The French director talks about the complex relationship with the American actor on the set of the film that will open the next Cannes Film Festival
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Working with a Hollywood star is probably every director’s dream, but all that glitters is not always gold and the difficulties that can be encountered in relating to a star do exist. The last one to tell her personal experience during an interview with the French magazine Premiere it was Maïwenn Le Besco, the much appreciated French director who had the honor and burden of directing Johnny Depp in his return to the set after the defamation lawsuit won against his ex-wife Amber Heard, in the film Jeanne Du Barry.
“Johnny is a star, a king and… an American,” said the director. “I was told never to tell him we were waiting for him to shoot a scene, I was prevented from knocking on his dressing room door.” An order, the latter, which the director transgressed: “One day I did it anyway. And he made me understand that I had made an unacceptable intrusion and he asked me how I would feel if he came knocking on my dressing room door. I told him that everyone does it all the time, because that’s how a set works in France.”
Difficulties in communication and different habits which, in any case, Maïwenn guarantees Depp is committed to overcoming: “He was making an effort – said the director – even though I realized that for him everything was still a bit confused. I get that in the US the stars aren’t really directed, they are the ones explaining to the director how they are going to play the scene and the director just goes with the flow. In France, however, the boss is the director”. How did Maiwenn behave? “For each shot – she revealed – I shot her proposals but I also asked him to interpret my vision, so that I could have a choice in the editing phase. It was a game for that.”
Johnny Depp plays King Louis XV in the film Jeanne Du Barry, which has at the center of the plot the social rise and fall of the eighteenth-century courtesan (played by Maïwenn Le Besco herself), a favorite of the king and at the center of court scandals. A woman of humble origins, Du Barry managed thanks to her charm to enter the court and win the heart of the king. The film will open the Cannes Film Festival on May 16.
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