Virginie gained 20 kilos to play with Efira: who is this actress?

What is it about? Sylvie lives in Brest with her two children, Sofia and Jean-Jacques. One night, Sofiane was injured while being alone in the apartment. Social services warn and place the child at home while they investigate. Convinced that she has been the victim of a miscarriage of justice, Sylvie begins a fight to get her son back.

This is the week’s movie nugget: Virginie Efira is a mother with ‘nothing to lose’

Felix Lefebvre gained 20 kilos!

Jean-Jacques, one of the sons of the Mother Courage character played by Virginie Efira, portrays Félix Lefebvre, revealed by Francois Ozon thanks to Summer 85 (2020). For the role of this bulimic and anxious teenager (almost a young adult), this popular actress (also seen as an NTM manager in the biopic Supremes and as Cécile de France’s lover in the drama La Passagère) gained 20 kilograms:

“I was amazed by the sensitivity of this great role, his appearance, the way he interacted. He needs help and never puts his problems on the table, but inside, it works. For all these reasons I I wanted to physically invest in it to better interpret it.”Felix told the AlloCiné microphone during the Nothing to lose presentation at Cannes in the Uncertain Point of View selection.

César 2024: They’re in Le Consentement, Flo… Who are the revelations of the year?

To find an interpreter for Jean-Jacques, director Delphine Deloge first did a wild casting, but quickly realized that he needed an experienced actor: “I wanted to shoot a guy with weight problems and especially bulimia. Felix followed me in this idea. He took the role, offered to gain kilograms, almost 20! “It’s an impressive investment.”

“The problem of the past in the film is that Jean-Jacques dominated, but remains latent. What does this flaw say about him, his life, his relationship with his mother? It’s a psychological problem, family. Trauma or the difficulty of being, which should not look for a reason? I had in mind an image from the documentary, Armand, in the summer of fifteen-year-old Blaise Harrison, with a little boy, little round, mysterious.

The first feature film

Nothing to Lose is the first feature film by Delphine Delog, who has directed two short feature films (Santa Claus and the Cowboy in 2012 and Tiger in 2019). He confides: “Originally, I came from documentaries, making both journalistic documentaries and so-called ‘auteur’ documentaries in forms that sometimes borrow from fiction (such as Voyage en Barbarie, which won the Albert Londres prize). I see this fiction as logical. There is another way to continue my work in fiction, and it’s not the same limitations.”

“But in documentary and fiction, the same questions of cinema arise: point of view, issues of staging, finding visual form, how to go beyond the subject to make the story universal… Pour Rien. After the loss, I really wanted to work with actors, create characters, create a world, that was my main motivation, even before I wanted to tell a story.

Napoleon: What started the film with Joaquin Phoenix at the French box office?

Virgin air, obviously

Delphine Deluget offered the role of Sylvie to Virgin Air in 2019: “He was very patient. He could have refused because the funding was slow, but no, he had an unwavering commitment. I was very moved by the confidence he had and maintained all these years. Starting a first film is also a risky business. Less funded, A more chaotic project”The director recalls and continues:

“He was there. Virgin is someone who lays out his doubts before every scene, and then he can act with quite amazing confidence. Because he delivers a precise score, it was quite a pleasure to move around during the shoot, to push the cursor, sometimes. Look for burlesque or humor in certain scenes. There’s a Gena Rowlands thing to her, but I thought of Jack Nicholson when I watched her.

10 movies to see in theaters from November 22: Napoleon, Nothing to Lose…

Prepare yourself

Delphine Deloget met with dozens of families of children in care and listened to audio recordings between parents and social services. The director also spoke extensively with attorneys who handle these types of cases and spent several days in a juvenile judge’s office. He recalls:

“Immersing myself in human complexities allowed me to dispel certain preconceived ideas. When we talk about placement, we imagine the worst: incest, abuse, abuse… However, 70% to 80% of placements for children are based on social status. Services They call it “failure”: a dirty word for disoriented parents, difficult-to-manage children, educational deficits, unfit housing, debt-ridden families…”

Why Brest?

Delphine Deloget wanted to film this story in a separate area, in a country where dreams have a horizon but defy a specific geography: “Brest is the end of the world, after Brest there is nothing left, only emptiness. Brest is a student, military, port city, a restrictive city due to its weather, geography, post-war architecture, but. It’s also a city that allows its characters to breathe in open landscapes.”

“Brest is also an underground city that loves night and music. And I liked the idea of ​​shooting this story – as a hard day after a party.”