(Photo by Marc Piasecki/Getty Images)
When Melanie Laurent joined Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds in 2009, she was already a celebrated actress in her native France, where she began her big screen career more than a decade prior. She earned widespread acclaim for her role in that film as vengeful cinema owner Shosanna Dreyfus, and she later went on to star in other Hollywood projects like Beginners and Now You See Me, even as she continued to work in France.
In 2011, Laurent proved acting wasn’t her only talent when she decided to jump behind the camera to co-write and direct her first feature, The Adopted, which she then followed with 2014’s Breathe. Last week, she made her English language directorial debut with Galveston, a crime drama starring Ben Foster as a betrayed hitman and Elle Fanning as the young woman he inadvertently rescues. Laurent took some time out of her busy schedule to speak with RT about her Five Favorite Films, expressing her admiration for Tarantino and P.T. Anderson and explaining why films like theirs are so rare.
I would say Peau d’âne, by Jacques Demy, a French musical with Catherine Deneuve, because I fell in love with Catherine Deneuve. I was so impressed. I think that, because I watched her being a princess in that movie, that I wanted to be an actress. She was so amazing, and I love Jacques Demy movies. It’s like a real beautiful fairy tale and, I just watch that movie again and again.
I would say, Vacances romaines. I don’t know the English title. With Audrey Hepburn. Roman Holiday? I was not at all a baby girl who just wanted to be a princess, at all, but the fact is, in my movie choices, I was really obsessed with those beautiful and strong and funny and fragile women. [laughs] I was not wearing any princess dress or things like this, but in movies, I was very into it.
I would say Pulp Fiction, for sure. When you are a teenager, I would say, “What the hell is going on? If making movies looks like this, OK, I want to be a director.” Everything was kind of perfect; there was the humor. That’s why I was not just honored and happy to work with [Quentin Tarantino], but crazy happy. [laughs] When he told me he was doing the movie, I was dancing in the streets in Paris for hours. I had a sense of joy, for sure. So I would say Pulp Fiction, for everything we just love in that movie, like the dialogue, the shots, the lights, the actors, the craziness, the freedom of making something so freeing.
Then, Boogie Nights by P.T. Anderson. I loved it, kind of like for the same reason, and also because I’m very impressed by the fact you can make an artsy movie, but also a commercial one, and a popular one. It’s so rare. It’s just the most difficult thing to do, and they both did that. It’s a big inspiration for me because art films and small, independent movies are so hard to exist right now, and I think it’s very hard as a director today to feel like, can I do something free? Can I do something beautiful? Can I do something also funny but also act strong, say something about the world, but also not doing something too popular, and with some cliché subject. I feel like it’s very tricky right now to give money for a director who’s gonna have different ideas and want to do something special. So, I would say those movies, because also we need to talk about that problem right now of making small movies that don’t really exist any more, and are suffocated by those big other ones. It’s kind of scary right now.
To pick one last one, I would say… That’s hard, because I have many in my mind right now. I loved Melancholia, but I also loved Room. They’re very different. I would say those two movies, but for many different reasons. So if I have to keep one, well, let’s keep Melancholia. That was a shock because visually it was so interesting, but also I will always remember that first shot, my entire life. That big limousine was stuck and then it’s like, two persons, and you know it’s never going to work and that was that. Amazing cleverness in that shot. And also, talking about the fears and talking about depression and talking about how do you deal with that big world which is too big for you. But also a movie that’s very free. I’m just realizing I’m keeping movies that are very free. Don’t ask me my five favorite songs, please. [laughs]
Ryan Fujitani for Rotten Tomatoes: I’ve enjoyed your work as an actress, and I’ve enjoyed your work as a writer and director as well. I’m wondering which of those you enjoy the most, and which of those would you prefer to have the longest, most fruitful career in.
Melanie Laurent: Well, now I have the perfect balance, because writing a script takes a long time, and I can write scripts while I’m shooting as an actress because actors wait for hours on set. And this is my favorite thing, ideas coming up on set, and [having a place where I can] escape from a set. I just like to be in my mind. And, being a director is my passion, for sure, but when I’m not working as an actress, I’m missing it, and I’m not really happy.
Also, for specific reasons, any time I’m an actress I’m just learning from a director, so much. And observing amazing directors obviously is the best cinema school, so I’m always so happy to do it. I’m not playing the fact, “I’m a director, I know exactly what you’re going through.” I’m just an actress, except that I know how they feel, and I’m just maybe more empathetic to them when it’s complicated because I know what’s going on here. So, I would say if I can keep those two things always, that would be a dream.
Galveston opened in limited release on Friday, October 19.
Movies can transport you from your life for a little while, but did you ever let the movies transport you in life? Every country and virtually every way of life has been captured on film, so it’s rather irresistible to catch the travelling bug from the silver screen.
Today, let Rotten Tomatoes be your travel guide, as we present 10 places whose architecture, landscape, and beauty have given life to some famous movies in history. Navigate the cities below and fire up your wanderlust!
What is your top movie vacation spot?
