MP You’re here in London for the ICA presentation of your new film, as part of the ongoing series Off-Circuit. The film, C’est pas moi (2024), is directed by your longstanding collaborator Leos Carax and is formed of a series of non-narrative images. What was the process of making it? 

DL The title of the film translates to “It’s not me”, and I feel like saying “me neither”! Even if I’m present in the film, it is a film that belongs completely to Leos, because it started with a proposition from the Centre Pompidou in Paris to do an exhibition on him starting with the question, “Who are you, Leos?” It is essentially a montage of archive photos with some filmed sequences, including the scene with Monsieur Merde, a character I have played in past films with Leos. It is not a work of fiction but something more personal – his point of view on the world, on cinema. It’s a beautiful proposition. 

NW You’ve said in the past that your first language is your body. What do you mean by that? 

DL I was interested in corporeality before I was really interested in cinema. I love films from the early 20th century where the body has a large capacity for expression, in burlesque films and German expressionism. Today, everyone is capable of making images with a phone, and that ease worries me. Yet, I did not marry cinema – I always come back to the theatre. In the theatre, the sense of energy in the room is more immediate and you have a feeling of being able to work with the audience. It was Leos who drew me into the “seventh art”, as they say. I find a lot of pleasure in filmmaking and making films together with Leos. 

MP How does the gaze of the camera differ from the gaze of the theatre audience? 

DL There is quite a big difference between the two. In theatre, the people in attendance agree to participate in believing in the fiction of the character produced on stage. There is a sense of complicity within that kind of direct exchange, whereas with cinema, that relationship is always deferred. When the film screens, the character has already left that person, and the actor and the character are far away from each other. That can sometimes be quite strange. There is confusion about how the actor and the part they’re playing are somehow the same, whereas in theatre, there is a more distinct separation. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I prefer the latter – there is no con in theatrical acting. 

NW You have mentioned the word “pleasure” – but do you ever get frightened before these intensely physical performances?

DL I am afraid all the time! It’s not at all normal to get on a set and pretend that you’re someone else, and play a part in a text that doesn’t belong to you, trying to make people believe that it’s the truth, that they are your own words. Doing it in front of people is especially uncomfortable. In cinema, there is still that apprehension. The actor is like a magician, making someone else appear. But the pleasure involved means that you often end up forgetting the fear. 

NW  That dynamic of transforming the false into the apparently normal is a surreal aspect of all acting. What does surrealism mean to you? 

DL It’s difficult to explain because there’s no truth in acting – it’s absolutely subjective. Its function is to give life to the experience of humanity. On stage, we expose the prismatic elements of humanity, so I take it as a practice to see, hear and feel human experience through characters. It’s not necessarily about naturalism, because acting can be quite stylised, but it’s about finding a way to bring reality to those moments. 

MP A lot of your collaborations with Leos have hinged around him putting you in difficult situations, like the troubled production of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991) or the manifold roles he made you play in Holy Motors (2012). What is your relationship with difficulty? 

FA My first collaboration with Leos, Boy Meets Girl (1984), was not difficult, especially in comparison with theatre. There wasn’t much for me to do that was particularly perilous or acrobatic. There was a lot more dialogue in that film, lots of silence and inertia. After Mauvais Sang (1986), Leos was starting to learn about the things I can do, so with each film, there would be a new proposition for me, something new to try. Leos seemed to try and push the bar higher and higher. The shoot for Les Amants du Pont-Neuf lasted for a very long time and was kind of catastrophic because we were attempting to depict the condition of the vagrant with real sincerity. Inevitably, it ended up being a little perilous. With every collaboration I ask, why is Leos asking so much of me? I suppose it’s a way to progress, to take me somewhere new, to evolve and continue forward. 

MP You’ve done some incredible dance sequences in films like Beau travail (1999) and Holy Motors. Do you like to dance?

DL There’s lots of music that I like, but movement interests me more than dance in particular. Obviously, music creates an opportunity for expressivity, but movement in general is something that I do for pleasure. Even just walking down the street can be a pleasurable experience. But I find that the energy that comes with dancing can be something quite frightening and also very exhausting. .