Marion Cotillard thrilled by gritty role in Two Days, One Night
The French star's desire to work with the Dardenne brothers in their latest movie has resulted in a best-actress Oscar nomination, writes James Mottram
Marion Cotillard can count such esteemed Hollywood directors as Christopher Nolan and Steven Soderbergh among her collaborators. But the French actress has not forgotten her European roots. And it's why, when we meet in a beachside terrace in Cannes, she practically lights up on the subject of her Belgian filmmaking friends Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the brotherly duo behind such Cannes Film Festival winners as Rosetta (1999) and The Kid with a Bike (2011).
Rarely do the Dardennes work with "name" actors, preferring unknowns or non-professionals, so for Cotillard to score the lead in their latest, Two Days, One Night, was huge. "I remember our first meeting," she says, her eyes widening. "I was trying to act cool, they were talking and suddenly I said, 'Just a minute, guys. You see a girl that is pretty cool right now, but inside of myself, it's like a circus, jumping, screaming, going, 'Oh my God, is it possible that these two guys want to work with me?'"
While there's a saying "never work with your heroes", Cotillard dubs it "one of the greatest experiences that I had as an actress". To top it all, her work on the film has resulted in a nomination for this year's Oscars, competing in the best-actress category, which she famously won in 2007 for her gutsy turn as Edith Piaf in Olivier Dahan's biopic La Vie en Rose. And it's easy to see why the Academy might vote for Cotillard again, with her role as Sandra in Two Days, One Night helping to further reveal her range.
A married mother who has just recovered from a breakdown, Sandra returns to work at a solar panel factory to discover there are plans afoot to make her redundant. Rather than wilt, she petitions her colleagues to vote to save her job - a humiliating task that's made even harder as each has been offered a bonus to make up for working harder in her absence.
Given job redundancies have been common in the wake of the recent global recession, playing Sandra hardly required "deep research", says Cotillard. "I'm aware of what's happening in this world and what our society has created, in terms of not putting the human being in the centre of what we do. Also, people I know are closer to Sandra's world than me, so I didn't have to research about this world, because I know what it is, and I live in it, and I'm very interested by this society we live in."