Christophe Honoré On Enlisting Chiara Mastroianni & Catherine Deneuve For ‘Marcello Mio’ Hybrid Roles & Shelved Henry James ‘The Ambassadors’ Project

Melanie Goodfellow
·7 min read
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French director Christophe Honoré returns to Cannes Competition for a third time on Tuesday with comedy Mio Marcello, reuniting him with long time collaborator Chiara Mastroianni.

The comedy taps into the actress’ real-life complex reality of being the daughter of cinema icons Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni.

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In a fantasy scenario, Mastroianni hits a crisis point in her life and decides to adopt the look and persona of her late father, much to the surprise of her family and friends, as well as those who knew the legendary actor when he was alive.

Mastroianni is joined in the cast by her mother Deneuve, former partners Benjamin Biolay and Mevil Poupaud as well as Fabrice Luchini, Nicole Garcia, UK actor Hugh Skinner and Italian actress Stefania Sandrelli, who famously starred opposite Marcello Mastroianni in the 1961 classic Divorce Italian Style.

Deadline talked to Honoré ahead of the world premiere.

DEADLINE: What was the starting point for this film?

HONORÉ: This is the seventh film I’ve made with Chiara Mastroianni, so I’ve done a lot of interviews with her. Whatever the story we were telling in our films, from Beloved and Making Plans For Lena to On A Magical Night, the second question, if it wasn’t the first, was always related to her mother or father.

I felt there was a kind of cruelty in the way her identity was reduced to her parentage, even if it’s perfectly legitimate because Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni are more than just famous actors, they’re cinema myths.

When people see Chiara, they have this sense that they’re somehow touching this myth. I could see she was being constantly treated like some sort of intermediary, between a fantasized, mythological, dream reality and this idea that we have of Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve from their films. She was ultimately a sort of messenger between today’s world and a world that has disappeared.

I also thought it was a pretty good definition for an actress’s work. An actress is ultimately a messenger for the fictions she’s been cast in by a director. I thought it would be interesting to make a film, which was partly a documentary, about what it means to be the daughter of two cinema myths and what it means to be an actress making films today with the weight of the cinema of the past.

DEADLINE: How did Chiara Mastroianni react to the idea?

HONORÉ: I obviously asked her permission. When I start thinking about a film, my ideas are never clear. I asked her if she would allow me to write a story where she ended up thinking she was her father. I remember her laughing, but I realize today she was probably a bit worried.  In any case, she told me, “If you want to make a comedy out of my life, then I would be delighted.” I left with the idea that it had to be a comedy, and not something unpleasant, with the starting point being an actress who feels like she’s being erased and made invisible by the cinema of the past.

DEADLINE: The casting strikes a delicate balance between fact and fiction, with the actors seemingly playing fictionalized versions of themselves. These actors must be protective of their private lives. How did you get them on board for these roles?

HONORÉ: One of the worst propositions you can make to an actor or actress is ask them to play themselves. There are very few films in the history of cinema where actors play themselves.

Some films begin with title cards saying the film is based on a real story.  The title for my film would read based on a fake story inspired by real people.

Catherine Deneuve throughout her career has been extremely vigilant about her private life.  She is very, very discreet.  So, in the beginning, when I proposed the role to her, it was like I was asking her to forget all her principles to allow herself to be filmed as the Catherine Deneuve, the mother, Catherine Deneuve, the former fiancé of Mastroianni.

I could see that it was an effort for her, but at the same time, she understood that the screenplay was based on absolute fantasy, that there was nothing revealing something about her private life. There’s no sense of it taking you behind the scenes of cinema, of her life.

DEADLINE: How was it for the other actors?

HONORÉ:  When Melvil read the screenplay. He said to me, “If Chiara ever really did take herself for her father, I would never be in conflict with her.” He’s also never done Tai Chi in his life… these details are obviously made-up. At the same there was a certain honesty… After all, these actors are playing with real emotions. Chiara is playing opposite her mother, not opposite an actress, so of course there was something at play there. When she plays opposite Benjamin, it’s the father of her child… We can’t forget that. They can’t forget their emotions between action and cut.

DEADLINE: Rome plays an important in the film and is almost a character in its own right…

HONORÉ: Rome is in the same situation as Chiara. It’s a living city, with a current day population and activities, but you can’t forget the past when you walk in Rome.

DEADLINE: The film makes references to Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, and in particular the final scene on the beach where Marcello Mastroianni puts up his hands to indicate he can’t hear what the girl is saying to him against the wind…

HONORÉ: There will be people today who won’t have seen La Dolce Vita and won’t know Marcello’s gesture… I played with that scene so that rather than it being a young girl, it’s an old lady who thinks she has recognized him. Chiara naturally does the same gesture as her father, in the way we’ve all caught ourselves doing something like our parents, even when they’re not famous.

DEADLINE: It’s the centenary of the birth of Marcello Mastroianni this year. Was this in the back of your head when you wrote the film?

HONORÉ: I had no idea when I was writing the film. Chiara told me later. She said, “It’s good we’re doing this film together. That way I won’t have to go to lots of festivals to read a text. They can show the film.”

The film isn’t a tribute to Marcello Mastroianni. It’s rather a tribute to actors and actresses in general. I don’t have a fetish for Marcello Mastroianni. If the film is a tribute to anyone, it’s to Chiara Mastroianni, but not her father.

It’s also a film that celebrates this golden age of Italian cinema, when someone like Marcello Mastroianni could be in the films of Fellini, Visconti and Antonioni. His strength as an actor was that he was able to inhabit all these universes. When you see him in an Antonioni film, you have the impression he was made to be in an Antonioni film, the same goes for when he is in a film by Fellini or Visconti, in White Nights, or Comencini, The Sunday Woman.

DEADLINE: Last year you were invited to Cambridge University for a Symposium. How was that?

HONORÉ: I was very surprised because in France, we always have the impression that the English hate French cinema, that they mock it for being too talkative, intellectual and pretentious, so it was very joyful for me to go to Cambridge.  I had never been there in my life. It really fell a bit like Harry Potter, with chapels everywhere and being ushered into a meal where someone rang a gong and they were all wearing robes… For me it was very exotic.

DEADLINE: Have you ever considered making a film in English?

HONORÉ: I’d love to work with British or American actors. I have a project I’d like to shoot in Paris with English actors, but it would be very difficult to finance out of France because when you make something and it’s not in the French language, you get less state support. It’s an adaptation of Henry James ‘The Ambassadors’ which is set in Paris. I’d like to shoot in France. I don’t think I would feel at ease shooting in the U.S., it’s another way of making films that I am not used to. I thought it was going to be my next film but it’s too difficult to finance.

DEADLINE: You do have one British actor in Marcello Mio, Hugh Skinner in the role of a British military officer stationed in Paris. He is the only character who is truly fictional…

HONORÉ: I first noticed Hugh Skinner in Fleabag. I needed one character who had absolutely no clue about who were Chiara Mastroianni, Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve.

I thought to myself who doesn’t interest themselves in cinema? The English. I’m being ironic, of course, there are lots of British directors that I love but there is always this conflict between France and England. I thought to myself a military officer would know nothing.

He’s the only character who is pure fiction. It was fun to have him on the set and he will be with us on the red carpet in Cannes.

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