Interview with Lula Cotton, "Night of the 12th"

foreign welcome to focus on Friends Cinema 2023 the 18th edition of the best of contemporary French and Funko fun Cinema presented annually by The Alliance Francaise of Greenwich my name is Renee Ketchum and I am the managing director of focus and I'm thrilled to be joined today by Gail coveny co-president of the iOS conses of Greenwich FFC director of programming Joe Myers and our guest Lula who stars in the premiere release of the then we Do's that we'll be showing at focus on French Cinema Ellen South check is here as our interpreter so welcome everyone hello Lula we are such big fans of this film it's it's one of the most powerful films I've seen in a long time and your role in it is really special and really unusual you don't have a lot of screen time but your character is the central character in the story The person everyone is thinking about grieving for wondering how they can solve what happened to her I wondered as an actress when you know you're only going to be on screen briefly you have to pack a lot into that in terms of giving us a sense of who this young woman is so that we care about what what's going to happen after she's gone how did you do that it kind of has in Twin Peaks um you know kind of way of playing it because we had to I don't have much screen time as you said but I had to play it as if I was going to be the main character of the story so at some point I had to be completely normal as if you were going to see me all the time in the entire movie so I couldn't play it like you know you have only that sequence in the movie so you have to be extremely strong and to show everything it was quite the opposite uh to play it as natural as it can be and try to not show the audience what is going to happen because obviously your character doesn't know that and and the other element of this film that is so powerful to me is we all live in this age of Technology where an iPhone video can become our only uh souvenir only remembrance of a person and again it's Central to this this film I I mean it's it's extraordinary really what what you convey and how you linger over the whole movie yeah well it's kind of Twin Peak story always all over again oh sorry my mom is calling me in the same time so I'm just gonna hang up I'm afraid I'm going to hang up on you so I'll try to stay focused um but um yeah it's kind of a presence like as incredible um foreign I think that um sometimes it's very hard to do this because I'm trying to show this person to be as natural as possible and so there are elements of it that are you know like photos of myself rather than photos of the character um to try to maintain that illusion that how did this role come to you right what what sort of auditioning did you do how did you get this role so I auditioned not for this character but for um nanny uh the one who has the amazing scene in the the fictola make effect and so in addition with this uh with this scene and then uh director no the casting director called me and was like would you agree to do this part that is not massive but I can tell you the film is going to be great and it's amazing to ask and to be directed by uh Dominican and at first I was like but really I I like the other parts and after I got it and I was like yeah I'm so lucky that I got this one and it just and I love the actress that is playing Nanny just kind of my one of my best friends for the moment as as I speak right now um in real life she's an amazing actress and she's just perfect for the character so so yeah it was like this I auditioned for another part and I got this one so when you when you played the part that you play you were aware of the entire scope of this film I read the scenario yeah I already read the scenario when you speak about your friendship with the other actors I mean that's crucial to the film too we have to believe that you are so close that you're best friends and and it I totally believe that you know and and it stayed with me through the whole movie I think there is something that Dominique did uh the director that is really clever and we don't see it often in movies is that he took two blonde girls to play best friends and wasn't like oh no people are going to don't unders not understand which was which and uh because they're all blondes and so this was something already he just trying to have this chemistry between actresses and not be like oh physically they just look like each other they're blonde and they have a very blue or green eyes so this was funny but uh yeah we really like each other that's great it's great filming together there's there's something really profound in this movie about friendship and about what we don't know about people that we think we're very close to that we're related to even I mean uh it's one of the strongest elements in the film that everybody has to learn about this young woman things they wouldn't have known if she had been alive you know and it it how did you feel about that aspect of the story what what is revealed about your character as this story moves along I think it's not what is revealed because it's other people that are talking for her so it's not her point of view and this is why it was so hard watching the movie the first time because I was like but people are just like talking about this in a certain way that is so disrespectful and so horrible and it's so accurate today seeing the how do you call it in English femininity do you have this word femininity no it's um it's murder of women okay so in French we have a word for women that are being murdered by men it's called feministid where umizid has the pre -word like this thank you sorry for me can be hard to explain this and um so this woman Slaughter uh is so well we have to talk about this for the moment in our society it's so important to be a feminist and to to talk about this for me it was very important but it was weird hearing other people talk about this person this way well you realize in the film that the dead no longer have privacy and that they're subject to whatever people want to say about them afterwards you know I would like to say it's not just about the dead people it's about people that are being accused of uh being uh foreign I think it's not so much a question that they're dead but it's a question of you have certain uh when women are are a little too sexy and then they're you know they're spoken about and then all of a sudden in the case of a rape not necessarily A murder all of a sudden the way that they're seeing changes yes that becomes an important factor yes yes privacy anymore absolutely that is and stereotypes are applied and judgments are made you know that are really uh cruel and without Foundation you know that's one of the other elements of the film it's really moving now you mentioned the first time you saw the film what was that experience like when you you've done your part and then I'm assuming months later you sit down in a theater or a screening room and you see the whole film what was that like it was actually really great I had friends like my left and my ride could see the movie finally and I was so not surprised because it would be uh like if I didn't like the movie at first but I was like I was so happily surprised about it because everything was so perfect they just foreign I think it was surprising how the tone of the film was just perfect um the music also and the fact that the editing was really just just right and the script actually evolved a great deal from the way it was originally and I think that was something very intelligent on on Dominique miles part two to change it in that way now this film was really well received by the Cesar voters critics have loved it it was shown here at Lincoln Center recently have you felt a reaction from the film in terms of people wanting to work with you wanting to see you audition you what has the Fallout been like from the film for you is foreign I think that um I've been asked this question recently and it's it's the answer is more vague it's not just a yes or no question because a lot of it depends on having the right role and having the right role at the right moment and I think that maybe for me what is important is that having been in this film people will see that um let's see what I what kind of film I chose to be in and how I was when I was in the film and I think that that's that's important it's the right film the right person at the right time I was looking around the internet last night and reading about you and I saw that you mix music with with acting how do you juggle those two different Passions she's lost foreign I'm gonna pause it first okay and we'll wait yeah I'll just pause we lost Lula she was on the streets of Paris it's one of those things that happens with modern technology but I think we we found out a lot of interesting things about the film and her role in it we just want to thank her for joining us the way she did thank you everyone thank you Renee