‘Call My Agent!’ Hollywood Career


At some point during the pandemic, perhaps between last August’s “Ted Lasso” and December’s “Bridgerton” release, you may have stumbled upon Netflix’s French imports. “Call my agency!” (“Dix Pour Cent” in French) is a sweet yet silly posting from the global entertainment complex, as seen through the lens of a Parisian talent agency whose agents are often kindhearted lovers of highly demanding cinema. customers.

If so, you were one of the millions who discovered it. Camille Cottin, French actress who plays the hard-nosed Andrea Martel with piercing green eyes, trying to keep her company afloat while her personal life turns upside down.

The show was one of the few joys of the pandemic, encouraging viewers to try out additional international content such as the following. “Lupin” and “money robberyBypassing the “interference” director’s “one-inch-long caption barrier”, Bong Joon Ho, cited during his 2020 Golden Globes speech. The success of “Call My Agent!” triggered spinoffs in the UK, Quebec and Turkey. And now there’s talk of an independent movie that will see Andrea Martel go to New York.

However, 42-year-old Cottin, whose background is theater and sketch comedy, “Call My Agent!” completely overlooked the phenomenon. He went to the United States while in quarantine in Paris with his wife and two young children. Apparently he was just as unhappy as the rest of us.

“I was pretty worried and a little paralyzed by the pandemic,” Cottin said in English during a recent video call. “I wanted to be creative, but I wasn’t at all. I also had a feeling that I would never be able to work again. I was scared.”

“Now, during the pandemic, everyone says ‘Call My Agent!’ I was miles away, dreaming I was buried alive,” he added with a stern laugh.

Cottin was doing this interview in a car on his way home without a costume for the Cannes Film Festival. (“Call My Agent!” No fans, the montage didn’t have a fluffy dress like hers. Juliette Binoche Worn awkwardly at the end of Season 2.) Cottin’s new movie “Still waterMatt Damon’s “playing Virginie, a working actress and single mother who guides her repentant father on a misguided journey through Marseille”, received mostly positive reviews. Manohla Dargis called him “electric” at The New York Times. Vanity Fair called her performance “bright and attractive.”

But this moment in the car was far less appealing. Her 6-year-old daughter was in a deep sleep with her head in her mother’s lap. When the car stopped, I could see the multi-tasking Cottin at work, a pink taffeta pouf on one arm and a bright Parisian sky in the background while the video call was in progress on the other. He paused for a moment to put his daughter to bed, then continued talking on the bathroom floor, a compromise he made with his child who asked him not to stray too far. Then her husband Benjamin came home. “Daddy is here!” he cried. “Virginie would have to deal with this situation on her own.”

Following a small role in Brad Pitt’s 2016 “Allied,” “Stillwater” represents Cottin’s biggest introduction ever to an American audience. It could be the role that allowed her to transition from officially obscure French actress to global sensation. Later this year, she will play Maurizio Gucci’s (Driver) girlfriend, Paola Franchi, opposite Lady Gaga and Adam Driver in “House of Gucci,” directed by Ridley Scott. And the role of Hélène, a high-ranking member of the assassin organization Twelve, in the BBC’s “Killing Eve

The international community awoke to Cottin’s charms long before we were all stuck at home in the United States. “Call My Agent!” When it appeared on British television, Cottin discovered that the program had found an audience on the English Channel. It was 2019 and he was attending a casting director’s festival in Kilkenny, Ireland, with his own French manager. He instantly became the center of attention.

“‘Can I take a selfie with you?’ They were like, ‘What? You’re the James Bond casting director,’ he said, laughing.

This and another trip to London led to her appearing in “Gucci” and meeting the producer of “Killing Eve”.

Still “Call My Agent!” “Stillwater” director Tom McCarthy had nothing to do with the decision to cast Cottin. She had not yet seen the show when she met him. Rather, he hired him based on an audition that he said surprised him and his co-authors Thomas Bidegain and Noé Debré.

“You can’t take your eyes off her when she’s on screen,” he said in a recent interview from France. “A little messy, a little everywhere. He’s funny, self-deprecating, empathetic. He is difficult. He is honest. And after watching him in the editing room for a year and a half, I feel like every moment has been lived with him.”

For Cottin, open, nurturing, and always looking for something to fix, Virginie (like Damon’s Oklahoman bully) is almost the same as herself.

“Virgin is the closest character I’ve ever had to play,” she said, although it’s one of the few roles she’s played in English. “We have the same energy. And so far, I’ve mostly been counted as women with a lot more tension. A little more control.”

Cottin has an ease of disarming that is evident in the first intro and hides the icy overlay of “Call My Agent!”. character. He doesn’t take himself too seriously – McCarthy calls him “stupid” – and you quickly realize how great his comedic potential is. It’s a skill she showcases in her best-known French role, starring in the prank TV show “Connasse”, which means “bitch” in her native language. Including his exploits Scaling Kensington Palace In search of an introduction to Prince Harry.

“Call My Agent!” Producer Dominique Besnehard described Cottin in the role of Andrea as “beautiful, biting, brave” who is “very good at going from tough to brittle”.

According to Cottin, this is a character that he both appreciates and understands, yet still finds himself far from his own personality.

“I have much less reassurance than Andrea. He is more self-confident, good at strategic and decision-making.” “If I have to make a choice, it takes too long, always too long. And I’ll ask everyone’s opinion on this.”

Cottin isn’t absolutely sure about her career, but as an actress in her 40s, she’s more aware that the highs she’s experiencing today may not predict the heights she’ll see in the future.

“Maybe if I was 20, I’d think, ‘Oh my god, maybe I’ll get an Oscar,'” he said, laughing in a sarcastic American accent. “It’s never vertical. You can take a step, think you’re going up, and then suddenly come down. Nothing is a straight line. I see these projects as trips, great trips. I can’t say, ‘Oh, I’ve done it now, I can tell what happens next’, because I don’t know. And that doesn’t mean it will happen again.”

Besnehard suggested that he could have a career like Binoche, with roles in both France and the United States. “I hope the American people don’t monopolize it,” he said.

McCarthy sees a much clearer trajectory.

“I’m predicting great things for Cami and it’s high time not just for our movie, which I think is sensational,” he said. “You can feel it when someone wins a moment in their career, gets a job, and is ready to take control.”





Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.