Lea Seydoux has said that she had no idea
she’d have to appear kd in Wes Anderson’s upcoming film The French
Dispatch until the director showed her an animation of the scene.
Lea
portrays a prison officer who serves as a live model for Benicio del Toro’s
aggressive convict and artist, which forced her to pose kd in a number of
challenging postures.
The
film is named after the fictional Kansas Evening Sun supplement of the Liberty,
and it is separated into three stories recounted by journalists for the
magazine, which is highly influenced by the New Yorker.
She
explained to the PA news agency that she was unaware of nudity when she first
agreed to take on the role, saying: “I saw him in Paris. I’m thinking of you. There’s
this little part, so do you want it? And I said, of course, Wes, I’ll do anything
for you. Then he sent me only lines and lines, and it was difficult to
understand the character accurately.
“So
then, after I went to the town where we shot the film, I started to understand
what he had in mind. Wes had used an animated sequence to show Lea what
she’d need to accomplish because they were both ‘shy’ about it.
She further
stated: “He’s very shy and I’m also very shy, so I understood little by little.
I saw that movie because he’s making these little animated films, and it’s so
funny. He makes all the voices.
“So he played Simone, and he did it very well,
I have to say, so basically watching an animated movie and that’s what I should
do It’s a really understood method.
“It’s
so funny because when he sent me the lines, I had, like, five lines. And I was
like, ‘Ok, that’s the part, five lines?’
‘But
it’s true that she says a lot without speaking. And this is also what I like about Wes, is
that you can express a lot with your body language, and it gives a very funny
comic dimension. I
really loved that first section, it’s beautiful and very poetic.’”
The
French Dispatch is now playing in UK theaters.