It’s the first streaming column of the month, which means streaming services Netflix and Amazon Prime have released a ton of new titles. As usual, we’ve pared the selection down to the cream of the crop, so read on for all the new Certified Fresh selections.
This documentary by James Marsh chronicles high-wire walker Philippe Petit’s meticulous planning and execution of a daring stunt to traverse the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1974.
Available now on: Netflix, Amazon Prime
Steven Spielberg’s influential thriller stars Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw as an unlikely trio who set out to sea to take down a giant great white shark terrorizing a New England resort town.
Available now on: Netflix
Spielberg won a Best Director Oscar (in addition to four others the film won) for this World War II tale about a small group of soldiers (led by Tom Hanks) tasked with locating the last remaining son of a family who has already lost three men to the war.
Available now on: Netflix
John Wayne won a Best Actor Oscar for his role in this western as Rooster Cogburn, a grizzled US Marshall who is hired by a young girl to help bring in the man who killed her father.
Available now on: Netflix
Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter reunited for this musical horror film, based on the stage musical of the same name, about a serial killer barber who turns his victims into meat pies.
Available now on: Netflix
This documentary follows the creation of a Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit on China-inspired fashions.
Available now on: Netflix
Josh Hartnett and Ewan McGregor lead an ensemble cast in Ridley Scott’s grim and grimy adaptation of the nonfiction account of the US military’s efforts to capture a Somali despot in Mogadishu.
Available now on: Netflix
Paul Haggis’ Best Picture-winning drama examines the dangers of bigotry and xenophobia in the lives of interconnected Angelenos, whose ranks include Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Terrence Howard, Brendan Fraser, and many more.
Available now on: Netflix
This William Wyler classic is one of the definitive Audrey Hepburn vehicles; in an Oscar-winning performance, she stars alongside Gregory Peck as a princess who sneaks away from her embassy and spends a day in Rome with an American journalist.
Available now on: Amazon Prime
Matt Damon and Robin Williams star in Gus Van Sant’s Osar-winning drama about a gifted young Boston man who forms and unlikely bond with the therapist assigned to treat him and begins to consider his future differently.
Available now on: Amazon Prime
This incisive documentary focuses on corporate control (and the lack of governmental oversight) over the food industry.
Available now on: Amazon Prime
Matthew Modine and Vincent D’Onofrio star in Stanley Kubrick’s Certified Fresh Vietnam War movie, which takes viewers through a grueling boot camp before dropping them directly into the field of battle.
Available now on: Amazon Prime
Peter Capaldi returns for his second run as the good Doctor, along with Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald and Maisie Williams as Ashildr, an immortal viking, and sees the Doctor returning to his home planet of Gallifrey.
Available now on: Amazon Prime
Ryan Reynolds stars in this claustrophobic thriller about an American held hostage in Iraq who wakes up inside a buried coffin with nothing but a cell phone and a lighter to help him craft an escape plan.
Available now on: Amazon Prime
This fantasy film centers on a trio of siblings who discover a magical world of goblins in their backyard.
Available now on: Amazon Prime
Jason Segel and Ed Helms star in this film from the Duplass brothers about a slacker who thinks the universe is giving him signs to help determine his future and ends up reconnecting with his family.
Available now on: Amazon Prime
Tom Hardy stars in Nicolas Winding Refn’s unique and highly stylized look at the life of Michael Peterson, a dangerous and eccentric British criminal who went to prison in 1974 and adopted the name of the Hollywood action hero.
Available now on: Amazon Prime
Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, and Bill Murray star in Harold Ramis’s directorial debut, a beloved comedy about the unruly, unusual new members of an exclusive country club.
Available now on: Amazon Prime
(Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)
Considering she’s the little sister of two of pop culture’s most famous siblings, Elizabeth Olsen came out of relatively nowhere to wow critics and audiences with her eerie performance in last year’s cult thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene. Some observers even had her pegged for a possible Best Actress Oscar nomination. She was robbed; but we digress.
In this week’s horror release Silent House, Olsen again gets to flex her talent for freaking the hell out, only this time with more of the shocks, splatter and lurid psychology favored by the genre crowd. As Sara, a mysterious young woman trapped and fighting for her life in a dilapidated old property, Olsen has the difficult task of carrying the movie — made to resemble one queasy long take — from off-kilter beginnings to its shrieking, full-blown conclusion.
We sat down with a much calmer Olsen recently to talk about shooting the film and the pressure of following up the acclaimed Martha; but first, she took a moment to run through her five favorite films.
For me a favorite movie is a movie that you can watch at any time, and so I would say Gone With the Wind. I think the cool thing about Gone With the Wind… Well, this is what I decided, as I get older and more intelligent, why I like the film — because as a little kid I just loved the love story, and the Civil War was an interesting thing to me — but now it’s that I think it’s really cool to have the heroine of a film be someone that you really just don’t wanna like. You struggle liking her and I think that’s awesome. It is not a happy film. When it ends it’s just so heartbreaking, and I know it’s happening but I just can’t handle it every time.
I just love Woody Allen movies, so much. Annie Hall is also the first movie poster I owned — and it’s an original; I feel so happy to have it. I would love to work with Woody Allen. I would love to.
