- Isabelle Pasco, Hors-la-loi (Outlaws!), France, 1984. Inspired by Coppola’a 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, Juliette Binoche, Vincent Perez, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Marie Trintignant made “extraordinary tests.”
- Emmanuelle Beart L’Enfer, France, 1994. French New Wave ikon Claude Chabrol started thinking of using a real couple – Beart-Daniel Auteuil, Marie-François Cluzet, before deciding that – for a story of jealousy killing a marriage – it would be safer to split the difference and form his own couple: Beart and Cluzet.
- Ludivine Sagnier, 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. Poor Marie was murdered in a ferocious assault (19 punches) by her singer-lover Bertrand Cantat in Lithuania while making Colette, une femme libre in 2003.
Birth year: 1962Death year: 2003Other name: Casting Calls: 3