2023-10-31 16:48:42
Actress, screenwriter, director, Hafsia Herzi, 35, leads a career off the beaten track, with intense and demanding films. The proof with Le Rapissement, his latest. Encounter.
Photo caption: PHOTO-CALL_ Accustomed to demanding roles, Hafsia travels to festivals. (Photo: Chopard. Sets: Chopard)
You are the heroine of Iris Kaltenbäck’s next film, The Rapture, in which you play a midwife. What little girl were you?
Hafsia Herzi: Very curious, very wise according to my mother, ears everywhere, dreamy. When I was little, I already wanted to become an actress. We didn’t go to the movies, but I watched Little House on the Prairie.
Did you want to be Laura Ingalls?
(Laughs) Or Mary! I thought she played too well. And it hasn’t gotten old, the actors are very good.
I take it that you still watch Little House on the Prairie?
Oh yes, when it’s on, I always watch!
Didn’t this profession seem inaccessible to you?
Of course, where I come from, it’s complicated (Hafsia was raised in a working-class district of Marseille, by her housekeeper mother, editor’s note). I started by doing extras, but I was already writing little things, I was observing people. And one day, a casting director called me for The Seed and the Mule. It was huge. And I told myself that even if it stopped following Abdellatif’s film [Kechiche], I had already made my dream come true. Abdellatif told me that I was made for cinema. I owe him a lot…
For this film, you received an award at the Venice Film Festival, then the César for Most Promising Actress.
A dream ! After filming, I quit school, I was in my first year of law school, I moved to Paris and I got an agent.
Since Kechiche, you have almost only made auteur cinema, with directors like Guiraudie, Bonello…
I hadn’t seen their films as a teenager, but I wanted to learn the profession, to learn from each experience. From a very young age, I knew that I didn’t want to do anything. I have always tried to refuse clichés, the roles of battered women… I went towards a demanding cinema, perhaps not the one that pays the most financially (laughs)… I come from a background where there was no no money, so I didn’t care.
Were you offered big machines?
Yes, but I refused, even if sometimes I want to play in a big comedy… But it’s not easy to make people laugh.
But you made a comedy, Fleuve noir (by Érick Zonca).
But it wasn’t a comedy, it’s a thriller!
The film seems to have had some problems and is unintentionally comedic at times. What happened ?
The film was started with Gérard Depardieu and following a week he left. Vincent Cassel replaced him at short notice. I only had seven days of filming and I don’t really know what happened (several sources, including Sandrine Kiberlain, confirm that the filming went very badly, editor’s note). In any case, I really enjoyed working with Érick Zonca and Vincent Cassel. If the film is strange, the script was really great. I didn’t really understand…
Why did you move into directing?
After The Seed and the Mule, I started writing. I have always wanted to evolve artistically and not depend on the desires of others. I produced You deserve a love for a budget of… 1000 euros, in August in Paris. I shot it with four people, two cameras, no lights, no script, no costumes or makeup, and of course, no distributor. The story ends well with the selection for Critics’ Week in Cannes, a theatrical release, Canal+… I was able to pay the whole team! Since then, several young directors, including Noémie Merlant, have called me to find out how I did it. For Bonne Mère, I was contacted by the producer Saïd Ben Saïd; the film was much easier to edit.
With Le Rapissement, you are once once more starring in your first feature film.
I get asked a lot for this. In this case, I fell in love with the scenario. For an actress, such a character is a gift. And the flow went very well with Iris Kaltenbäck. I stayed three weeks in the maternity ward to learn the gestures of the drifting midwife that I play. I liked this adventure. I was on call for twelve hours, day or night, dressed as a midwife. I had to be credible in this very technical profession. These women have a lot of merit.
How long did you tour for?
About thirty days, at the Lilas maternity ward.
Do you have any plans with Kechiche?
We talk regularly, but I don’t have any plans with him. I hope he comes back, he’s a great director. And that Intermezzo will be released one day.
What are you doing right now ?
I was fed up with Paris, it was too much stress, so I now live around Nancy. My son is two and a half years old and I now take advantage of the hours when he is at school to write my screenplays. I have two that are ready, including The Little One, inspired by the novel by Fatima Daas, but I won’t play in them. Otherwise, we will see me once more soon in Borgo, where I play a prison guard, and André Téchiné’s film, In the Viewfinder, with Isabelle Huppert. And I’m going to meet Isabelle in October for the filming of the new Patricia Mazuy, Deceptive Portrait. As I play an employee in a dry cleaner, I also have to learn the gestures. It’s truly a great year…
The Rapture of Iris Kaltenbäck
Released October 11
By Marc Godin
1698829240
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