- Aurelle Doazan, Guardien de la nuit, France, 1986. Jean-Pierre Limosin was finding it impossible to find the heroine for his directing debut, when a musician recommended a friend: “une fille avec des yeux de chat extraordinaires.” Next morning, he met her as a cafe, shot a video-test. “She’d never acted before but she was formidable and wanted to work with me.” Trouble was, she said much the same at a later meeting with Jean-Jacques Beineix about playing Betty Blue in 37.2 le matin (“about [her] boobs and behind,” said Chicago critic Roger Ebert). And J-J B refused to let her make both films. Dalle’s new agent, Dominque Besnehard, found another girl for Limosin.
- Natassja Kinski, Maladie d ‘amour, France, 1987. Polish director Andrzej Zulawski fled his own script when his choice of Juliette was veteoed. He wanted an unknown and his pal, réalisateur Jean-Jacques Beineix, showed him some of Béatrice Dalle in their 37°2 le matin/Betty Blue. “Take her now, this minute. She’s fabulous, but an oddball, so she won’t last.” Producer Marie-Laure Reyre said: “Maybe he showed you the best bits and the rest stinks. [D’oh!]. Forget unknowns. Take a star. Adjani is keen.” He laughed. “Isabelle Adjani, the #1 French star, as a shampooer in Bordeaux… don’t be silly.” “OK, Kinski!” (Also a previous J-JB star in La lune dans le caniveau/The Moon in the Gutter, 1982), “With her Germanic accent she’d be even less credible than Adjani.” (There was also the problem of her having dared refuse one of his earlier films). “If that’s all you’ve got, I’ll leave, sell you my script and you do it with whoever you want… And they made a dud! Worse, my name is in the credits.”
- Anouk Grinberg, Merci La Vie, France, 1990. Dalle’s rapid fame depressed her painter husband so much, he shot himself. He survived; the marriage didn’t. They divorced in 1988. She was also depressed by her new fame. That’s why in the middle of the promo trail for Bois noirs, she suddenly announced she was quitting movies. Dominique Besnehard was furious with her. But she refused everything including Bertrand Blier’s female take of his 1973 Les valseuses, aimed at Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg – “I never begin six months of writing without the support of the actors.” Béatrice loved Blier’s typically caustic script – except for the nudity. Body bashful, she claims the 37°2 le matin nude scenes in 1986 traumatised her for life. She couldn’t take off her jacket in a restaurant without some smart aleck shouting: “Leave it on, we’ve all seen it all before.” She went instead into a fully clothed Lelouch flop. “And when Anouk walked in,” said Blier, “she was the character.” And they set up house together.
- Laurence Masliah, Helas pour moi (Woe Is Me), Switzerland-France, 1993. Gérard Depardieu’s first film for Godard… Or, as the posters put it, Godard-Depardieu.
- Maria de Medeiros, Pulp Fiction, 1994.
- Olivia Williams, The Sixth Sense, 1999. Two arrests for alleged cocaine possession during her previous US movie, The Blackout, meant no work permit. She agreed with The Guardian’s Stuart Jeffries in June 2018, things might have been better if she had not slapped a US embassy official in 1997. “Oh, but he was asking for it!” she says. “I needed a green card to work with Abel Ferrara I’d been convicted recently of possessing heroin and cocaine, and so this consul says: ‘You’re not the kind of person we want in America.’ He spoke to me disrespectfully. I said to him: ‘You don’t speak to your wife like that, so don’t speak to me like that.’ And I slapped him. I was banned for seven years.”
Virginie Ledoyen, 8 femmes (8 women), France, 2001. After Charlotte Rampling in Sous le sable, 1999, auteur François Ozon wanted to film more impeccable actresses – a la Cukor’s The Women, 1938. Casting icon Dominique Besnehard recalled a creaky, 70’ whodunnit by Robert Thomas: 8 femmes. It proved a decent launchpad… now a la Douglas Sirk. At first, Ozon and Besnehard could only come up with 7 femmes, including Catherine Deneuve, who recalled Alfred Hitchcock giving up on another old-fashioned Thomas murder mystery, Man Trap. Ozon’s film became quite an Artmedia talent agency production when Ledoyen and Deneuve joined Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart, Danielle Darrieux, Isabelle Huppert, Firmine Richard, Ludivine Sagnier. When learning that Ledoyen was infanticipating a daughter, Darrieux quipped: “It’s 9 not 8 women.” No, 10 – a photo of Romy Schneider was glimpsed in one scene. - Jacqueline Bisset, Welcome To New York, 2013. Allegedly jealous that director Abel Ferrara was more fascinated by Gérard Depardieu than her, Adjani quit the role of the thinly disguised Madame Dominique Struass-Kahn. Three new candidates loved the script – switched from a conspiracy thriller to a vibrant study of the weaknesses of the human soul – but Dalle, Juliette Binoche and Kristin Scott Thomas were all booked. Bisset was suggested by Depardieu, playing DSK… er Georges Devereaux. ]. “I’m not attacking this filth,” declared the ex-Mrs DSK, journo Anne Sinclair, “I’m vomiting on it.”
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 8