Olivier Assayas: “Kristen Stewart inspired me Personal Shopper” – Le Point

If the ghostly delusions Olivier Assayas Personal Shopper do not frankly packed Croisette, Kristen Stewart, it is passed through the mesh of criticism. It must be said that the young actress carries on his shoulders alone the feature film presented in competition at Cannes. She was able to make an attractive too smooth scenario. The filmmaker admits: Kristen Stewart is someone “completely apart.” Confessions

Le Point Pop . You did not know much Kristen Stewart when she has approached you for Sils Maria <. / i> You did not see the Twilight ..

Olivier Assayas . I had not seen all Twilight , not always matter. But those that I saw I liked. I am not the core target of these films, but still: they have at least a high quality from the perspective of their interpreters and a form of adolescent poetry that I can be easily noticeable. As for Kristen, I get the feeling from the start to see her as more than a talented actress, someone quite unique. It is, in my opinion, completely apart and freedom, an invention, a capacity to deploy extraordinary. As soon as I started working with her, I felt I was very lucky to have this actress in the service of my text. So it’s true that it made me want to extend, develop that relationship.

Hence the idea of ​​ Personal Shopper

I think the character was partly inspired by it. As I write, I thought probably not exactly like that, but, finally, it’s true I wrote this film to come out of the experience Sils Maria and that there is something observation Kristen has made its way into my writing. Perhaps I was partly conscious, but I was not sure whether to rework well together right away, I did not know if she herself would want to go to a character, a somehow, would be a little extension of his character in Sils Maria I have never spoken to him and I feel it would have slowed me if I had said. “J ‘write customized for Kristen. “But I think she was there from the outset and that the film would have been unimaginable in the background without it.

What are you trying to show with this ghost story in the middle of the fashion?

Sils Maria talking about the passage of time, age, comparing three generations of women. Here, what I want to talk – and I think this is what Kristen interested in the character – it was this tension that every one feels between materialism of the modern world, suffered a hundredfold when you’re a star like Kristen, and own intimate dimension to each individual, haunted by dreams, fantasies, anxieties and, overall, a form of invisible.

Kristen Stewart told us he was very unsettled by the way you work from …

Often the American players are accustomed us to take them by the hand. They are a little patronized, they are told: “Do like this, like that; I’ll play instead of you to show you how to do it. “I do not direct actors, I’m listening to them. I need to be the first witness. I’m always afraid that if we use too many words, it simplifies things, it reduces the range of possibilities and even the possibility of being surprised. I feel that what the best thing in the movie is when the actors surprise me. I tend to create conditions for the concentration of actors, I give them space where they can go through the way they view the scene and try to channel these energies in the service of the story that I ‘wrote. I need it to happen so in effect, if not silent, at least without having to make things very explicitly. I feel that explicit kills art.

On the set, it can sometimes be frustrating for the players, but in the end I think they are happy because they realize that I get to channel things in a way that they can be more susceptible to the end. It’s true that initially when we started on Sils Maria , Kristen probably expecting something else. But when suddenly she understood through this film that I gave him is a space of freedom that she had never, ever seen in his other films, she became interested in this method working. And suddenly, when we did Personal Shopper , things were self-evident, we had built a way to collaborate, communicate, which allows us to be very confident one another.

You have been surprised whether césarisée for Sils Maria

(Laughs) Yes, honestly, I m ‘ was said that there would never have Caesar for an American actress, it seemed completely baroque assumption. I was delighted because I think it meant a lot to her to be artistically recognized in France, the country of auteur cinema to which it tends.

Thanks to you, she finally completed its transformation post Twilight …

in this type of relationship, it has to be the right time for one and for each other. And that was the case for us. Me, it allowed me to build a relationship with an American actress, opening a door for me in the cinema, in the way I turn, and think the scenarios. And actually, it, I gave him the opportunity to be herself in the cinema, freeing maybe a little, say a kind of old skin that is one that would be built across her character Twilight.

This is the second time you come in competition at Cannes. ? Less intimidated

Just ask any filmmaker, he will tell you the same thing: no, there is zero trust. This is the paradox of Cannes, at the same time everyone wants to go there and everyone is terrified to go. More we usually Cannes, the more you experience, the more one knows how it’s awful! In the beginning, there is a form of unconsciousness and, later, when you understand, you realize everything and it’s even more intimidating.