Fanny Ardant: “Even when I was young, I never thought of myself as attractive.”

One of Fanny Ardant’s favourite expressions is, “readiness is all.” The quote may come from Hamlet but nothing is indecisive about the award-winning French actress who feels feisty and present. Ardant’s ‘assume’, a French expression meaning that she owns it. She appears at the Hôtel de l’Abbaye, Paris wearing a fitted black satin trench coat over ribbed sweater, flouncy skirt and low-heeled booties. Evoking an alluring gypsy—think dark curls, large eyes lined with black kohl and silver rings glimmering on every finger—Ardant brings to mind Toulouse-Lautrec, Delacroix and Matisse.

The agile 74-year-old who can laugh with abandon, snap her fingers loudly and playfully kick up long legs would be fascinating to paint. Instead, Ardant remains one of French cinema’s national treasures and revered muses. True, she began with François Truffaut—one of the founders of the Nouvelle Vague—starring in his final two films La dame d’A côté/The Woman Next Door and Confidentially Yours—and then continued to make films with other maestros such as Alain Resnais, Sydney Pollack and Michelangelo Antonioni. In many roles, Ardant proved unforgettable such as Volker Schlondorff’s Swann In Love, Patrice Leconte’s Ridicule, Franco Zeffirelli’s Callas Forever and François Ozon’s 8 Femmes. More recently, Ardant has morphed into the sensual, mature screen beauty who can either seduce (Les Beaux Jours/Bright Days Ahead) or be seduced (Les Jeunes Amants.) “Her large mouth, deep voice and its unusual intonations, her big black eyes and her triangular face” intrigued Truffaut. Such dramatic yet untouched features have stood Ardant in great stead. Here, in her signature seductive voice, she talks Truffaut, romance, passion and her refusal to sell out.

NATASHA FRASER

You’ve described your career as having no strategy.

FANNY ARDANT

True, no strategy but I follow my instinct, like a hound in a forest. I will never do anything I don’t want to do even if my agent says, “it’s a lot of money!”

NF

Describe being a muse? 

FANNY ARDANT

It’s experiencing the director’s joy when you’ve agreed to be in their film. More than a casting, it’s like delving into their desire. 

NF

Did that happen on The Woman Next Door (1981)? You were 20 and relatively unknown.

For Truffaut, it was bingo. Great directors are like great novelists, they see what others don’t and they hear what others don’t. I’ve often been asked if I was scared working with famous directors. In my opinion, the mark of a great director is that each time they begin on a film, it’s as if they are starting from zero; same passion and same fears. Between a genius director and a young director who is starting out, I don’t feel the difference.

NF

Truffaut gave you a synopsis but not a screenplay? 

FANNY ARDANT

The synopsis was 6-7 pages long and François wrote the dialogue every Sunday. Nothing was set in stone but there was always a story. It was exactly what I felt about love that you could die of love. Hollywood wanted to buy the film’s rights but change the ending. But there’s no story if the woman doesn’t kill her lover and then herself. Falling in love is an incredible film with Meryl Streep and Robert de Niro. But at the end, he returns to his wife. 

NF

Where was The Woman Next Door filmed?

FANNY ARDANT

It was shot in Grenoble because François liked actors being away from their natural habitat. 

NF

And it was your first time playing opposite Gérard Depardieu, your quasi professional partner-in-crime who you’ve acted with, directed and described as being brother-like.

FANNY ARDANT

I often say, ‘I cannot imagine life without Gérard.’ The thought even scares me. Gérard is like a dancer even if you don’t know the steps he can guide you. And he’s seen me in every state. One time he insisted on having lunch. Since I was ill and bedbound, my housekeeper put a tablecloth on the bed and said, “Mr Gérard, I’m making a chicken, what would you like—leg or breast?” and Gerard replied, “The chicken! The chicken.” [Ardant laughs]

NF

You’ve said that when acting with Depardieu on stage, the same play can be 90 minutes or over two hours. 

FANNY ARDANT

And that’s what I like about Gérard. One time the battery ran out in his earpiece. So he left the stage and I sat down on the armchair. And the audience accepted it. If you don’t panic, nor do they. Then Gérard returned, sweating like a dog.

NF

You’ve also said that Depardieu always saws off the branch that he’s sitting on.

FANNY ARDANT

Whenever he’s in America, he needs to insult someone. Gérard is always cruising for a bruising.

NF

What’s your take on the recent sexual harassment allegation?

FANNY ARDANT

Gérard is not a predator. He comes from nowhere. Gérard is a self-made man. He and Truffaut got on like a house on fire. They seemed so different but adored each other; playing like kids in the street. François saw all the possibilities within an actor.

NF

You’ve often mentioned the importance of your stable upbringing and the happiness of your parents’ marriage. Did they meet Truffaut?

FANNY ARDANT

No they didn’t. I don’t believe that a man should meet his wife’s parents. I think a man should stay a bit mysterious, slightly in the shadows and stand aside from his lover’s family because the family kills. Love and passion should not be mixed with the family. A family does nothing for a romance.

NF

You must enjoy secret liaisons.

FANNY ARDANT

Very much so.

[Fanny Ardant breaks into a broad, feline smile.]

NF

Truffaut’s appearance in Close Encounters of A Third Kind was one of those brilliant and unexpected cinematic moments. Can you share any anecdotes?

