The film that changed my life: Mia Hansen-Løve
Late August, Early September is a film that I acted in when I was 17, directed by Olivier Assayas, who I'm married to now (we didn't get together until I was 20). It's the story of a group of friends growing out of their extended adolescence - deciding what to do with their lives, their jobs, their lovers. I had a minor role, playing a character called Vera. The film changed my life in the most concrete sense, even though it was only an eight-day shoot. In my mind there was life before and life after – I can divide it in two parts.
With retrospect it wasn't so much the experience of being a real actress for the first time, but more the experience of shooting and the world created on set – watching Olivier work and understanding what it was for him to be like the conductor of an orchestra; understanding the symbiosis of the team working together on an artistic quest.
Another reason the movie was so important for me – and in this I'm probably similar to a lot of film-makers, in particular Truffaut, for whom cinema "represented another family" – was that it gave me a sense of belonging. I didn't have big groups of friends then, I was quite a solitary character, and it was through filming that I found that genuine pleasure, intensity and a sense of belonging which to this day I've never found anywhere else. Through the sense of belonging I found in this film I came to realise that cinema is both about art and the art of living.
Father of My Children, directed by Mia Hansen-Løve, is out now on DVD