old Léa Seydoux, as well as the film’s director Abdellatif Kechiche (‘ Couscous’). It’s an explicit portrait of two young women falling in love. They hadn’t starred in a Palme d’Or-winning film such as ‘ Blue Is the Warmest Colour’ – the feature that Time Out is proud to present as its gala film at the London Film Festival.
And that’s no overstatement: check out what they were up to at 19 – some theatre, a bikini stunt for the paparazzi, a few flops. This talented young French actress’s breakout role has already seen her eclipse the achievements of French film icons such as Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve or Jeanne Moreau at a similar age.