Image via Complex Original
Everybody wants to talk about the sex.
The graphic love-making depicted in Blue Is the Warmest Color, by far the most controversial film of the year, has been debated since the movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, where it won the Palme d'Or, the festival's biggest prize. In recent months, the controversy has turned to the perhaps unethical methods of director Abdellatif Kechiche. All of it is building to a perfect storm of buzz before the movie opens in select theaters this Friday, October 25. Kechiche was accused of violating labor laws and harassment by the cast and crew, and in an interview with The Daily Beast, both Léa Sedoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos described the snot, blood, and physical and emotional violence of the never ending filming process. Both were quoted saying they would never work with Kechiche again.
The three-hour film centers around high school student Adèle (Exarchopoulos) who, unsatisfied with her life, meets Emma (Seydoux), a confident older art student who brings on a sexual awakening in the younger girl. Kechiche's practices are suspect, but there's not mistaking the movie for anything less than brilliant. It captures first love (and the first breakup) with more heart and harsh truth than anything else out. (Maybe this is why the state of Idaho has effectively banned the movie.)
Seydoux is one of the biggest actresses in France, but she and Exarchopolous are virtually unknown in the States, so don't be embarrassed that you've never heard of them/can't pronounce either of their names. Because the movie is so good, though, you should acquaint yourself with the two stars. It's time to meet your new favorite Adele (and Lea, of course).
Seydoux didn't start acting until she was 19. She earned her first movie role when she was 21, in Mes copines (2006).
When Seydoux was 10, she was crazy about Barbies and the color pink. She tried to hide her girly side after the boy she was crushing on (who happened to be her cousin) told her he hated girls who like Barbies. He eventually walked in on her playing with Barbies; she was mortified.
Seydoux loves making American films because she finds them more entertaining (French films are more intimate), and she loves speaking English.
Seydoux's grandfather is Jérôme Seydoux, chairman of Pathé, a French business that became the largest film equipment and production company in the world in the early 1900s. In 1908 it created the newsreel shown before a film in theatres. Her great uncle, Nicolas Seydoux, is the chairman and CEO of Gaumont, a major French film studio.
[via IMDB]
After Seydoux auditioned for Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds, he excused himself to use the bathroom and proceeded to take a leak behind her. She says she heard him peeing for 10 minutes while she tried to remember her lines.
Seydoux went to summer camp in Maryland for six years. She recalls canoeing and playing volleyball.
Seydoux wanted to be an opera singer, but only turned to acting to impress a guy she liked.
In 2011, Seydoux appeared in an American Apparel ad campaign.
[via Fashionista]
Seydoux says her dream birthday party would include Friedrich Nietzsche, Michael Jackson, Charles Chaplin, Maria Callas, and Serge Gainsbourg as guests.
[via IMDB]
Leá Seydoux didn't mind having blue hair for the movie, but it was hard to dress with. She said the contrast with her skin tone made her look ill.
Exarchopoulos's parents sent her to acting class at the age of nine to help her get over her shyness.
Exarchopoulos's first role, in the Jane Birkin biopic Boxes (2007), flew under the radar. It wasn't until a year later when she was cast as Marianne in Les enfants de Timpelbach (2008), a movie about children who run all of the adults out of town that she was noticed.
[via IMDB]