Aside from being a once-in-a-generation Gallic beauty with a name full of creamy vowels, Seydoux has become one of the most thrilling stars of the past decade, since her breakout in 2013’s Blue Is the Warmest Color. (She and costar Adèle Exarchopoulos remain the only actors to ever receive Cannes’s Palme d’Or.) Before that, she’d already been in films by Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott, and Catherine Breillat; after, she worked with Yorgos Lanthimos, Sam Mendes, Xavier Dolan, and Thomas Vinterberg and maintains the rare distinction of appearing in both James Bond and Mission Impossible franchises.
In the past three years alone, she was a standout of Wes Anderson’s ensemble in The French Dispatch and led films by David Cronenberg and Mia Hansen-Løve (the range!) before turning in a tantalizing cameo in Dune: Part Two. She also starred in video game auteur Hideo Kojima’s 2019 blockbuster Death Stranding and has been a brand ambassador for Louis Vuitton since 2016.
Seydoux recently spoke with Vogue from Paris about connecting with such an extraordinary story, why she was determined to stay with the project after Ulliel’s death, and how she copes with the many things to be frightened of today.
Vogue: There’s a lot going in this film that’s out of the ordinary. Did you recognize or connect to anything personally?
Leá Seydoux: All the characters I play are always me—I don’t think I can really play someone else. I’ve played many different characters with many different directors, but as an actor, when you tell a story, you have to make it personal. You have to talk about yourself, otherwise you can’t be sincere. It can take different forms, but it has to be very incarnated. I recognized some of my fears and my questioning, as this film has also a philosophical dimension. The fact that it was challenging appealed to me—I had to make believable the same character in three different periods, and I speak both English and French.
How did you keep your character consistent through the three very different periods?
She’s driven by the same forces and fears, even if they’re not expressed the same way. In 1910 they are completely repressed. In 2014 they are overexpressed and overwhelming. Then in 2044, they are totally suppressed. She has this desire of loving—she’s desperate to love and connect with someone.