Actors Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence, who co-star in the Cannes Film Festival competition title “Die My Love,” reflected on Sunday on the difficulties of the postpartum period and how they brought their own experiences of parenthood to the film.
“There’s not really anything like postpartum. It’s extremely isolating,” Lawrence, who recently gave birth to her second child, told journalists in the French Riviera resort town.
However, “as a mother, it was really hard to separate what I would do as opposed to what she (her character) would do,” said Lawrence, who won an Oscar for “Silver Linings Playbook” in 2013.
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Pattinson and Lawrence play a couple, Jackson and Grace, who move to a small Montana town and have a child, which puts increasing pressure on their relationship as Grace, a writer, struggles to deal with her new identity as a mother.
“When dealing with a partner going through postpartum or any kind of mental illness or difficulties, trying to deal with her isolation, figuring out what your role is, is difficult, especially if you don’t have the vernacular,” Pattinson said.
The film, the latest from Scottish director Lynne Ramsay, known for emotionally intense dramas like “We Need To Talk About Kevin,” received a nine-minute standing ovation at its premiere on Saturday night and has been well-received by critics.
Pattinson, who gained fame in the “Twilight” series before both taking on less mainstream titles like “The Lighthouse” and donning Batman’s suit, said becoming a parent himself last year had reinvigorated him.
“In the most unexpected ways, having a baby gives you the biggest trove of energy and inspiration,” said Pattinson.
Lawrence, of the “Hunger Games” series, said that becoming a parent made her realise that she didn’t know just how much she could feel — “and my job has a lot to do with emotion”.
“I highly recommend having kids if you want to be an actor.”
Linklater thought ‘Nouvelle Vague’ would be rejected
Acclaimed U.S. director Richard Linklater initially thought his film about the French New Wave movement, “Nouvelle Vague,” would never be shown at theatres in France due to his nationality, he told journalists at the Cannes Film Festival.
“Ten years ago, when we were thinking about this movie, I’m not kidding, at the time I said I imagine a film with subtitles. And I thought, they’ll hate that an American director did it,” he said on Sunday, a day after the film’s red carpet premiere.
“We’ll show it all over the world, but never in France, because they’ll just hate it,” the director of “Boyhood” and “Before Sunset” recalled in the French Riviera resort town.
“But as I got closer to it and I found enthusiastic partners, I realised how much it meant to them,” he said.
“Nouvelle Vague,” shot in a black-and-white 4:3 format with all the actors speaking in French, follows director Jean-Luc Godard, arguably one of the most influential filmmakers of his generation, in the making of the seminal 1960 film “Breathless.”
French actor Guillaume Marbeck plays Godard, while Zoey Deutch and Aubry Dullin play the iconic duo Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo, respectively.
The making of the film was well-documented, which allowed Linklater to faithfully re-enact the 20-day shoot: “We had the camera notes, we had the reports. I never knew more about a film that I didn’t make,” he said.
The Oscar-nominated filmmaker, who shot “Nouvelle Vague” in France, also expressed his admiration for the French film industry and its focus on taking care of the sector.
“The U.S. could use a little bit of that,” Linklater said, adding that he didn’t think U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on foreign-made films would come into force.
“That’s not going to happen, right? The guy changes his mind like 50 times in one day,” Linklater said about Trump.