Zoey Deutch has an idea.
They’re sharp, original, and have a kind of disarming charm that makes you wonder why Hollywood hasn’t followed her lead. “Don’t you think comedy should have a fail button?” she asks with a laugh. “It’s always a lot of fun to see failures, and there are a lot of great comedies on the Netflix platform. I’ve been pitching this idea enthusiastically, and it makes sense.”
She also has other ideas. It’s a gender-swapped remake of “The Truman Show” starring Deutsch. “Isn’t it great?” she says, lighting up. “I would love to play Truman, and I think it would be great to explore that story from a different angle.”
Her boldness isn’t just theoretical. The decade-long journey that led to Deutsch’s latest role (Jean Seberg in Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague) is evidence of an artist willing to wait, study, and evolve. The project began with a casual conversation with Linklater on the set of “Everybody Wants Some!!”. When she was only 19 years old, she blossomed into what is now perhaps her most transformative performance to date.
“I didn’t realize how real it was,” she recalls. “But the point is, this movie has lived in Rick’s heart, mind and soul for a long time, so it’s beautiful to see it come to fruition.”
Now 30, Deutsch is enjoying the complexities of Seberg’s life during the chaotic filming of Jean-Luc Godard’s revolutionary 1960 masterpiece. The role required her to master multiple dialects. Gene speaks English “with a bit of a Mid-Atlantic influence,” Gene speaks French, and Gene played Patricia on “Breathless.” Deutsch studied French for two years before filming began, showing his characteristic dedication.
The actress described Nouvelle Vague as a “departure from[Linklater’s]previous work,” a sentiment echoed by frequent Linklater co-star Ethan Hawke, who told the director after seeing the film: But Deutsch sees a deeper connection between Linklater and Godard, despite their vastly different approaches. “Godard is a very spontaneous, unscripted, lightning-in-a-bottle director, and Rick spends as much time rehearsing as he does shooting,” she explains. “But I think that’s the bond between them: their artistic integrity, their integrity, their drive to create what’s within them to create.”
There’s a palpable new passion to her performance, capturing both Seberg’s brilliant screen presence and the vulnerability of a young actress navigating Godard’s chaotic and genius sets.
The role also allowed Deutsch to express her admiration for classic Hollywood, particularly Katharine Hepburn, and her performances in films such as How to Raise a Baby and The Philadelphia Story changed her DNA as an artist. “I felt like I really loved her and what she was doing,” Deutsch said of Hepburn, noting that she was a major inspiration throughout her career.
As Nouvelle Vague debuts on Netflix and reaches perhaps the largest audience of her career, Deutsch continues to be surprisingly on point about the fickleness of the industry. Recalling Ethan Hawke’s speech about the cyclical nature of fame, “You’re somebody, then you’re nobody, then you’re somebody, then you’re nobody,” she adopts a healthier perspective. you. ”
Aubrey Darin as Jean-Paul Belmondo and Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg in “Nouvelle Vague”
Provided by Jean-Louis Fernandes/Netflix
Read the following excerpt from the interview, edited and condensed for clarity.
Was it difficult speaking French and understanding Jean Seberg’s unique accent?
I didn’t speak a word of French. I started studying about two years before filming. I contacted a dialect coach to see if they had a French tutor. I started working with her ahead of time in hopes that this movie would actually happen. And six months before that, another tutor who was actually our producer came in as an extra, and she helped me out as well.
But let me be clear: Gene was not fluent. Gene is from Marshalltown, Iowa. She was learning French while making this film, improvising without a script. Her French is very specific and intentional, and both the dialect and the way she speaks in the film is very nice and was a welcome challenge. In France, her way of speaking French is very famous. That’s why I was so scared.
It’s very interesting that Americans are more critical of the French than they are of the French. French people are like, “Oh my god, that sounds exactly like her.” Because she was American, Americans say, “That’s not right.” So she had an Iowa vibe, but a little Mid-Atlantic vibe. Then she spoke French, and then she played Patricia, which she spoke in “Breathless.” So there were three almost different versions that were really fun to play, and often all three were included in the same scene.
Do you think you could have worked with someone like Jean-Luc Godard?
