Filed under: Interviews, Celebrity Interviews, Cinematical
With Heartbreaker, French star Romain Duris continues to capitalize on his image as a young and very talented pop star. He first came to US audiences' attention in melodramas like Cedric Klapisch's L'Auberge Espagnole and Jacques Audiard's The Beat My Heart Skipped and has since proven himself to be a versatile performer that, like American superstars like Johnny Depp, chooses his projects very carefully (his performance in Christophe Honore's Dans Paris is wonderfully nuanced). Having just starred as the titular comic book antihero Arsene Lupin, Duris stars in Heartbreaker as a man hired to break people up, specifically women that don't yet know that they're not really in love with their boyfriends/fiancés. I had a thoughtful chat with Duris about his self-image and how he makes himself cry.Cinematical: There's a great running gag in Heartbreaker where you make a terrible grimace whenever your character needs to cry (on command). How do you cry on film normally?
Roman Duris: Exactly the same (way).
Cinematical: Really? You just make a...
Duris: (laughs) No, no. To be honest, I used to. I didn't do any school of theater so I have no method. For my first few movies, yes, when the director asked me to cry for something, I was like, "Fuck! Shit, how can I cry? I can't!" It's strange-I wasn't an actor so I think I did the same (thing). I had to put my face in a physical way to help the tears (come out). I was joking about that with (Heartbreaker) director Pascal Chaumeil when we spoke about this strange face he's (Duris's character) going to make. I said, "I know exactly what I can do. I'm going to give you that and you'll tell me if it's ok for you or not." So it was natural for me because it came from...yes...
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