In the son In the second opus of Florian Zeller’s trilogy, adapted for film, the American actress plays the role of a night-watchful mother in her own right.
Since the Lynchian myth blue-velvet And Sailor and Lula, since the pop culture icon jurassic park, the angry lawyer marriage history, With Oscar, or with a business woman proud of her success in the series big little lie Laura Dern has played many unforgettable characters. Film director and playwright Florian Zeller offers her a new one the son his second film to be adapted into English as the father part of his family trilogy, which was a triumph in the theater. The American actress plays the mother of a suicidal teenager who tries to find solutions with her ex-husband (the amazing Hugh Jackman). Intense score for a fascinating actress.
In the video, the son By Florian Zeller, with Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern, trailer
Miss Figaro. – Tell us about your meeting with Florian Zeller…
Laura Last. – When I first spoke to him, through the screen, everything seemed so easy, so familiar. Florian is a poet, an artist in the noblest sense of the word, who makes you question your work, your feelings, your life, not show business. He also writes universal stories. The scene where my character and her ex-husband are talking about their son in a restaurant and talking about their past loves is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read about love, marriage, the feeling of abandonment. Anyone who has ever lost love will be able to identify with it.
Do you identify with your character?
Co-parenting with an ex, wanting to do well despite divorce is something most of us know, myself included (he had two children with the singer Ben Harper, editor’s note). As a mother, even if I haven’t experienced the situations in the film, I too understand the despair, terror and heartache of being faced with the impossibility of freeing her child from her suffering.
I’ve always refused to play a sidekick, maybe because I’m an actor’s daughter
Laura Dern
Helpless and exhausted, your character is relieved by the departure of your son…
There are many instructions given to women, including motherhood, and it takes a lot of courage to admit that you don’t have the answers, that perhaps in order to save your child, you need to let him go. It’s even harder to fight when it comes to mental health. Parents tend to blame themselves, to think that their education or divorce is solely responsible for their child’s bad behavior. It’s definitely a way to maintain control, because if it’s not their fault, if no one’s fault, how can we?
Your career is marked by characters who refuse to obey dictates. How do you explain that?
I’m looking for roles for women whose voices deserve to be heard because they’ve never been given a voice because they’re marginalized. boys clubs because of their independence, their ambition, their flaws… I have always refused to play robbers, maybe because I am the daughter of actors (Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern, editor’s note) and the daughter-in-law of the actress (Shelley Winters, Editor’s Note). As a child, I accompanied my parents on the sets and, without knowing it, I was building myself by watching the cinema of the 1970s, free and bold, walking on the sets of Sydney Pollack, Martin Scorsese, Alfred Hitchcock… And then I experienced a miracle:
When Audrey Dewan directs the event, a fabulous, important film, it tells the story of your past. For us it is the present…
Laura Dern
In other words.
I went to castings at a very young age, but my first two acting experiences, at the age of 11 and 16, were with Adrian Lyne and Peter Bogdanovich. When I was 17, I met my friend and mentor David Lynch, who hired me Blue velvet. What good teachers could I dream of? David taught me to push boundaries, took me to worlds where comedy and trauma could co-exist, made me realize that you can be true in a completely insane universe. I was chosen by a film director who built his work on transgression, on the desire to move the cursors. It paved my way.
Do you have projects together?
As long as David is creating, I will be there, even holding the microphone or playing fourth roles.
“I was raised mostly by women and I live surrounded by friends”
You mentioned boys clubs Is cinema one of them?
I discovered that by becoming a producer, but I was able to grow as an actress without worrying about it because of my film family. I also had the opportunity to be part of a girls club I was raised mostly by women and live surrounded by professional friends and musicians I met while living with my children’s father. My chosen sisters have a special place in my life. That’s how my mother lived, an only daughter at the age of 16 and an actress like me. We wrote a conversation book about it, it’s coming out for Mother’s Day.
How was this book born?
My mother became very ill after prolonged exposure to pesticides and the doctors advised her to walk to recover her lungs. I accompanied him and we talked about his career, his childhood, his influences. Simone Signore has always been his favorite actress… I recorded these discussions when I realized I never had when I was afraid of losing her.
Did your mother give you a feminist upbringing?
Feminism is an interesting concept. We don’t need a word like that in France. When Audrey Dewan directs the event, a fabulous, important film, it tells the story of your past. For us it is the present, because every day young girls have secret abortions. If an American director had made this film, it would have had a hard time collecting the money and would have been shown in only a few cinemas. It is tragic. And if a woman made it in Hollywood, the film would be labeled “feminist.” But to you it “just” comes across as a great movie about a young girl who wants to choose her own destiny before the civilized world wakes up. Which, alas, never actually happened in the US.
In the video, The eventBy Audrey Dewan, excerpt
Source: Le Figaro
