With a wink to the reality behind the scenes of movies and series, Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Kiberlain bring the humour, dynamic and wit of the French hit series Call My Agent! to the screen. Marc Fitoussi brings his experience with both métiers to All About Corinne where the two iconic actresses play colleagues who end up becoming unlike and unlikely friends. On site at Locarno where the star-satire will celebrate its world premiere as the festival's closing film, Huppert, Kiberlain and Fitoussi found time for an interview to talk about the delicate connection between their real and fictional personas, inventing yourself at any age, and respecting the audience's intelligence.
Lida Bach: Marc, you’ve decided to make a film about actresses, especially a supporting actress, who are often in the frame but rarely in the story. What intrigued you about this?
Marc Fitoussi: It’s a subject that interests and affects me. I had already made a documentary on this topic. I followed various extras on different sets and visited various film shoots. Throughout the shoots, I focused solely on the extras, trying to bring them to the forefront while keeping the main actors in the background. I found something very moving in their stories because I saw that these were people who dreamed of being seen, being able to act, having better roles.
There was something about it that reflects in the tone of this film, which can sometimes be funny, certainly witty, but also moving and melancholic. This subject deserved to be treated as fiction, but I was trying to find an original way to approach it. That’s how I came up with offering this extra role to Isabelle, who embodies the established actress we see so much of.
LB: Isabelle and Sandrine, the story is about a woman who reinvents herself later in life. Do you think you’ve had to reinvent yourself during your careers? Or was there a specific point when you truly reinvented yourself?
Isabelle Huppert: I’m not far enough along in my life to have had to reinvent myself. It’s too soon.
Sandrine Kiberlain: Whereas I’ve already felt the need to reinvent myself. Six years ago I wanted to move to the other side of the camera, even though I’ve been an actress for 30 years. I find it fantastic to reinvent yourself over the years and dare to do something without worrying about whether it will be well received or not. I was able to do it because I was at the point in my acting career that I was, and I’m fortunate that I could do so. Reinventing yourself is a privilege. If you have that urge at some point and you just go for it. I didn’t see it as a risk at all, but as an opportunity.
LB: How did you portray a woman who can be difficult without judging her?
Isabelle Huppert: There’s no need to judge her. We rarely judge the characters we play. I’ve never asked myself about any of my characters: “Is she good or is she bad?”. What I liked from the beginning is that she’s not a victim. She might in some ways be a systemic victim, to use a slightly trendy term, but doesn’t behave like a victim, That’s why Marc’s film is interesting, too: It deals with characters who have been shaped by a system. if there is a somewhat critical point of view, Marc always manages to convey it through my character, using humor and distance. From the very beginning of the film, she grumbles. She’s never happy. She complains. And yet she still fights for something. She’s strong.
At the beginning, she’s introduced by an assistant who describes her as a real pain, as unbearable. Conversely, it’s also through dialogue that we initially get our first glimpse of Sandrine’s character. In the waiting room, my character says of her, “She seems really nice, she could be a good friend.” I actually like that these two ideas are transformed. There’s a kind of dialogue that shifts throughout the sequences, revealing someone who isn’t annoying at all, but simply very professional. Very passionate.
LB: Isabelle and Sandrine, you have great chemistry on screen. Did you also spontaneously improvise elements, or were all the dialogue and actions very scripted?
Isabelle Huppert: Very scripted. We wouldn’t change a word. But there’s still improvisation in the pleasure of acting, of inventing what you do as you do it. True improvisation is another matter. There are many stories about improvisation. With Marc’s dialogue, you don’t want to improvise. But you can invent whatever you want when you’re acting because it’s so well written and the dynamic is so wonderful.
It’s like anything that’s successful. The more structured it is, the more precise it is, the more talented it is, the more it offers us the opportunity to invent within that framework, since we know it’s already perfect. That allows us to invent things in the moment and to feel things in the moment. But for me, there’s not a word I would change.
Marc Fitoussi: As a director, it’s true that I really enjoy focusing on the takes that follow one another and improve. I also sense something in front of me, something very stimulating, where you feel you can still do more. At that moment, I was very much an observer, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s extremely pleasant to see that the atmosphere allows everyone to have fun trying things out.
Isabelle Huppert: Yes, because the foundation is very solid.
Marc Fitoussi: I give absolutely no direction on the first take. I really want to slow things down, or at least give the scene a certain feel right away. I sometimes readjust if I feel it’s necessary, but I also really like being with that first impression—surprised, a spectator.
LB: Sandrine, did you have to decide where to draw the line between self-deprecation and intimacy?
Sandrine Kiberlain: There isn’t really a line. The point is to have fun with it. I don’t feel like I was playing myself. I feel like I was playing this fictional character, undoubtedly made up of things about me that Marc knows. That’s what amused me: getting into the skin of this Sandrine Kiberlain, who experiences fame with a certain exuberance. She has certain whims, some of which definitely aren’t mine. I also enjoy that slight incongruity, that little wink to the audience who might have their own fantasies about me.
You should never treat the viewer like an idiot. Doing it this way puts the viewer on the same page as us. Whether it’s with the initial premise that Isabelle is just an extra, people are already having fun because they know she isn’t. They’re already part of the joke with us. They know I don’t dress like that in real life. They’ve never seen me with hair like that.
