EXCLUSIVE
JEANNE DU BARRY Actor-director Maïwenn confronts controversy with Johnny Depp…
When Maïwenn met Johnny Depp, there were always going to be eyebrows raised. She’s the rebellious French actor-director (Polisse, Mon Roi) recently fined €400 for assaulting a French journalist. He’s the Hollywood star who fell from grace after his court case with ex-wife Amber Heard. Together, they’re co-starring in Jeanne Du Barry, a period drama written, produced and directed by Maïwenn, set in the court of France’s King Louis XV.
With Depp cast as Louis XV, Maïwenn plays Jeanne, a woman of low birth who rises to become the king’s favourite, scandalising the court. ‘As soon as someone who has power falls in love with someone who has no power at that time, there’s scandal there because it’s balancing prejudice… believing that that person is in a relationship for different reasons than love itself,’ says Maïwenn. ‘It’s love between two people belonging to two different social classes. And we are always against [that]… in the 18th century but even today.’
As for Depp’s own scandals, Maïwenn, 47, decided it was ‘none of my business’ and cast him regardless. ‘I basically gave the traits that I was discovering about Johnny to Louis XV in a way, and this is why my king has got all the feelings that Johnny [showed] in his interviews. Not so much in the roles that he played. But I got the way he is and what he feels, and I wanted those specific traits to be in my king. Because I think films are documentaries on actors.’
Setting the film in the luxurious Versailles – where the film was shot – was also ‘a metaphor’ for the movie industry, adds the writer-director-star. Like the backbiting court, the film world can be a place ‘where artists are not always welcomed… especially if they don’t have a formal training in filmmaking or if they come from a different background or try to do something different’. It�
