Sophie Marceau swaps Paris for new life in LA in 'I Love America'

Record ID: 1670186

  • Title: Sophie Marceau swaps Paris for new life in LA in 'I Love America'
  • Date: 26th April 2022
  • Summary: UNKNOWN LOCATION (APRIL 11, 2022) (REUTERS) SOUNDBITE (English) ACTRESS, SOPHIE MARCEAU, SAYING ABOUT THE FILM: “It’s, it’s like a picture of what’s going on nowadays, you know. It’s, it’s the story, it’s like ‘OK, let’s stop the moment, we’re in 2022 and what is the, the feeling, the colour of this moment in this woman’s life? And in the world in more general’, I think. So it’s more like a little tableau painting of nowadays for, for a 50-year-old woman.”
  • Embargoed: 10th May 2022 10:49
  • Keywords: Amazon Original Colin Woodell Djanis Bouzyani I Llove America Lisa Azuelos Sophie Marceau
  • Location: VARIOUS
  • City: VARIOUS
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Film,United States
  • Reuters ID: LVA003307321042022RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS PROFANE LANGUAGE IN SHOT 14, DJANIS BOUZYANI FRENCH LANGUAGE SOUNDBITE
    Actress Sophie Marceau swaps Paris for a new life in Los Angeles in "I Love America", a French Amazon Original movie inspired by director Lisa Azuelos' own personal experiences.
    Marceau portrays Lisa, who heads to California for change after her grown-up children have left home and following the death of her famous mother.
    With the help of her LA-based best friend Luka she begins dating, with some truly awkward encounters..
    "It’s like a picture of what’s going on nowadays...it’s like ‘Ok, let’s stop the moment, we’re in 2022 and what is the colour of this moment in this woman’s life? And in the world in more general’," Marceau, 55, told Reuters in an interview.
    "It’s more like a little tableau painting of nowadays for a 50-year-old woman."
    Marceau, who rose to fame in her native France with her 1980 film debut "La Boum" (The Party) before gaining international recognition with movies like "Braveheart" and the James Bond movie "The World Is Not Enough", reunites with Azuelos for the production. Azuelos previously directed Marceau in "LOL" and "A Chance Encounter".
    "Like a detective carrying out an investigation, like a painter looking for the right colour, (the film's writers) want to try to understand things," Marceau said. "I am moved when people try to understand things because I think it adds value."
    The film features painful flashbacks of Lisa as a child being abandoned by her mother. Azuelos' own mother, French singer Marie Laforet, died in 2019.
    "For me, it was quite freeing because up until filming this story and sharing it on screen, I was the only one to really carry it, to live it and to see it," Azuelos said.
    "And then suddenly during filming, there were technicians setting up, recreating the 1970s...therefore I wasn’t alone anymore...it’s strength in numbers and that’s what I like about cinema. I don’t just make films to tell my story in a selfish way, it’s because it’s the strength of the group, that’s what helps hold the world together."
    The film, released on Amazon Prime Video on April 29, also stars French actor Djanis Bouzyani as Luka and American Colin Woodell as Lisa's new love interest, John.
    "What I really loved about the relationship between Lisa and John was this idea that they should not be together from a societal stereotype and that these two connect on a deeper level through loss, through shared interests," Woodell, 30, said.
    "It's as simple as that. You can find a deeper connection and it doesn't matter what the age gap may be."
    Asked about working with Marceau, Bouzyani, known for "The Assault" and "You Derserve a Lover", said: "What touched me the most about her is that she had the same doubts as I did."
    "Despite her long career, the films she did with (late Polish director) Andrzej Zulawski, (late French film director Maurice) Pialat, and all that, to still have those doubts, for me, that’s what makes her even bigger in my eyes. She is not blasé... Like, sometimes, after three successive filming sessions, I’m like (sighs) ‘I can’t do this anymore, I’m fed up, I want to do something else’, she still had the energy, the will and that inspired me a lot.”
    In the movie, Marceau fleets between speaking in French and English, something she said she enjoyed.
    “To go back and forth from two different languages it’s fun, I like that on movies... It’s like as if you were super easy at everything," she said. "You can play violin, you can speak English fluent, you know, but nobody knows that everything is written. Nothing is natural behind that... That’s what is making movies, you know, you can pretend to be a superhero.”
    (Production: Marie-Louise Gumuchian)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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