Marion Cotillard was not the first actress cast in the role of Ann Defrasnoux in the musical fantasy “Annette.” In fact, she wasn’t even the second. But when she was eventually offered the part in Leos Carax’s long in the works oeuvre she simply couldn’t say no.
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“He’s one of the greatest artists, and I never thought I could work with him one day. He did six movies in 40 years, so the simple fact that he wanted to work with me, I felt so lucky about,” Cotillard says. “And then I read the script and it really, deeply resonated in me. I never tried to find connections between a Carax character and myself, but there were obviously a lot of connections. And this question that I’ve had for many years now, on the subject of the need for recognition? That has been a big question in my life. And I thought that the way Leos Carax, and the Sparks, explore that theme was very deep and very interesting.”
Written and composed by the Sparks Brothers, Ron and Russell Mael, “Annette” begins as a love story between Ann, a world-famous Opera singer, and Henry McHenry (Adam Driver), a boundary-pushing comedian. Watching from the sidelines is a character simply known as The Accompanist (Simon Helberg), a conductor and musician who becomes intertwined in the events of the film. Best known for his role on “The Big Bang Theory,” this opportunity for Helberg was a dream come true.
“It always felt like it wasn’t really happening in some way,” Helberg says. “I felt like there’s some obscure, enigmatic, brilliant, auteur director who lives in a storage container in the south of France. We can’t really get to him, but we’ve heard, he’s radioed in that he wants to make this movie. That was always the impression was we can’t get to him, but he does want to see tapes of people. It was like, ‘Oh my God. O.K.;”
Helberg had heard of the project, Driver had been publicly attached for years, but was told they were only looking for European citizens to help with the financing. The LA native’s wife happened to be French and, no joke, Helberg began rushing through the process to obtain French citizenship. That’s not what landed him the role, however (although he did end up getting the passport eventually). It was his piano playing skills, demonstrated n his role alongside Meryl Streep in “Florence Foster Jenkins,” that sealed the deal.
“When I made the tape to send to Leos, I was like, ‘I’m never going to hear from this guy.’ Because no agents could talk to him and even the casting director was making it sound like, ‘Look, he doesn’t meet people. He won’t get on a cell phone.’ All these things. So when I sent the tape, I heard back from him 24 hours later that he liked it. I heard through the casting director and then I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ And then from then, it was months and months and months of not knowing if he then wanted to meet with me. And eventually, I met him in New York and he said very few words to me.”
That’s not a surprise. Carax is known to be quite shy in front of the media and quiet in person. Many would say the fact Carax was willing to meet in the first place was a sincere compliment to Helberg.
“We went to a restaurant and he ordered a grapefruit juice and we sat and he sipped his juice and looked at me. And I just thought, ‘He doesn’t like me.’ I couldn’t even tell if he had seen my tape,” Helberg recalls. “And I don’t think he was that impressed. I think he has such a specific vision of the movie and it’s hard for him, which makes sense to me, to really imagine actor’s being able to live out what he is seeing in his head, especially not having seen them do the whole thing. I think that was a challenge for him. And that’s probably why I felt that he might not be that won over by me at that point. But ultimately, yeah, it somehow ended with me standing there on set in Belgium, conducting an orchestra and I couldn’t believe it. It was such a journey.”
Helberg adds that it was “one of the great thrills of my entire life, honestly, getting to work with him.”
Cotillard has released her own music in the past and sang in films such as Rob Marshall’s movie adaptation of “Nine.” While she sings numerous songs in “Annette,” it was the group number that kicks off the proceedings that she says is her favorite.
“I really enjoyed the opening of the movie, ‘So May We Start,’ for many reasons,” Cotillard reveals. “First of all, the action of the movie takes place in LA. And because we didn’t have the money to come to shoot to LA, we had to shoot in Europe. But then we found enough money to come to LA to finish the movie. So we shot this opening scene at the end of the shooting in LA, and we’re all so happy to be here. It was like a dream come true for Leos. So it had a very special flavor.”
According to the cast, Carax filmed the mostly one-shot take 15 times. Cotillard sounds like she would happily kept going if he asked.
“Oh, that was just fun. I’m the kind of actress who can do takes forever, so I never mind,” Cotillard says. “I mean if it’s necessary. If I’m on set with a director who will ask me, like a hundred takes for something I don’t understand, I guess I won’t enjoy it. But this time, I enjoyed every part of it.”
One aspect of the production that impressed Helberg was how efficient everything was under Carax’s direction. And that was very evident during “So May We Start.”
“Even when it felt a little like we were taking these big swings and going for the impossible, it always felt like people worked hard to make that impossible thing happen,” Helberg says. “And yeah, that was a wild shot. It was the very end of the movie. We had shot the whole thing. It was the first thing we shot in the US. Everyone was in LA. It was really just as fun as it looks getting to see everybody again and walk down Santa Monica Boulevard and the kids singing and harmonizing. And it was like, oh, it was just such an incredible feeling to wrap that whole thing back in LA and what a great song too. So yeah, it was pretty spectacular.”
“Annette” is now available in theaters and on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.