Vicky Krieps on rage, rebellion, and rejecting Hollywood
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- Vicky Krieps stars in Love Me Tender (UK and Irish cinemas 7 August), directed by Anna Cazenave Cambet and based on Constance Debré's autobiographical novel, as Clémence — a mother locked in a custody battle after her ex-husband alleges she is mentally unstable to secure sole custody of their eight-year-old son
- Two weeks after wrapping Love Me Tender, Krieps developed physical pain that left her unable to move her arms and neck; doctors found nothing wrong medically, and she attributes the symptoms to accumulated psychological pain from playing a character denied contact with her child for nearly 18 months
- After her breakout role in Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread, Krieps says she was 'actually laughed at' for returning to low-budget French films rather than pursuing Hollywood, and she has declined to move to Los Angeles for the past 15 years while living in Berlin
- Krieps has straddled Hollywood and arthouse cinema for the last decade, appearing in Fede Álvarez's The Girl in the Spider's Web and M Night Shyamalan's Old alongside independent work including Corsage and More Than Ever
- This autumn Krieps appears in Ryan Murphy's Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story playing the Borden family's maid Bridget Sullivan, and has just finished work on Élise Girard's Emma Doucet, which she describes as 'close to a poem' and 'very nouvelle vague'
- Krieps's grandfather survived internment at Dachau during the second world war and later became a socialist politician in Luxembourg who successfully campaigned to abolish the death penalty, while her mother — described as 'a crazy hippy, in the best way' — raised her to question authority
Why it matters: Krieps has built a two-track career in Hollywood franchises and European independent cinema for a decade while refusing to relocate to Los Angeles or play the red-carpet game — a path the piece frames as newly possible for actresses. The release of Love Me Tender on 7 August puts that philosophy on screen through a custody drama drawn directly from Constance Debré's autobiographical novel, giving arthouse distributors a marketable name who actively rejects the promotional machinery that usually sells such films.
