Glass speaks with French actor Camille Cottin about playing a single-mum in her latest film Stillwater, one of her many roles championing the female experience
POPPING up on the screen via Zoom, Camille Cottin is the epitome of a cool, French woman. Peering through oversized geek-chic glasses, flicking her tumbling perfectly undone hair, while she gets lost in a passionate discourse on the arts, Cottin exudes effortless je ne sais quoi that only the French can do.
Currently staying in London while filming Killing Eve’s fourth and final season, Cottin is clearly well adjusted to British weather — we may be speaking during the height of summer, yet she is wrapped up in a woolly jumper like some true Brit.
Camille Cottin. Photograph: Jason Hetherington
Her affiliation with the UK runs far deeper than playing Hélène opposite Jodie Comer’s Villanelle in the spy thriller. As a teenager, Cottin grew up in London alongside her stepfather, younger sister and mother, who forever welcomed people in to stay.
From an Australian couple, to an “Italian lyrical singer”, to a Spanish best friend, and to her mother’s Hungarian friend Anika, such an upbringing enormously widened Cottin’s outlook on life. This melting pot of culture and revolving friendships within her childhood home mirrors Cottin’s latest role as Virginie in Tom McCarthy’s film Stillwater.
Single mum Virginie welcomes red-neck Bill Baker, played by Matt Damon, into her Marseille home while he tries to save his daughter Allison – played by Abigail Breslin of Little Miss Sunshine fame – from a murder trial. Among its several qualities, Cottin calls Stillwater a “tribute to single mothers”, who endlessly give, just as her own mother did: “You can help me and I can help you. Let’s put some life and joy in the house because it’s not fun being the only grown up. I think this is something that I’ve been through and that I deeply could understand in the way it was written.”
Camille Cottin. Photograph: Jason Hetherington
Indeed, Stillwater is sensitively written, full of surprises and nuance, beautifully portraying the push and pull of life against the backdrop of a gritty port city. Virginie is creative and fluid, with an open mind to match, while Bill, a builder, is the direct opposite, and yet together they make a complementary union.
The pairing of characters reflects a much-needed metaphor for the existing tensions and cultural gaps between American and European thinking, and one that felt extremely nostalgic for Cottin, “Sharing a home with somebody who is not your culture and being two fishes out of the water … and [having] a house which is always alive, and being somewhere where energies come and go and experiences are set, it’s something I’m so familiar with.”
Whilst she was fully prepared to be blown away by Matt Damon, she was not expecting to be so impressed by nine-year-old Lilou Siauvaud, who plays her daughter, Maya, in the film. “She was amazing and I just really benefited from her … it’s not only her acting skills, it’s also her personality that I loved. It was a lesson of acting, even more a lesson of listening. The way she listened, the way the things touched her before she gave anything back was very impressive.”
Camille Cottin. Photograph: Jason Hetherington
Stillwater is clearly a moment in Cottin’s career that has touched her greatly. She describes completing filming “like ending a book that you have loved … I was deeply moved by the imagination, and how we believed in what we did”.
Believing in her craft is fuel for Cottin and has kept her determinedly on track, “I love what I do. Sometimes you fail but you’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, but I’m still in love’. So you keep going.”
Cottin advises up-and-coming actors to “work with the people you like and don’t underestimate what comes to you or what you go and get”. Just like her character Virginie, Cottin feeds off of other people’s passions and ideas: “I think this is an energy that keeps you enthusiastic and curious.”
Camille Cottin. Photograph: Jason Hetherington
The past year of lockdowns, she says, has forced us to swallow the idea of “losing your bearings and changing your context”. Suddenly we all have had the collective time to question our purpose and greater good. For Cottin, this meant coming to terms with that fact that we “need to change our way of life regarding ecology, the climate, the production and the economy. The world has never been so united, even though, of course, there are some privileges over this crisis and not everybody has the means to react in the same way.
“But anyway, I would say that the world is really sharing this moment, no matter where you are.” Cottin hopes that we can use and translate this “feeling of unity” into a way we can “save our planet”, and more imminently, “I’m hoping that the vaccine will help us see the end of the pandemic.”
Camille Cottin. Photograph: Jason Hetherington
Ironically, while being trapped at home last year, Cottin’s career continued its upwards trajectory. Fanny Herrero’s French TV series Call My Agent! was a lockdown must-watch in which Cottin plays the gutsy talent agent Andréa Martel. Cottin remains nonplussed and humble about its triumph, “It’s amusing because the show started some five years ago.”
With an acting career that spans two decades, Cottin is ready for Hollywood while quietly but confidently challenging it off screen. Two years ago she set up her own production company, Malmö, with Swedish friend Shirley Kohn, which seeks to support “women talking about their experiences and what they’ve been through, and what it means and what it results in and where it comes from”.
She’s quite prepared for the inevitable backlash, saying, “Each time you feel like you’re moving forward, there are always people to remind you that what you’re aiming for is not something that people are ready to give up so easily. Nevertheless, I really feel that … things are being done in a very concrete way to make things more just”. By way of example, Cottin cites Killing Eve with its female writers and directors.
In conversation with Cottin, a pattern begins to emerge – her roles are a dogged attempt to reflect the rage and range of the female voice. Even her viewing habits lean this way, with programmes like Unorthodox and I May Destroy You on her lockdown watch-list.
Camille. Photograph: Jason Hetherington
Before we lose her to America, what will Cottin hold on to from London? “What I love about London is that it’s very diverse and multicultural.” She also prefers London’s parks to those in Paris, where “they have a very different approach to the gardens. They are decorated, so you have beautiful statues but you’re not allowed to go on the grass. You have some trees, but they are all aligned and you walk on some little stones. It’s not like Holland Park when suddenly the garden becomes almost the forest.”
Similarly, Cottin is in many ways a wild talent, acting outside the lines, ready to be unleashed into Hollywood.
by Charlie Newman
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