Cannes regular Léa Seydoux joined playful press conference for fest opener The Second Act, where talk occasionally turned serious as the actress was peppered with several questions from the international press about her thoughts on the #MeToo era.
“I have been a very fortunate person as an actress. At the beginning of my career, I worked with people who respected me, more or less,” said Seydoux. “Some women were really victims. But in my case, I can’t compare with someone women who really went through and experienced very serious things.”
#MeToo is a contentious issue in France, where the perception is the entertainment industry has been slow to evolve. Seydoux has previously spoken about challenging conditions on Blue is the Warmest Color, her 2013 Palme d’Or winner that landed her international fame, and featured a 7-minute lesbian sex scene that took 10 days to shoot, while the film involved upwards of 100 takes for a single shot.
“When you are young actress, it’s more difficult. You are more vulnerable,” said Seydoux at Cannes Wednesday. “There’s great respect when shooting a film. People tend to be less familiar. I sense the change, even in very intimate scenes, when a film is being shot. There’s greater respect.”
The Second Act hails from French DJ-turned-director Quentin Dupieux and pokes fun at the film industry and the egos surrounding it, using a film-within-a-film conceit. The feature also tackles everything from artificial intelligence to Me Too. Despite it all, the filmmaker insisted “there’s no message” in his film, which also stars Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel, Raphaël Quenard, Manuel Guillot.
“I made fun of just about everyone, including myself,” he said of the project. “It’s like a relaxing bath with a bit of acid in the water, to amuse you in this very disquieting, worrying world.”