Always A Bridesmaid..

By: Kevin Filipski

Tuesday May 15, 2007

Actress Laura Smet Interview
French actress Laura Smet certainly has an impressive pedigree.

Her mother is the luminous veteran actress Nathalie Baye-whose stupendous performance as a troubled veteran policewoman dominates Le Petit Lieutenant, an engrossing detective drama now on DVD from Koch Lorber-and her father is pop singer Johnny Halliday, not only a singing icon in France but also a movie star (The Man on the Train, Godard's Detective).

But Smet's onscreen career smacks of anything but nepotism. This dazzlingly gifted 23-year-old actress has only been in a handful of films, but is already making a name for herself apart from Baye or Halliday: in Xavier Giannoli's downbeat drama Eager Bodies, Smet gives a heartbreaking portrayal of a young woman with a fatal disease. And in Claude Chabrol's thriller The Bridesmaid-recently released on DVD from First Run-Smet expertly plays Senta, the disturbed young woman who suckers handsome but naive Philippe (Benoit Magimel) into a relationship that becomes more and more bizarre after they meet at his sister's wedding.

In typical Chabrol fashion, The Bridesmaid-based on a novel by Ruth Rendell, whose work had earlier been adapted for the screen by Chabrol in the equally creepy La Ceremonie-is a movie where the murderous goings-on occur in seemingly normal places, which has been his modus operandi for nearly fifty years of filmmaking.

While in New York for the first screenings of The Bridesmaid, Smet sat down to discuss her work in films.

The locations for The Bridesmaid are familiar to Chabrol's admirers. What can you tell us about them?

From what I know, Claude always loves shooting outside of Paris, in the provinces, in the countryside. It's because everything always seems calm and normal there, but underneath the worst things can happen. I also know that for myself, because our family has a country house and I saw that myself while we were living there.

How did you prepare to play Senta in The Bridesmaid?

I didn't talk with Claude beforehand very much at all. By and large, I stuck to reading the script and the novel. To me, what was useful in the script were certain indications about the various moods of my character. At no point in the film is there any real proof that she has simply invented all of these stories that she tells, so I think of her in a way as an actress: she has read an enormous amount, and she is an actress in life-a great actress in real life.



What did you get from reading Rendell's novel?

The novel provided a great amount of detail about my character. Interestingly, there were many details and descriptions that Claude changed about the characters: in the novel, my character has long brown hair and she's much more gothic; she's almost borderline anorexic in the novel, but she's much more physical in the film, with short hair. It's interesting to read those descriptions even if they're changed in the script because it gives me another angle of looking at these characters, especially mine.

Chabrol makes films with the same crew, including members of his family. How did that affect your work?

Claude likes to work people he likes, so he works with the same people all the time. But it's very unusual: his wife Aurore is the script supervisor, his son Thomas is an actor and his son Matthieu writes the music. There's a great camaraderie on the set: everybody knows everybody. I came onto the set two weeks after shooting had begun, so I didn't know how to react at first. But when you're with people who know what they're doing, it all works out in the end.

You first appeared in Eager Bodies, a great film that was never released in America. (It played at a few festivals in New York and other cities.) Why do you think that it didn't do well outside France?

I think the film didn't connect with some people because of the subject matter: it was so dark, and dealt unflinchingly with life and death. Nevertheless, I had the incredible fortune of working with someone who made me proud of my work on that film: (writer/director) Xavier Giannoli. We actually shot the movie in a hospital with real patients, nurses and doctors. What motivates and transfixes you is that you are facing this reality every day, and it forces you to go further as an actor. My mother told me that in her career there are two or three films that she looks back fondly on, that she's proud of having made. Eager Bodies will always be one for me.

Since your parents are both famous actors, was it a foregone conclusion that you would become an actor also?

Actually, at first I wanted to be an acting agent, so the best way to prepare for that was to go to drama school. I went there for a few years, then I got trapped because I liked it more and more. I first acted in a tiny little short, and I was recommended to Giannoli for Eager Bodies by the director. My parents didn't encourage me one way or another: they were happy to see me do something that I liked doing. My parents both know the profession, they know all the ropes so they can warn me about all the dangers. And I am very lucky to have that.

How did you deal with shaving your head to play Charlotte, who is dying in Eager Bodies?

First of all, Giannoli thought that shaving my head would be very good for the character. By the time of The Bridesmaid, I had grown my hair back-but it's natural for actors to keep changing their characters, and I am constantly reinventing myself. As for my shaved head in Eager Bodies, it was amazing-I went around in real life with the shaved head and I saw how differently people looked at me. I went to cafes and bars looking like that and people didn't dare look in my eyes because they didn't know what my story was. As an actor, you're always changing your looks: it might not always show you in the best light, but if it serves the character, then you should do it.