Lea Seydoux felt starring in Gentle Monster was “important”.
Lea Seydoux relished starring in the movie
The 41-year-old actress plays Lucy Weiss, a successful pianist who sacrifices her own career to support her partner after he suffers burnout, in the movie, and Lea insists she didn’t have any hesitation about boarding the film.
Lea told The Hollywood Reporter: “I think it’s controversial, but also realisation. It was important to tell this story because it’s reality. I had no problem with the subject matter.”
The actress found it easy to relate to her on-screen character.
She said: “You are with Lucy, always with her, with all these different emotions that are contradictory. I have a lot of empathy. I’m extremely emotionally sensitive. It was natural. Some characters are more difficult to find, but Lucy was not that hard.”
Lea also relished the experience of working with director Marie Kreutzer.
She reflected: “I felt that Marie sometimes was looking at me a certain way, and I don’t know what crossed her mind exactly — but she was surprised by the things I did.
“I did my own little mixture. I had to pour in my own secrets. Sometimes as an actor, you know the character even better than the director.”
Lea is thrilled that the film will be aired on Netflix and she’s excited to see how fans will react.
She said: “There have not been many movies made about this, and with a platform like Netflix, I’m curious to see how people will react. It’s an important movie to watch. And I like when it’s intense.”
Marie also enjoyed the experience of working with Lea.
The director explained: “What I really loved about Lea is that she’s unconventional herself — she’s really a free spirit. She questioned a lot of things and we discussed a lot of things, but she never questioned Lucy’s actions.”
Lea played Dr Madeleine Swann in the James Bond film franchise, and the actress previously rubbished the idea of there being a female 007.
Lea – who starred in No Time To Die and Spectre – told Sky News: “James Bond is James Bond. I don’t think James Bond should be played by a woman.”
The actress acknowledges that young girls need to have “strong” female role models.
However, Lea also believes that a female spy should lead another film franchise and not the Bond series.
She told Sky News: “It’s important for young girls … to have a good example of strong women – maybe they could do a female spy, but it would be another film.”