Talking with Ludivine Sagnier of 'A Girl Cut in Two'

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Ludivine Sagnier is a major French actress who is sure to become even more major as time goes on.At 29, she has already worked with some of France's best directors, and she's hugely popular with young people, particularly girls, who emulate her. She chooses her roles carefully and intelligently -- anyone looking at her filmography can tell that she wants to be Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Bonnaire; that is, that she's reaching for the brass ring of ultimate cinematic achievement. Among French actresses younger than 30, she has the best chance of grabbing it.Here in America, however, if she's known at all, she's known for one thing: playing the sexy little vixen in Francois Ozon's "Swimming Pool" (2003), opposite Charlotte Rampling."Right after 'Swimming Pool' got released in the United States, (Hollywood) offered me dozens of parts where I have to get naked in a pool," she says.She turned them all down."I'm completely satisfied with my career in France," she says. "But I don't see it as a betrayal to work in America, either. For example, Marion Cotillard -- she won the Oscar, and now she's working with Michael Mann. He's still OK -- he used to be better, but he's still OK. If I had to work with American directors, it would be more independent productions and kind of underground-ish stuff."Little details like that -- saying that Mann "used to be better, but he's still OK" -- are what make it so fun to talk to Sagnier. On this day, she is in a suite at a San Francisco hotel, in town to promote her latest film, "A Girl Cut in Two."Sagnier's honest about her preferences and seems grounded, like somebody who's in it for the long haul."I auditioned once for a part with Brian De Palma, but he decided he didn't need a European actress for the role," she says. "But I remember he said, 'Why don't you learn better English, learn a proper accent, and come down to L.A.?' And I was like, 'No, I'm sorry, sir. I don't want that.' And he was like, 'Come on, you lazy cow.' And I said, 'No, it's not a question of being lazy. I just want to blossom in nice roles, whatever the geography.' ""A Girl Cut in Two" is about a young woman -- in this case, a TV weather girl named Gabrielle -- who has an innate glow about her. But, alas, her radiance brings out the wolves, in the form of two powerful men, one a novelist (Francois Berleand) and one a thoroughly loony rich kid (Benoit Magimel), both of whom want to possess her. How did Sagnier avoid being devoured as a young woman in the film business?"I was kind of protected, because I was hanging around Francois Ozon, and he kind of warned me about all the tricks and the traps I shouldn't fall into," she says. "We'd be at parties, and he'd whisper something in my ear like, 'Watch out for that guy.' "In "A Girl Cut in Two," Sagnier got the chance to work with one of France's greatest: Claude Chabrol."He's one of the pillars of history," she says. "In France, watching a Claude Chabrol movie is like Woody Allen, you know? There's one every season. People just go and see a Chabrol, and they say this is a good year, or this is a bad year. And this was a good year."One mystery about Chabrol is that he avoids telling his actors what he wants from them."He said, 'Since I hired you, you must know what you're doing,' " Sagnier says. "He also does only a few takes. You have only two or three shots, and that's it. With Ozon, you do six or seven rehearsals and at least six or seven takes, but with Chabrol, he puts his camera there and we shoot directly -- so there's no net. You just jump. ..."So when I ask him, 'What do you think of Gabrielle here, is she flattered at this time, is she impressed?' -- he says, 'Go and work.' "When she says, "Go and work," Sagnier does something funny -- and uncanny. She is young, about 5 feet 2, slender, blond, very pretty. Chabrol is heavy, bald and in his late 70s. But when she lifts her head as if avoiding eye contact and mutters, "Go and work," she looks just like the director."At the beginning, I thought, 'Oh, my God.' But I gradually understood that it was his way to say, 'Actress, go ahead, my child, you can do it,' " Sagnier says.If Sagnier is known for any other film on this side of the Atlantic, it's for "8 Women" (2002), in which she starred opposite some of France's best-known actresses -- and learned more with one movie than she would have "in 10 years," she says."For example, Catherine Deneuve is shy. She has debutante reflexes, like suddenly she's afraid. She was so intimidated, especially by Isabelle Huppert. Suddenly you see them, and you see the takes, how they build the characters. It's not how they succeed that's interesting, but how they fail. It helps you understand that error is part of the work."But Huppert never fails. Huppert never fails."So many actors claim it's all about the work, but Sagnier clearly means it."I'm addicted to a certain emotion, which is when they say, 'Action!' There's suddenly like a twilight zone where you're not yourself anymore, and that's an impression of magic, almost divine power, that suddenly you don't exist, you're invisible, and that you are in the power of being someone else," she says.(E-mail Mick LaSalle at mlasalle(at)sfchronicle.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)