Google translated from French
To see a career like yours and to make such a daring first feature film, it's courageous...
Cool! When I hear that, I think, "Imagine if you had done something else!" It wouldn't have made sense. If I had been hired as a director on a film and just done my job... I could never do that.
After breaking out as an actress with the Twilight saga, you took a different direction, moving towards European auteur cinema with Sils Maria (2014) and Olivier Assayas's Personal Shopper (2016).
Do you feel that this first feature film as a director marks the same kind of break in your career?
Yes, I feel like it's something that was unlocked. It's been building up for years, not just with this project. Ever since I was very young, I wanted to move to the other side of the camera, to be the one who lights the fuse. I didn't want to be in a position of power, because I don't believe a movie set can function like that. I think the only real power you have is to choose the people around you. Then, your role is to clear the way for them to shine. This film had to be very precise so it didn't feel like a complete mess. And if we had given it a simpler, more expected structure, it would have become banal. It would have just been the story of Lidia Yuknavitch who becomes a writer after going through typical struggles: a rotten father, drugs, alcohol. That's what this film tells, on paper.
In reality, it's about transforming pain into narrative, about sublimating traumatic experiences. About digging into one's wounds, one's desires, and reorganizing them. Reorganizing memory: that's what writing is all about. And there's no better medium than cinema to accurately convey that fleeting feeling of remembering an entire life. For me, this book was an opportunity to do something original.
Have you been made comments in the profession?
Many people told me that I should have chosen a simpler, more contained film for a first directorial effort, because this one was immense, fragmented. It was necessary to shoot several puzzle pieces so that the film had its own memory. The script was written quite precisely, and we stuck to it, except for one big piece that we deleted in the middle. But all the little flashes, the little lightning bolts—the images, the sounds, the flashbacks that take us back up to twenty years—were discovered on set, because I had a team and a cast ready to follow me in this way of telling the story.
The project was so difficult to put together that you temporarily put your acting career on hold to complete it. Do you want to direct more than act now?
Hmm… I think I really need to consciously jump off the train I've been on since I was 10, which is going full speed ahead. I'm landing one role after another, and I still love it. But what I love about directing is the relationship with the actors. I need to give myself more space in my life to be able to direct more. I currently have four projects in the works, bubbling over, and I'm waiting to see which one takes off first. If I keep getting attached to films because I love this director or that script… It's sad, but I have to kind of close the door and say, "No, I'm not going to read." Because if I read, I'm going to want to do it. I have to find that balance. I'm just starting out.
The film tells the story of a talented teenager facing violence and enormous pressure, and the trauma that this causes. Does this resonate with your story?
The violence suffered by every woman must remain secret: from school, we hide the fact of having our periods, of feeling uncomfortable around boys... Over time, even more things become secret. Women live hidden. The extreme events that happen to the heroine of the film, I did not experience them. But, even if we are "lucky" not to have experienced something as horrible as being desired by our father, unspeakable things, we still live in a world that considers us as an object from the age of 9 [Kristen Stewart began her career at that age by appearing in Brian Levant's The Flintstones in Vegas , released in 2000, editor's note]
There's a passage in a book I love, Animal by Lisa Taddeo [published in 2021, editor's note] , where a little girl is walking through a restaurant, and all the male gazes, from men aged 6 to 60, are on her. This feeling of being devoured by the gaze is a form of violence. Every image that is thrown at us, every expectation projected, is violent. I grew up with several brothers [she has an older brother and two adopted brothers, editor's note] . It made me strong, but it also made me grow up in a man's world, where we're always trying to meet their expectations. At the same time, you want to keep your difference, to tell yourself: "I'm not like other girls." When in fact we're all the same. I didn't become a heroin addict because of my father, but do I understand writing a story and throwing it in the trash, thinking it's rubbish? Yes. It's a deeply feminine experience. The film is about that: rearranging the things that have happened to us in order to reclaim them, transform them, and continue to live with them.
It's also a film about a woman who finally finds her voice. Have you found yours ?
