Louis Garrel on Being Nanni Moretti's Venice Alter Ego — SkimNews
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- Nanni Moretti cast Louis Garrel as Matteo, his male lead in 'It Will Happen Tonight,' after meeting through Rome's Sacher Cinema; Garrel did a screen test with Jasmine Trinca in Moretti's office using two video cameras before getting the script.
- Moretti's directing method focused on rhythm over character psychology — Garrel said instructions ran 'Less pause, Louis. Less sad. More joyful' — and was 'obsessive' about objects on set, sometimes making actors feel 'just a table or an armchair.'
- Moretti publicly called Garrel his 'alter ego,' a designation Garrel said surprised him but acknowledged he'd wanted to be 'the French Moretti' since age 17, imitating his comic timing as a teenager and sometimes asking Moretti to act out scenes he was struggling with.
- Jasmine Trinca choreographed the film's sex scenes herself — choosing positions that would expose her less — while an intimacy coordinator guided the approach and Moretti deferred with 'do what you want'; Trinca first worked with Moretti at 18 in 'The Son's Room' (2001).
- Garrel endorsed critics calling the film an 'elevated soap opera,' naming Almodóvar as the genre's master and praising the combination of popular melodrama with stylized camera work and humor.
- Garrel next plays Fiat heir John Elkann in Marco Bellocchio's 'Falcon' (about auto executive Sergio Marchionne) beginning in October, and appears alongside Sydney Sweeney in Studiocanal's 'Custom of the Country'.
- 'It Will Happen Tonight' marks Garrel's first-ever role in Italian, following his French blockbusters 'The Three Musketeers' parts one and Alice Winocour's 'Couture' with Angelina Jolie.
Why it matters: The film is a live Golden Lion contender at Venice, and Garrel's casting is itself the story: Moretti — who usually acts in his own films — publicly handed the lead to Garrel and called him his alter ego, an unusually explicit endorsement from an Italian auteur for a French star working in Italian for the first time. With Bellocchio and Sydney Sweeney projects queued up, the role repositions Garrel as a trans-European leading man rather than a French one.
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