We’re saying to them: come with us, we’re going to laugh about it together. And we’ll cry together, of course. That’s also why I think the film is so successful. It’s funny and profound because people ultimately understand what’s going on. The multitude of what each of us is: the pain of those we believe have none, and the joys of those we believe to be victims. They know we’re entering a certain kind of fiction. The strength is that we do believe it, because the film isn’t just a joke, and that’s all there is to it.
Isabelle Huppert: What’s also funny is the blurring of lines. I play a character, an extra, just as I can play a shopkeeper, a butcher, a baker. I’m an actress, so by definition, I can play anything and make people believe anything. The way Marc and Sandrine play with Sandrine’s character is really about this blurring of lines between reality and fiction. Everyone thinks she’s Sandrine Kiberlain, except she’s a slightly fictionalized Sandrine Kiberlain. And that’s hilarious.
The challenge was to find the right balance, as it plays on the confusion experienced by the viewer. In any case, regarding celebrity, we only know one image, one representation. So it touches on that. We never know the truth about a famous person. So, blurring the lines of fantasy is hilarious because it emphasizes that we don’t know.
LB: Marc, the film is based on a popular television series, but there are also parallels with classic films like Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve— the film’s international title, in fact, is All About Corinne. How were these ideas developed?
Marc Fitoussi: The theme of rivalry emerged, and it’s something I tried to avoid. I felt it was the easiest direction to take. The idea is that, suddenly, this character, Corinne Maclou, wants to take Sandrine’s place. What I find beautiful about the film is precisely that it’s not like that at all. There’s something very noble in Corinne’s approach to Sandrine, which stems from her respect for her. Even more so, she values her from the beginning. She defends her when the extras in the room criticize her. She supports her because she believes Sandrine has talent.
Similarly, Sandrine supports this extra because she saw her act and is convinced that she’s someone who simply hasn’t had her chance. It has all the ingredients of a revenge movie, but is actually not at all like one. That’s precisely what the film does: it’s never completely where you expect it to be. That kind of cinema appeals to me greatly. It means avoiding what I consider to be pitfalls.
Sandrine Kiberlain: Corinne’s triumph doesn’t come at Sandrine’s expense. They will now be partners in the same film. Sandrine is so happy for Corinne.
LB: What are your hopes for Locarno? And how do you feel about watching the film with 7,000 people?
Marc Fitoussi: The applause! It’s our world premiere, so to start here, outdoors, with 7,000 people discovering the film, is incredibly joyful and definitely memorable. Any director would dream of being able to show their film in this square, with this audience.
Isabelle Huppert: We’re just worried about the weather.
Sandrine Kiberlain: No, it’ll be fine.
LB: You’ve done some television and film work. Do you sometimes consider television, or do you still see film as the real deal compared to television? Since television is becoming much more prestigious.
Isabelle Huppert: I haven’t acted in television that much. I don’t consider myself...
Sandrine Kiberlain: No, you haven’t acted in television in a long time. No, really.
Isabelle Huppert: When I started out as an actress, my main roles were in television. I’ve worked with some wonderful directors in television. I did a segment of Call My Agent! that we enjoyed doing because we did it with Marc. I’ve had a few series experiences, but very specific ones, like with Matthew Weiner on The States. But a major television experience, or series experience, I’ve never had. It’s a different experience.
It’s not exactly cinema. You don’t have a single, individual vision of a director, like you do in movies. It’s constantly evolving. You might be able to develop a character, but you don’t have a vision like a director’s. But it has its merits.
Sandrine Kiberlain: For me, it’s exactly the same. I also did Call My Agent! with Marc, but that’s all. I’m very attached to auteur cinema. What Isabelle is saying is also my view. For me, it’s always been cinema. I was a very cinephile viewer, and I have a passion for the screen, for cinema. Everything related to cinema, even everything that makes cinema itself. Like festivals.
Marc Fitoussi: What’s also a bit strange about series is that there are certain structures even we don’t fully understand. Even as someone who works on TV series, I still don’t understand whether the showrunner is more important than the director. Sometimes in interviews, the showrunner presents himself as a great conductor, while we, the directors, have never met him. It’s a place where suddenly relationships that were very clear and simple become distorted, sometimes even manipulated.
With Call My Agent! The producers were keen for the directors to be able to co-write the episodes and have complete control over them. So, when I reunited with Isabelle or Sandrine, it was like we were making a small film, a new auteur film, without feeling like we were part of a series. There’s something about it that transcends us.
Isabelle Huppert: Yes, there are auteur series, too, some very interesting ones. But series are a bit like Thai restaurants. There’s always one that’s better than the other.
Sandrine Kiberlain: What a great phrase!
Isabelle Huppert: And we keep going to try the next Thai restaurant. It’s also because I’m not a TV series viewer. You really mustn’t miss the next episode. I’d be interested in trying it out.
Marc Fitoussi: I think the real difficulty with series today is the filming schedule. I remember... I still don’t know how we managed it, the episode we filmed with Isabelle, because it’s a 10% episode, it’s the longest. Oddly enough, a 10% episode is 52 minutes long. We made a one-hour-and-20-minute episode, with deleted scenes, too. And we had 11 days of filming. What’s crazy, actually, is that it was 11 days in total. But it’s still about the camera. It’s also a different way of working.
LB: Thank you for your time and for the interview!