Cannes Days - Léa Seydoux

Léa Seydoux – The next big French star. She’s taking over. It took her a few years, but they were steady. From La Belle Personne, small participations in Tarantino, Woody Allen and Ridley Scott movies, until now, a prominent star in the biggest film festivals, like her very own - Cannes.

Saint Laurent, Bertrand Bonello. In Competition.

I think this is a good time to make a retrospect of her career until this year. She caught my attention with the film La Belle Personne, where she plays the role of a student, a young woman grieving and searching for meaning in life. She simply took my breath away with her stare, her melancholic (and now pretty famous) stare. I would say it’s one of her biggest marks. It’s her look, her eyes. Which, I will say again, reminds me a little of Catherine Deneuve. I should make a transition here to the other side of the screen, Léa herself, a quiet, reserved and timid person, also quite intelligent, I would say. In her work, at least that I’ve seen, her personna is very present. And so, with these characteristics, sometimes it’s really hard to understand what’s going through their minds. It’s mysterious and absolutely contagious. And like Catherine Deneuve, she’s bold and I believe she can stand on her own.

She has done minor films and some pretty interesting ones as well. She started her acting career with a teenage film. But while she was doing La belle Personne, where she played the leading role, and also working with other young French directors like Rebecca Zlotowski for another leading role in the film Belle Épine, she was already doing those Hollywood films. I had actually seen her at least three times in theaters without really noticing, only with Midnight in Paris, where I was obviously conscious about her presence. Then while she participated in yet another Hollywood film, like Mission Impossible, she dived, pretty religiously, as we all know very well, to a project called Blue is the Warmest Color. And this, to me, is the film that proved me how good and curious of an actress she will be.

It’s been a year since this film premiered at Cannes. I can say today, with clear skies and silenced streets, that her acting in the film proved her fearlessness and presence as an actor. I thought comes to my mind that can seem contradictory, but I can’t wait for her to play truly challenging roles, roles like Emma, because those are the roles that really bring out the best  in her. I want to see Léa playing someone not shy, someone talkative, yes, sometimes someone completely the opposite of her.

With significant and emotional performances in films such as Sister and Farewell My Queen, she recently starred in The Grand Budapest Hotel, she had The Beauty and the Beast, but we can say last year was her year.

Concluding my point - Léa Seydoux will be grand. 

And now, we should all present her as the Palme D’Or winner, the fierce and shy Léa Seydoux.