The star of Jacques Audiard’s wistful Parisian sex comedy Paris, 13th District on the prep she did for this demanding role.
Interview by JOSH SLATER-WILLIAMS Illustration by MICHAEL DUNBABIN
In Conversation
With Paris, 13th District, director Jacques Audiard adapts three short stories by American cartoonist Adrian Tomine, merging them into a sharp, sweet portrait of sex, love and endurance in a Parisian high-rise neighbourhood. Lucie Zhang delivers a star-making turn with her debut feature film role where she plays Émilie, a French-Taiwanese twentysomething with a flair for chaos.
LWLies: How was it to act in two languages in the film?
Zhang: It was much better because two languages is me. If there was only Chinese or only French, it would be even harder to reach the character. All my crying was done in Chinese, because we found out that Chinese is my intimate language. Anything intellectual or technical had to be in French for better, clearer, concrete communication.
Were you given any films as references for the characters and story? [Audiard] gave everyone titles, but I don’t remember that he gave me personal instructions to watch these films. Maybe he thought I was too new, so he didn’t want me to have any references to disturb me. But I know his own references are Ma Nuit chez Maud and Annie Hall. And then, during the three months of preparation work, he noticed I was struggling with the character and wanted to help me, especially to find something lighter in everything: in the way of thinking, speaking, acting. He asked me to watch romantic comedies, such as When Harry Met Sally. I really liked that.
What do you think it was about that film that helped?
It helped because he insisted on the fact that it’s a comedy and he told me, ‘Lucie, you are sometimes too melancholic.’ He didn’t want it melancholic, he wanted comedic and light. He didn’t have to say too much. He just told me to watch it and I understood it better. Actually, I think I couldn’t help but put some melancholy into the character, even though there wasn’t any at the beginning. I’ve seen it five times now and each time I found it much more melancholic than what was written at the beginning. I don’t know if it’s because I put too much of myself in it.
Audiard has previously mentioned that the lead actors did these workshop sessions on body and movement. He said it was specifically, “to face the sex scenes as serenely as possible”. What did those involve?It was really instructive, connecting ourself with others and ourselves. I’ve got a very illustrative, representative example of an exercise. This is something I will remember
