Elsa Zilberstein, one of France’s most popular actors, will make her directorial debut with My Best Life. The film is a comedy-drama inspired by the sketch series “Mytho du soir” that she posted on social media during the lockdown during the pandemic.
Rather than directly adapt Soiree, in which she played a compulsive daydreamer who lives life as if there were no limits: planning dinner parties, going to the hair salon, flying to New York, going to the mountains, even interviewing Donald Trump, Zilberstein kept the central character and co-wrote an all-new story for My Best Life with Michael Pillard.
In the film, Zylberstein plays a struggling actress whose mother suffers a stroke and wakes up believing her daughter has become an international movie star. Rather than shatter her illusions, the heroine invents increasingly elaborate fictional lives in order to protect her mother and, ultimately, herself.
“This film is really about the power of imagination,” said Zylberstein. “The message is simple: Believe in your dreams. Your imagination will save you.”
Zilberstein described the project as a comedy-drama rooted in emotion rather than a broad satire, and said he wanted audiences to “laugh and cry.” She said the film gently pokes fun at the film industry, but is ultimately about family and abandoned dreams.
“This is also a mother and daughter story,” she said. “I’ve always been fascinated by the way people arrange reality. Everyone reinvents the truth a little bit.”
Regarding the story and its influence on her on-screen character, Zylberstein cited Martin Scorsese’s portrayal of a character in The King of Comedy as someone who is “always on edge and ready to do anything.” For this tone, she said she was inspired by films by directors David O. Russell and Paul Thomas Anderson, such as “Unique Playbook” and “Licorice Pizza,” respectively. “I love stories that are funny and deeply moving at the same time,” she said.
Although the film is different from “Mytho du soir,” Ms. Zilberstein said the idea for “My Best Life” came to her after she noticed how “obsessed” people were with the sketches. The roughly 60 videos, each about a minute long, often receive an average of 80,000 views on Instagram.
Zilberstein will co-direct with Pilar, who has been an assistant director for many years, co-created Mythical Nights, and has worked with such filmmakers as Claude Lelouch, Leos Carax, Sofia Coppola and Pawel Pawlikowski.
She stars in the film opposite beloved French actor Miomiou, who plays her mother, and Mathieu Demy, who plays her childhood best friend. Lucas Bravo is also in talks to play a famous actor suffering from burnout.
The film is being produced by French studio UGC, which operates a major multiplex chain and has been behind some of the country’s biggest comedy hits since taking on Canal Plus Group as a shareholder last year. “My Best Life” is being produced on a budget of 3.6 million euros, with support from Canal+ and France Télévisions.
Despite the compact budget, Zylberstein assembled an all-star key crew, including production designer Jean Labasse (Jackie), costume designer Pascaline Chavannes (Nouvelle Vague), Oscar-winning sound designer Nicola Becker (Gravity), and sound engineer Erwan Kerzanet (Annette).
“I’ve learned so much from the great directors I’ve worked with, and now I want to take everything they’ve taught me and put it into practice,” said Zilberstein, whose career spans more than 30 years, from auteur films to mainstream hits.
She won a César Award for her role opposite Kristin Scott Thomas in I Love You, and most recently gave an acclaimed performance as Simone Weil, an Auschwitz survivor turned feminist icon and human rights activist, in Olivier Dahan’s Simone: Women of the Century. The film became one of the highest-grossing French films of 2022. Last year, she starred in Vinciane Mirault’s time-travel comedy “C’était mieux demain”, which became France’s biggest local hit of 2025, with attendance approaching one million. She also appeared in several films directed by Claude Lelouch, especially “Un + une”, where she co-starred with Jean Dujardin.
Zilberstein is already writing his second feature, but is also developing several projects as a producer. Zilberstein, who has launched production cars in France and the United States, is working on a film about the passionate romance between French feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir (played by her) and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Nelson Algren. Spanning nearly two decades from 1947 to 1964, the film was written by Oscar-winning writer Christopher Hampton and directed by Anne Fontaine. Zylberstein is also one of the few French actors signed to CAA.
