Léa Seydoux names the two best actors she’s ever worked with: “Like a tornado”
Léa Seydoux has collaborated with some amazing co-stars.
There aren’t many actors who have accomplished as much as Seydoux has so quickly in their careers, as she has seemingly thrown her weight behind high-profile projects from many different areas of the industry. She is even one of the few actors to have been honoured with the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, sharing the top prize with her director and co-star for Blue is the Warmest Color.
As we know, Seydoux also became a regular Wes Anderson collaborator, one of France’s most successful leading ladies, a prominent voice actor in video games, and a recurring presence in franchises such as Dune and the Daniel Craig James Bond films.
Looking through Seydoux’s filmography offers a nearly encyclopedic breakdown of what is exciting about cinema today; she’s worked with living masters like Thomas Vinterberg and Yorgos Lanthimos, but also worked with up-and-coming talents like Xavier Dolan and Mia Hansen-Løve. Notably, she has proven that she can share the screen with any A-lister and has rarely ever taken roles that don’t offer her the opportunity to play a fleshed-out character.
Of her long roster of co-stars and collaborators, she singled out two actors as the best she’s ever worked with, one of them being Adèle Exarchopoulos, her Blue is the Warmest Color co-star. She said, “An actress who really fascinates me is Adèle. When I worked with her, she was like a tornado. Every time was just…wow! That’s real performing.”
The production of Blue is the Warmest Color has been subjected to some controversy, wherein both actors alleged that director Abdellatif Kechiche made them uncomfortable during the filming of the sex scenes, but explained that their mutual friendship helped them survive the challenging ordeal.
Given that Exarchopoulos was even less famous than Seydoux was when they worked on the film, it’s interesting that the other co-star she praised was one of the most successful actors of all time. Additionally, Seydoux also sang praises of Tom Cruise, with whom she had appeared alongside in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, saying, “He has this very, very serious thing going on. Really fascinating”.
It’s easy to forget that the cards were stacked against Cruise before making the fourth instalment in the Mission: Impossible franchise, given that the previous film had underperformed and the tabloid headlines about him had grown increasingly negative. However, Ghost Protocol felt like an old-fashioned spy adventure, and finally cracked the tone of what the rest of the series would look like.
Although Mission: Impossible is one of the best contemporary franchises, one aspect in which it has consistently fallen short is with its villains. Seydoux is the rare exception, as she was able to give a menacing performance in Ghost Protocol as the assassin Sabine Moreau.
