Marion Cotillard shared that, while she plays the enigmatic Cristina in her film The Ice Tower (‘La Tour de Grace’), she found herself intimidated by her young co-star Clara Pacini as the pair prepared to work on the movie.
Cotillard, who won an Oscar in 2008 for her role of Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, said at the Berlinale Film Festival:
“We met at my place and I realised I didn’t dare to look her straight in the eyes, I felt very uncomfortable. I felt intimidated by Clara, she is very charismatic. That was the start of our work together, [that connection] already existed between us.”
Discussing her preparation for the role of actress Cristina, she said: “I invented stories, rivalries with actors, failures and flops. I invented her decline, in a sense.”
She added: “Repeatedly, I play mysterious figures, so I want to see that mystery for myself. I don’t want to find out everything, I want to be surprised by reactions in the course of shooting.
“I let myself be carried along by what is around me on any particular day, including interactions by the other actors.”
Cotillard stars in the fantasy drama directed by Lucile Hadžihalilović, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Geoff Cox. The movie debuted at Berlin International Film Festival, Sunday February 16.
In the story set in the 1970s, Cotillard plays enigmatic actress Cristina who is shooting a film adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale The Snow Queen in which she plays the title character. At the same time, Pacini’s character Jeanne, a runaway teenage orphan, takes refuge in the studio where the film is being shot and falls under Cristina’s spell.
Cotillard said of Hadžihalilović’s adaptation from the original fairytale: “I loved what Lucille had drawn out of the Anderson fairytale. I was intrigued by the fact she takes the mirror and replaces it with a camera. It says a lot about the world we live in today. I thought it very profound.”
Cotillard’s co-stars alongside Pacini include August Diehl and Gaspar Noe.
Following its debut in Berlin, the film will be released theatrically in France by Metropolitan Filmexport on 17 September 2025.
