Marion Cotillard says her big sex scene in Annette was “very special”
The French actress says her sex-while-singing scene with Adam Driver was something she "had never done before and... will probably never do again"
Film Features Marion Cotillard
When buzz about Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard’s new movie Annette started to surface around the Cannes Film Festival, it was a little racy. Driver, critics said, had a scene in the Amazon Prime-distributed musical where he sang while “going downtown” on Cotillard, as it were. Coverage of the scene, including ours, made it sound so off-the-wall that it could be reason enough to see the film.
Even Cotillard seemed surprised about the reaction when we asked her in a recent video interview, which you can watch below. “A lot of things are very special in this movie,” she says. “I went through this experience doing things that I had never done before and that I will probably never do again.” Cotillard says that’s mainly because of the offbeat style of director Leos Carax, noting, “You never know what to expect. The only thing you know is that you’re going to be surprised.”
Cotillard also seemed surprised by the quality of the movie’s Sparks-penned earworms, saying that her duet with Driver, “We Love Each Other So Much,” “was stuck in [her] head for weeks.” She also got stuck on the film’s opening number, “May We Start,” which was shot on location in Los Angeles. According to Cotillard, “We shot the movie in Europe, but the action of the movie takes place in L.A. We were very lucky to be able to… shoot that scene in Los Angeles. The joy was was really high. That’s the scene where we are all together singing that scene, and [it was] the [last] scene, as well. So, we’re in L.A. and we were all together singing and celebrating this very special journey.”
Annette is in theaters now, as well as streaming on Amazon Prime Video. You can read our review of the movie, which we called “the weirdest Star Is Born riff ever,” right here.
14 Comments
Aren’t unexpected, surprising big sex scenes what got that Frankie Shaw in trouble?
I thought it was racist shit like segregating the writers.
What? This is outrageous! I’m sick of male producers who use their power to mishandle and sexually abuse female actors-Wait, Frankie is an attractive white woman? Oh, that’s fine then.
the QUALITY of the Sparks-penned earworms?!?! they’re nothing but dry, repetitive recitative, save for the first song which is just OK but features an excellent staging which Carax ripped off of himself in the shape of the accordion scene from Holy Motors. the music is completely amelodic and arrhythmic for 95% of the film, it’s like a whole soundtrack of nothing but the filler between the actual songs in a sung-through musical. for the first 20-30 minutes i was in heaven until i got this pit in my stomach when i realized that ALL the songs were just gonna be the same thing. at first i was trying to rationalize it like it’s some kind of Brechtian thing where all the characters just say out loud exactly what they’re thinking and feeling and doing at all times without any further insights even though it’s a film and we can clearly SEE what they’re doing, but even if that is the case it’s just a slog i was so, so excited for a Sparks musical, especially with the director and actors involved, but this was my most disappointing cinematic experience of all time. the actors pulled their weight and Carax did a really, really excellent job but the Maels dropped the fuckin’ ball. the music contains absolutely none of the typical Sparks joy, no wit, not one discernible memorable tune in the whole bunch, just the same one sentence of lyrics repeated ad nauseum in every single piece. it like yeah… no duh We Love Each Other So Much got stuck in your head, it’s literally the same line with the same delivery 37 times and over the course of shooting those scenes you probably had to say it 500 timesif the film wasn’t a full musical but there were like 5 or 6 Sparks songs that they actually put some effort into it would have been a 5 star film for me. imagine if there was anything as kinetic and cathartic as the Modern Love sequence from Mauvais Sang in this dud
It’s definitely Brechtian, with all dissonance and overt literalness intentional. But I think there are some witty and memorable tunes, including the police interrogation scene and “Six Women Have Come Forward.” I was also quite moved by the final duet.
oh yeah, that final tune (besides the outro) was pretty decent, i forgot about that one. i dunno. i definitely have to watch it again, now that the crushing disappointment is out of the way and i know what to expect, maybe i can appreciate it more on its own merits
I liked it more than you did but I largely agree, and musically I was expecting so, so much more from the movie than what we got.
I have the weirdest boner.
And some day you’re going to find someone who thinks it’s just perfect.
maybe a lady duck,* from what i understand.
* they have corkscrew genitalia, it’s a mallardy
Marion Cotillard is a damn fine actress. It’s too bad she’s nuts.
she looks like my south-east france ex girlfriend,
who was very Nice and also Nuts
So you have never seen the love scene between Willow and Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, episode “Once More With Feeling?” There is singing, going downtown and mystical levitating.
You gotta have some clout to get “spread beneath my Willow tree” on TV.