Rick is a big sportsman, and I think some people are surprised by this, but it’s like a coach or someone saying to Kobe Bryant, “Hey, stop practicing. Why don’t you come to the game and see what happens? You’re going to get better. Watch what happens.” No one would ever tell an athlete not to prepare, not to train, not to work out, not to study, not to consider every possibility. If you’re an actor, you’ll want to do that. That’s his analogy, and I love it. He makes a nonsense of saying that “if you rehearse something too much, it becomes stale.” So what is the alternative? So what is theater?
As an actor, it’s not my job to dictate the process. That is the director’s vision and they are the captains and leaders of the ship. He’s the only director I’ve ever worked with who takes his actors on set and rehearses scenes a month in advance. Would you have been able to work with Godard? That’s a good question. It depends on where Godard is in his life, and it depends on where I am in my life. Am I at this stage in my life now or was I at Gene’s age? Now that I think about it, when I was Gene’s age, I was 20, and I worked with Rick for the first time when I was 20 — well, I couldn’t have done it at 20. I think he must have gone crazy.
Have you found any roles in Hollywood that you really want to play?
You can’t expect someone to sit across from you and say, “Yes, I’m getting all the parts I want.” The fantasy of somehow getting to a place where such things happen is a disservice to any artist. You never arrive, you’re always looking, you’re always looking, you’re hoping, you’re hoping. And it’s great. It’s great to want, and it’s great to keep trying.
I’ve been fortunate to be able to work consistently and continue to hone my craft while also figuring out who I am as a person. I started as a child, but I’m not a child anymore. When I was in my mid-twenties, I felt frustrated that I couldn’t get the parts I wanted, so I started making them. That is, it was born out of necessity, not out of anything else. And it created this newfound love for another part of the job that I never expected to fall into – to create opportunities for both myself and the people I love. But I definitely feel like I’m at a different moment in my career and I’m happy to be reintroduced.
What are you looking for next?
I just want to work with great directors. There is no dream role within the company. There are many. But the reality is, I’m here stalking Yorgos (Lanthimos) and sending cruel emails to the director. I want to do it all.
I did a play on Broadway last year and was able to play Emily Webb in “Our Town,” which was one of my dream roles. It was a very transformative and very important experience in that I felt the weight of doing something that reminded people of such a valuable and beautiful message. It reminds people to enjoy life. It makes people want to call their loved ones and say, “I love you.” That feeling is very deep. Of course, asking for such material is something I would like to do, but I’m not sure how much material there is that rivals Thornton Wilder’s words.
I feel like I never had the desire to bring something good to the world. To be honest, I think over the years I’ve prioritized playing really awkward characters. I continued to play the impostor girl, by accident and on purpose. I did movies like “Buffaloed,” “The Outfit,” and “Not Okay,” where I played quote-unquote unlikable female characters. I started with comedy. I didn’t want to be forced into just the girl parts.
Now I want to do everything. I just want to work with great directors, people who are much smarter and more interesting than me, and I just want to be in their orbit and learn from them.
Do you agree with the idea that “cinema is dying”?
Why do movies die? Watch the movie and see how great it is. I mean, there are so many incredible movies out there. Artists adapt. That’s what we do. There are too many great movies. You can’t see all the great things. It’s not that movies are dying. There’s just too much great art out there. It’s the same thing as a date, right? Many people are difficult to date because they have too many options. When you go on a dating app, you’re like, “Hmm.” The same goes for going to the movies. There are many choices. It takes forever to choose. But that’s a different issue from the fact that movies are disappearing. Our brains don’t know how to process that much information.
What advice would you give to aspiring actors who want to break into the industry?
I love the phrase “prepare to be lucky.” It means preparing as much as you can within your control since everything else is outside of your control. Whatever that means to you, whether it’s watching and studying all the movies, going to class and learning different dialects, watching interviews with your heroes and reading, we have so much information available to you. I think it’s really worth accepting everything and doing the best you can. It parallels manifestation. It’s about, once you get to that place, you do everything you can to get yourself to that place so that you can, “Okay, I get this. You can stand on two legs and say, “Oh, I can do that. Of course, I’ll give it a try.” It equips your toolbox with as many tools as possible.
