« I'm interested in the subject, the story and the role, before the director. These three things have to be in harmony. »

PostED ON 21.10.2022

Godard, Audiard, Chabrol, Pialat... Actress Marlène Jobert remembers.

© Olivier Chassignole

The early days of the theatre

I started performing poems and, believe it or not, that was the first time anyone found me interesting. Then I didn't even complete a full year at the Conservatory. I met Claude Berri, a man who made me laugh so much, who introduced me to Simone Signoret. She suggested that I act with Montand: "Right now we're holding auditions, go ahead and try your luck!” I was too much of a ‘stalker’, and I don't have exactly a great memory of Yves, read my book... Imagine, I had only been in Paris for six months and I found myself in a leading role in the theatre opposite Montand... I didn't take advantage of it. And I didn't like the theatre.

Film debut

It was in Jean-Luc Godard’s movie, ‘Masculine Feminine’. It was my first experience in films, and I had imagined that there would always be a link with the director, but with Godard, there was nothing. He’d say, "You go in there, you come out there, that’s it". I said to myself, "Maybe I'll go back to the theatre if this is what movie-making is is like...". I never saw Godard again.

© Sandrine Thesillat / JL Mège Photography

‘Ten days wonder’ (1971) 

I read the script of this film by Chabrol, which I, little Marlène Jobert, didn't like... Even though actors like Orson Welles and Anthony Perkins were starring in it. And I didn’t want to make the film. Well, Chabrol came to my hotel room, got down on one knee and begged me... And so I did it. The shooting was superb, in Alsace, and for his birthday, he took Welles by the hand and said: "Do you know why I chose her? Because all the movies she makes are hits.” And here I thought he had selected me because I was talented...

Maurice Pialat, ‘We Won’t Grow Old Together’ (1972)

It was my stormiest shoot. When a role is well written, you get into it easily; Pialat's dialogues were so well done that they seemed improvised. I wanted to make cinema like that, "ballsy".
In this script, Pialat had taken a secret pleasure in making his autobiographical character obnoxious, and as soon as Jean Yanne tried to make his character more endearing, Pialat went crazy. Jean Yanne would say to me, "Go tell that madman that I won't say his stupid line". Pialat: "Go tell that idiot that if he continues, I'm done.” Three weeks later, the producer told me that he was throwing in the towel. I was told not to come back after the weekend. But on Monday, I don't know why, I still went to the set. Word got around that I had come back, and little by little during the day, knowing this, the crew came back, even Jean Yanne. The film made it to Cannes, where it won the Best Actor award.

Birth of a storyteller

I stopped making films because I couldn't be a caring mother. I read a lot of stories to my daughters... I started to invent them, I enjoyed it and I discovered I had an ability. When my daughter Eva said to me, "It is killing me, I want to act", I wasn’t for it, but it is true that she is very good at it. Outside of France, I'm known as ‘Eva Green's mother’ and that’s fine with me.

Reported by Charlotte Pavard