Also, Manhattan. I can watch Diane Keaton in a Woody Allen movie over and over and over again. Any time I’m on location somewhere foreign, I watch those two movies ’cause they remind me of New York and being happy. I have them on my computer.
Roman Holiday is another one of those movies: first off, I feel like I’m supposed to go to Rome, like my soul’s supposed to be in Rome, but it’s also one of those movies that I have on my computer for when I’m abroad. It also helps me fall asleep — the older movies, the way they look, for some reason, make me tired. It’s just one of those easy movies to watch and cozy up to and unwind with.
Luke Goodsell for Rotten Tomatoes: Silent House is another intense performance from you after Martha Marcy May Marlene. Do you feel any pressure with this, given the accolades you received for Martha?
Elizabeth Olsen: I think I did at first but, you know, they’re different audiences, the two movies. I’m a horror movie fan, and I want horror movie fans to go and see this movie — and that’s a very different audience than people going to art cinema. So at first I was like, “Oh I’m so nervous, what are the critics gonna say?” but now it’s just like, “Wait, this is an audience’s movie.” That’s how I’m thinking about it.
RT: You also set the bar too high for yourself. You should’ve started with a really crappy film.
Olsen: [laughs] I know.
RT: Was this actually shot in one take?
Olsen: No. No, it wasn’t. It was very difficult. We did about 13 takes, so the average take was about 10, 12 minutes; maybe a couple were seven minutes. So that’s how we did it.
RT: Did you get far into takes and then make a mistake and have to do them again?
Olsen: Every day. Every single day we did one shot, and so we literally just worked on one chunk for 12 hours. They only had one or two options that they were allowed to use in editing, because everything else would have a mistake in it and it’d be technically for nothing.
RT: I was watching closely the blood splattered on your neck, for example, to see if it moved or changed shape across shots.
Olsen: To try and find the continuity? Yeah. There were so many pictures taken at all times. Once we’d finished — actually completed a take fully, all 12 minutes, and they felt confidently about it — every single department was snapping away, all over the set, all over my body. It was just, we literally would have to pick up continuity and be, “Oh, you had a tear here — we have to put a little shiny thing here.” [laughs]
RT: So you were being watched very intensely by all these people?
Olsen: Yeah. But it was really fun to do these long takes and have the crew be a boom guy and a camera guy — and that’s it. And you’re just in a house, playing make believe. There was something really cool about that. I mean, it was exhausting and difficult, but there was something cool to it.
RT: Did filming these multiple long takes help heighten the intensity of the performance?
Olsen: It did build the intensity. I don’t know if it helped or not, because I tried hard to try and have some kind of journey and variation; but sometimes — because of the repetitive nature of how we filmed it; there’s no other way to do it, I don’t think — it definitely made things more intense. And you know, if it works it works. I sometimes wish I could go back and be like, “If only I were more brave in that part,” ’cause I feel like that was needed, or something like that — but you’re always gonna do that for every movie, so I’m just letting it go.
(Photo by Open Road Films)
RT: This character’s pretty traumatized. How do you get to a point where you’re able to escalate that trauma? What sort of preparation did you do?
Olsen: You know, we did discuss a lot — and obviously I don’t want to give away the ending — but we did discuss a lot about what happens with trauma and people who hide it, and things like that. So that’s just something that I needed to learn a little bit more about, to justify what happens in the end and understand it. When it comes to just being chased around the house and being scared for your life and trying to get out, I have a pretty fatalistic imagination — and eventually, as we were filming it, it just became like this muscle. And I was actually very sensitive in my everyday life. For instance: I wasn’t driving, but let’s say if I was driving and someone flipped me off or something, I probably would have cried. [laughs] I was so sensitive. I feel like it was such a muscle that came on, like being scared or hurt or nervous — because of doing it over and over again.
RT: Those are real tears in the film, then.
Olsen: Yeah. [laughs]
RT: These characters you’re playing — Sara in this, Martha, and even some of the parts you’ve got coming up — are so harrowed and in such emotional peril. What is it with you and these kinds of roles?
Olsen: I’m really interested in working on movies that are also kind of like different genres. I feel like Martha‘s one genre, this is a different type of genre; both are difficult in their own ways, and challenging. But I did do this movie Liberal Arts with Josh Radnor that was at Sundance; I really wanted to do something happy. [laughs] And I did.
RT: Okay. I was getting worried about you there.
Olsen: [laughs] And I’m doing a really fun movie with Dakota Fanning that’s more based in, what do you call it? It’s not like a comedy but it’s also not a drama. It’s just kind of real. We’re doing that, and then I’m doing two different period pieces — so I am trying to mix it up.
RT: Are you looking forward to playing [writer and Jack Kerouac’s wife] Edie Parker in Kill Your Darlings?
Olsen: Yeah, I’m so excited. We do that in New York at the end of March. I feel like I’m doing her autobiography in my mind, but I’m really doing four scenes of her life. [laughs] But I’m very excited. It’s gonna be a great movie.
Silent House is in theaters this week.
