LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Lea Seydoux often takes on challenging, even provocative roles, from her breakout turn in "Blue Is The Warmest Color" to the body-horror drama "Crimes Of The Future." The French actress also co-starred in recent installments of major Hollywood franchises like "Dune," "Mission: Impossible" and "James Bond." In her latest role, she plays an avant-garde pianist whose world is ripped apart when she discovers her husband, the father of her child, is an accused pedophile.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GENTLE MONSTER")
LEA SEYDOUX: (As Lucy) I love you so much it hurts, and I want all of this to go away. Please make it go away.
FADEL: The film is called "Gentle Monster," and Seydoux joined me from Paris to talk about the role she decided to take on when others turned it down.
SEYDOUX: I love the way it was written, the complexity of the part - the fact, also, that it's through the woman's perspective, and that is very unusual. I'm looking for a certain subtlety. I've seen, like, many films that I find always very binary. And I don't like when it's, you know, like, you know, the good people, the bad people.
FADEL: Right. Black and white.
SEYDOUX: Exactly. And I like - for me, it's a way to explore, you know, the human nature. The film is mainly shot in English. I mean, I have scenes in German and scenes in French. It's the first time, actually, that I really have a complex role in English.
FADEL: I wondered about that because not only are you playing this really complicated character, trying to convey all these feelings. But you're speaking in French - yes, your native language - in German, which you've never spoken before. You're playing piano, which you've never played before. And then you're playing the role mostly in English, which is at least your second language. So how did you do that?
SEYDOUX: Yeah. For me, singing was not, like, something, I would say, too difficult, in the way that I've always loved singing...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GENTLE MONSTER")
SEYDOUX: (As Lucy, singing) Don't you know it's true? Girl, there's no one else but you. Would I lie to you, baby? Would I lie to you?
...Even though it's the first time that I play a singer in a film. So this was something that I really like. But yeah. There was the concert scenes and the piano, which was, like, something that I had to learn for the film, and the German. What I wanted to do is that - I don't like when you see the performance, if you see what I mean. I don't like when you see the craft. So I - I'm always looking for a certain truth, in a way.
FADEL: When I first heard about the subject line of it, I was like, oh. I don't know if I want to watch this. But you're right. It was quiet. It's not like I'm watching abuse. You're watching a family falling apart, a woman falling apart.
SEYDOUX: Yeah. It's, like, one shock after another. And then she's, like, going through this spiral - so many contradictory feelings. You understand that she's in love with this man and that she wants to believe he didn't do it. But then she has, like, doubts. And I love the fact that you can really read all the emotions she's going through. I cried when I read the script.
FADEL: Really?
SEYDOUX: Yes. Yeah. It was very, very moving. Like, I remember there was, like, the scene where she goes to the police.
FADEL: Is this the scene where she's told for the first time what he's accused of?
SEYDOUX: Yes.
FADEL: What an incredible scene, 'cause you're seeing it sort of dawn on her who her husband might be. Just walk me through that - playing a character who still loves this man who she thinks might be a monster.
SEYDOUX: Yes. It's also a story about, like, abuse, but in the sense that we can relate to her. It's not only about the child and child abuse. She's also abused, in a way.
FADEL: Yeah.
SEYDOUX: So she's completely under the spell. It's something very common.
FADEL: Yeah. I thought, too, there was a loneliness to your character 'cause in the beginning, everyone is making excuses for him to you. Like, oh, you should go talk to him. And you're refusing.
SEYDOUX: I've noticed that most of the time, mothers are blamed much more than men, than fathers.
FADEL: Yeah.
SEYDOUX: You know? The men - we very often find them excuses. And in the film, we see that. We see that the husband's mother - when I tell her, she says, he's my son, as Johnny is yours. You remember this?
FADEL: Like, I need - yeah. Like, I - yes. I do remember. I need to protect him the way that you protect Johnny. But it's kind of a stunning line because he might have abused Johnny.
SEYDOUX: Exactly. It's a very violent scene. I think, for me, it was one of the most, like, shocking scenes.
FADEL: I know that you were a new mother. You had just had your second child - right? - when this started. How did that play into how you built Lucy as a character and how you viewed the topic?
SEYDOUX: I think just since I have my kids, maybe I have more empathy. When I play a mother, I'm not - I try to not think too much of, like, my own kids. I really try to protect myself.
FADEL: Why are you drawn to such hard characters?
SEYDOUX: I think that I like a certain intensity. It's my way to be connected to the world, in a way. But as a kid, I've never wanted to be an actor. It was not a dream of mine.
FADEL: If you didn't grow up thinking, OK, I'm definitely getting into acting, how did you realize, oh, wow - I like this, and I'm really good at this?
SEYDOUX: I like to provoke in a gentle way. So I think that cinema just helped me to express a certain violence that I have. But I don't have only violence but, you know, like, anger, violence, many different feelings.
FADEL: Right. As I was listening to you describe what you saw as violent scenes in the film, now I understand them in that perspective, even though, again, there's no violence in this film. There's no abuse that you see in this film.
SEYDOUX: Like, inner violence.
FADEL: Exactly.
SEYDOUX: Yeah. At first, I didn't know that I was good at this. I was very, very shy. And I don't know if it's really something that you can learn. I think that the camera - the truth will always triumph - that it's something where you cannot really lie in front of a camera. But it's funny. Yeah. I have, like, this contradiction where I've never wanted to be an actor, but at the same time, I have this - it's like a need that I have. It's really a way that I found to, like, exist because also, like, as a teenager, I was very chaotic. And cinema and to do this really helped me to find a way to find the light, you know?
FADEL: That's actress Lea Seydoux. She stars in the new film "Gentle Monster." Thank you so much for speaking with us.
SEYDOUX: Thank you so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing in French). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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