Exarchopoulos Gets Record 12-Minute Cannes Ovation
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Adèle Exarchopoulos received a 12-minute standing ovation at Cannes — the longest ever recorded at the festival — for her role as a struggling actress in Jeanne Herry's Another Day (Garance), which premiered in Competition on Sunday night.
- Garance follows a young woman pursuing theater and film acting while battling a slow, insidious alcohol addiction that escalates from one or two glasses to 10 or 12 over eight to nine years.
- Exarchopoulos prepared by visiting an all-women support group at Villejuif hospital and rewatching Gena Rowlands' films — particularly Opening Night and A Woman Under the Influence — for Rowlands' 'wild intensity' and refusal to perform for the camera.
- Director Jeanne Herry drew inspiration for the film from a podcast in which a young woman discussed her addiction, and subjected the subject to months of research across physical therapies, support groups, and academic studies before approaching Exarchopoulos.
- Exarchopoulos drew a sharp contrast between French and American industry culture, recounting how her post-Blue Is the Warmest Color US agent booked identical 'we love your work' meetings at Universal and Warner Bros. — calls she said simply don't happen in France without a project attached.
- Exarchopoulos credited the 2013 Cannes premiere of Blue Is the Warmest Color, when she shared the Palme d'Or with Léa Seydoux and director Abdellatif Kechiche at age 18, with 'changing my path' and revealing 'the power of cinema.'
Why it matters: The 12-minute ovation is an unusually concrete, verifiable data point in an industry where applause lengths are often exaggerated, and it positions Exarchopoulos — already a Cannes history-maker at 19 — for a second major career milestone. Her critique of Hollywood's relationship-building machinery, drawn from direct personal experience, lands with weight because she has navigated both systems.
