Movie Sportlight—Helene Fillieres - Brief Article

WANTED BY DIRECTORS

ANDREA MEYER: You're only 29, but already you've worked with some of France's brightest directors. Cedric Klapisch, Tonie Marshall, your sister, Sophie Fillieres--which we'll get into later [Fillieres laughs]--and, of course, Claire Denis. What was it like working with Claire?

HELENE FILLIERES: She's great with actors. The movie we just shot [Vendredi Soir (Friday Night)] is about a couple who go out for a night, and I'm the woman's dream vision. They're in a restaurant, and when the husband goes to the toilet, she thinks she sees something between me and him--it's a sort of dream scene. When a woman writes a script and casts me in it, it's really thrilling because I can be her fantasy in some way. Like with Claire--it feels good that I could be the woman she would dream of if she was in that restaurant. It's always very exciting to be the incarnation of a woman director's imagination.

AM: Your first starring role was in last year's Aie, a film directed by your sister, Sophie. What was it like working with her?

HF: It was hard because she's my sister and, at the same time, fun because she's my sister. I can't pretend with her because she knows me so well. Other directors only know me as an actress, but she knows me as an actress and as a person. It was my first leading role and the part was a lot of fun, because it was that of a girl who acts all the time. It was a great exercise to play somebody who's always playing with other people.

AM: Do you think there is a difference between French actors and American actors?

HF: Oh, yes. But Hollywood is so totally different from French cinema that there's no way to compare the actors. It's really not the same thing. American scriptwriters and directors go very far, and they're very good at it. In France it's more realistic and simple. French films are small things. They're small things but good things. I think American movies have the power to take fiction really far.

Andrea Meyer is the Managing Editor of IFCRant magazine.

Left: Helene Fillieres wears a top by YOHJI YAMAMOTO.

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