FANNY ARDANT

François didn’t like one of his lines. He found it stupid. So he went to Steven Spielberg and explained, with considerable delicacy, that it didn’t work and Spielberg replied, ‘not a big deal. I’ll give the line to another actor.’ I love that.

NF

You’ve had one moment with Hollywood. 

FANNY ARDANT

It was with Sidney Pollack for the remake of Sabrina that was being filmed in Paris. I was doing theatre and explained that I couldn’t film early in the morning. Anyway, this fax arrives with a 6.30am call time. So every evening Pollack would say goodbye and then add, “and sleep well.” He was so funny. 

NF

Professionally, what did you learn from Truffaut?

FANNY ARDANT

The importance of control: taking less money but keeping your freedom. When I make a film, my only luxury is my freedom. I don’t own a boat or a country house. I can always say no and wait, even if it’s difficult financially. For that reason, I’ve always refused doing advertising and have never done fashion. This business of attending the Césars or the Oscars and being paid to wear a brand, I find that shameful. An actress shouldn’t be a coat hanger. ‘You’re not Mrs Kardashian.’ Saying that, I admire Kardashian because she’s created an empire.

NF

Although there was a 25 year difference between you and Truffaut, you’ve described yourselves as twin souls.

FANNY ARDANT

We shared the same way of reacting to things. That was so important. François was very playful. He loved books, cinema and the theatre.

NF

Can you verify that Truffaut read a book a day?

FANNY ARDANT

I never witnessed that. But when he was very young and sent to prison [for deserting the army in 1951] it was literature that saved him. Just as books save me when I’m working and living out of hotels.

NF

What’s your favourite book?

FANNY ARDANT

It’s still Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot. At sixteen, I drank it up like a glass of water and believed that Prince Myshkin was how we should behave in life. His love of others, his acceptance to be ridiculed, he was Christ-like without the judgment.

NF

In literature, who do you most identify with? 

FANNY ARDANT

Balzac’s Duchesse de Langeais particularly in regard to the bad timing of her love life. 

NF

You’ve compared the great French novels by Balzac and Flaubert with the great French films, stating that both center around the women. Does that still happen?

FANNY ARDANT

In all the Nouvelle Vague films, the woman is central and in the films of François Ozon and other French directors that tradition continues. 

NF

Ozon’s 8 Femmes was a blast. It reminded me of the game Cluedo.

FANNY ARDANT

Ozon was perfect. His magic was being individual with all of us. To avoid complaints of favouritism, we all shared a dressing room. I was next to Danielle Darrieux who used to burst into songs from the 1930s. She was in her 90s and a delight. 

NF

That scene of you in Swann in Love (1984) when Swann (Jeremy Irons) tells you (the Duchess of Guermantes) that he’s dying…It comes to mind when I see Parisians being thoroughly sophisticated yet utterly heartless. 

FANNY ARDANT

I remember that. Swann had just told me that he was very sick, and I was more concerned by my shoes not going with my red dress. It shows the cruelty of that world. Since I was wearing genuine Cartier jewels from that period, I suggested “a holdup” to Jeremy. I do like English actors. They’re so brilliant and elegant. I had a film project with Alan Rickman. It was with a Japanese director who couldn’t speak a work of English. Lunch in a Japanese restaurant began very formally but after drinking Sake became raucous.

NF

You joined forces again with Jeremy Irons in Forever Callas. 

FANNY ARDANT

That film was such a challenge. I had to speak English, lip-synch Callas’s songs, and dance to Carmen…I bit my nails and Zeffirelli said, ‘oh no, no, no, Callas had exquisite hands.’ I could not bite my nails. For someone who suffers from that habit, it was like giving up smoking. 

NF

You’ve said that there are no more real faces and a need for perfection has accelerated with social media. 

FANNY ARDANT

Soon there will be no older women roles in cinema because everyone wants to be young.

NF

But you’ve never stopped working. And recently, you’ve been the love interest in three very different films La Belle Epoque (2019), Les Jeunes Amants (2022) and Les Volets Verts (2022.)

FANNY ARDANT

Carine Tardieu, the director of Les Jeunes Amants was very blunt. She had to have an actress who hadn’t done plastic surgery. I was playing a retired architect. She’s not a cougar, it’s the young man who seduces her. 

NF

In Les Beaux Jours/Bright Days Ahead (2013), you play the seductress. What’s the secret of all these roles?

FANNY ARDANT

Even when young, I never thought of myself as attractive. I remember there was a casting for James Bond and this famous casting agent said, “you can’t be a Bond girl—you’re not pretty enough—but you’ll play much more interesting roles.” Twenty years later, I saw her and she said, “do you remember?’” I think my secret was that I wanted to be loved but I didn’t want to please. You can be loved for all your imperfections. 

NF

You’re also passionate about the world of film.

FANNY ARDANT

The magic of cinema and the promise of the darkened room, nothing can replace either. You can return outside, be standing on the pavement and be so blown over by a film that you question your existence. People argue that Netflix and other platforms have killed film but I don’t agree. I think they’ve made the cinema more elitist.

NF

Any regrets?

FANNY ARDANT

No regrets but I suffer from melancholy. That’s my vulnerability. I keep a space for those who have died and left me. They remain nearby.