Marion Cotillard likens public image to Berlinale fairy tale film's cursed camera effect

Reuters

16-02-2025

BERLIN, Feb 16 (Reuters) - French actor Marion Cotillard said her own public image is like the distorted reflections captured by the cursed camera in her latest film "The Ice Tower" - detached from reality.
Promoting the film, based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, at the Berlin Film Festival on Sunday, Cotillard said her true persona differed from the public's perception of her.
"The general public, the audience has always invented the lives of actors they've never met" that is far away from reality, she told journalists in the German capital.
"Sometimes you feel like you've managed to live with yourself, to love yourself. And then there are relapses, because something happens in your life that makes you look at yourself again with judgement and harshness."
Cotillard, who won an Oscar in 2008 for "La Vie En Rose," said that while she tries to protect herself as much as possible from that perception, at times it still affects her.
"Whether it's positive or negative feedback, it's always ... a mirror, a totally distorted mirror," she said.
"The Ice Tower," by French director Lucile Hadzihalilovic, is one of 19 films competing for the Golden Bear top prize.
It is based on Andersen's "The Snow Queen" fairy tale that also served as the inspiration for popular Disney film "Frozen."
In the tale, the snow queen has a cursed mirror that distorts the appearance of everything it reflects to show only the worst aspects.
In Hadzihalilovic's version, set in 1970s Paris, the mirror is replaced by a camera lens that is being used to film "The Snow Queen," starring Cotillard's beautiful-yet-aloof Cristina.
Runaway Jeanne, played by newcomer Clara Pacini, takes shelter in the film studio and quickly becomes entranced by Cristina, who returns the affection - but eventually at a cost.
Cotillard called the decision to replace the mirror "really profound" and that "it says a lot about the world that we live in nowadays."
The actor added that she did not encounter the original Andersen fable until much later in life.
"It took me a while to realize that the Disney film was very, very far away from the original narrative," she said.