In a way, yes, but I continue to question it. Even now, when you ask me that question, I wonder: how am I going to answer it? It's not just the fear of choosing the right word under pressure, like in an interview. It's mainly the fear of becoming a target. That fear has disappeared. Now, I really want to put a target on my forehead—and I realize it's completely crazy to say that today. But there's no other way to live. And, at the same time, when you individualize too much, it becomes scary. You have to listen to your voice, but understand that you're also part of a group of people who can care about you. And accept that. The film also tells this story: Lidia experiences positive things that she doesn't know she has. She finds her inner voice, but she doesn't always say "yes" to the right things. Finding your voice is a lifelong journey. Because it evolves. And the world is changing so fast that what I say today might sound different tomorrow.
The character's queer identity is evoked, notably through an abstract and poetic lesbian sex scene, without being the central focus of the story. It's like a space of freedom for Lidia. How did you approach this aspect of the story?
There is indeed a sex scene, which I affectionately call the "girly fuck trip." I didn't want the film to show a succession of men in the character's life. Her inner experience, in the book, is very queer. She's also met a lot of rotten guys. When she's with girls, we film as if from inside the body. We compare bodies to organic matter. For example, the voiceover [of Lidia's character, editor's note] says: "We pushed here." "I wanted to stay like that, outside of words, in the wet unnamed." Because we don't need to talk about it among ourselves. We share it. The most explicit shot in the film is the one where we see two fingers covered in blood. When I saw it, I was super excited. That scene is almost a short film in itself. When Lidia enters that room, she's super confident, like: "Sex? Easy, it's my middle name." "And there's this girl who really loves her and has never been through that. Lidia says to her, 'Don't worry, go for it.' But in the end, it's Lidia who finds herself completely overwhelmed, open in a way she's never known, laughing uncontrollably at the magnitude of what she's been through.
We shot that scene for three hours. It's not a sex scene, it's a portrait. And, at 4 a.m., Imogen [Poots, who plays Lidia, editor's note] couldn't take it anymore. She wanted to go home. And I said to her, "That's exactly what we're looking for. Let's keep going." And that exhaustion created an incredible emotional release. I think that's what the female gaze is.
Which films helped you make yours?
The Voyage of Morvern Callar [by Lynne Ramsay, 2003, editor's note] . The relationship with nature, and the way in which a heroine who is difficult to follow is filmed in such intimacy. We the Animals [by Jeremiah Zagar, 2019, editor's note] , which I love, with a vision of adolescence that is not clichéd, not heavy. And then the cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky. His films are like bursts of inner life. They made me understand that a film could be about a feeling, not just about "something". It was a huge discovery for me. And also Cold Water by Olivier Assayas [1994, editor's note] . There is this freedom that I have always aspired to.
You and your film represent, in a way, what the current American government hates. How do you experience this?
People will either love this film or hate it. Like everything else out there today. I'm freaking out, yes. I've always been outspoken [she proclaims her ideas loudly, editor's note] , I've always known that every gesture is political. But now, do I want to openly associate myself with certain people? The desire to leave the United States is real. On the one hand, I tell myself: I don't need to stay there. On the other hand, I want to continue making my films and releasing them there. Until they stop me. At that point, I'll say bye bye. In the meantime, it's as exhilarating as it is terrifying to release this film in the United States.
You co-wrote the comedy The Wrong Girls with your wife, Dylan Meyer, who is directing it. What's the status of the project?
It's a misconception that's been spread in the media: Dylan Meyer wrote the film alone. I starred in it, and we produced it together. It's a bigger film than mine, so it took longer to make, but Dylan is currently finishing the editing. It'll be out next year. I love this film. It's the embodiment of female joy. It's a stoner movie , so it's a little silly, but with a refreshing kind of pacifism: these girls want nothing more than to continue being together. Their biggest dilemma is whether they'll still be together after they turn 35. It's a coming-of-age story for thirtysomethings, which I think is a very topical issue. Alia Shawkat is incredibly funny, and Dylan nailed it. The film took twelve years to make, just like mine. It's crazy that they came out almost at the same time!
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