- Isabelle Pasco, Hors-la-loi (Outlaws!), France, 1984. Inspired by Coppola’s Outsiders, realisteur Robin Davis, wanted unknowns. He told his casting director Dominque Besnehard: Find me a new James Dean and Natalie Wood. Fifteen of them! With four assistants for the first time, he put ads in papers and film magazines and combed through colleges, schools, gyms, night clubs, streets and suburbs. They found 300 kids, but too young for such a violent movie ruled the Youth Commission – although making an exception for Cornillac, 15 (the only one to make a meaningful career) and Pascal Librazzi, 14 1/2. Older actors were targeted. Patrick Aurignac, Vincent Perez, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Marie Trintignant made “extraordinary tests.” Juliette Binoche was not sexy enough said productuer Alain Sarde. (Nor was Isabelle Pasco but she had been sent to auditions by Polanksi, so she had to be sexy!). Polanski noticed Emmanuelle in Besnehard’s office – he introduced them and a new couple was born. (He did same for Sophie Marceau-Christophe(r) Lambert). Godard snapped Emmanuelle up first for Detective, 1984… while Davis’ film flopped, forcing him to serve the rest of his career in TV.
- Julia Roberts, Mary Reilly, 1996. Before UK director Stephen Frears, it was Roman Polanski and his wife (in a London accent!?) who were due to film Valerie Martin’s novel about Dr Jekyll’s housemaid. A French maid (called Reilly) would have made it a French farce.
- Frances de la Tour, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2004. When he couldn’t slip Carole Bouquet free of her Canal Plus fetters, UK director Mike Newell chased various other French actresses – Seigner, Catherine Deneuve, Audrey Tautou – to be Hagrid’s romantic interest, Madame Olympe Maxime, headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, in the fourth of eight movies from JK Rowling’s books.
- Raphaëlle Agogué, La Rafle, France, 2009. Emmanuelle quit being Jo Weismann’s mother a few week before shooting started. Creative differences with auteur Rose Bosch. Mainly about using a Yiddish accent.
- Louise Bourgoin, Un beau dimanche, France, 2013. Having “adored” working with her on Place Vendôme, 1997, actrice–realisateur Nicole Garcia first wanted Emmanuelle for Sandra “But she was too strong, too assured for the role – not a beginner.” Also choosing her son, Pierre Rochefort, as Sandra’s lover, didn’t gell. What do mothers know?! Bourgoin, the third ex-Canal Plus TV weather girl to shine in movies, supplied far better chemistry. (Pierre is the son of Garcia and Jean Rochefort).
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 5