Ludivine Sagnier: Love Crime

By Stuart Alson

In this exclusive interview, Independent Film Quarterly’s Stuart Alson spoke with Ludivine Sagnier as she discussed her latest film Alan Corneau’s “Crime d’amour” (Love Crime). Sagnier had two films that premiered at the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF): “Crime d’amour” (Love Crime), a thriller with Kristin Scott Thomas and Lee Tamahori’s “The Devil’s Double”.

IFQ: Can you tell us about “Love Crime”?

Ludivine Sagnier: “Love Crime” is a crime-fiction. It’s related to two women. One is initiating the other into a diabolic world of business companies. As we say in my country, the students go beyond the masters. Then a rivalry starts and there’s a competition between the two of them that leads to a huge humiliation. Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas) humiliates my character, who’s a bit fragile and not able to cope. My character starts to revenge.

IFQ: There’s a film in the US called “Horrible Bosses.”

LS: [Smiles.] It’s really not the same. It’s about the same subject because it talks about how difficult it is to preserve your identity amongst people working for the same company and how pressured we are by our bosses. It’s a total different perspective because “Love Crime” is not a funny movie—it’s a crime-fiction. It’s a cat and mouse game.

IFQ:  During your earlier years, did you ever have a teacher, superior or someone on the set treat you like that?

LS:  No. I was much more streetwise than my character in the movie. Isabelle doesn’t know much. She has been studying all of her life and she doesn’t seem to be well-surrounded by friends. She doesn’t know much about human relationships. I’m much cleverer. [Laughs.]

IFQ: How did you get into acting?

LS: I started as a child. I first performed in a movie when I was 8 years old. Then, it went quite naturally. Throughout the years, it went slowly, but surely.

IFQ: Is this the only job you have ever had?

LS: Yes.

IFQ: Your character Isabelle is in a corporate environment. Could you ever imagine yourself in the corporate world?

LS: No. To me, it was a very exotic environment. I did ask to do a workshop in a company because of the environment—the office, the desk, the drawers, the atmosphere that you have in a tower building. It’s paradoxical because you have such a great perspective because you watch it from higher places. But at the same time, you can’t open the windows; you are trapped. It’s a very complex feeling. I wanted to be familiar with that before shooting.

IFQ: You took a job for character study?

Ludivine: Yes. My brother-in-law is an engineer and he works in a business company like that, and he just let me in. I promise I will never work in an office again.

IFQ: How many English speaking roles have you done thus far?

Ludivine: Three. “Swimming Pool;” “The Devil’s Double,” which will be out July 29^th; “Peter Pan”—but I wasn’t speaking because I was playing Tinkerbell.