Is there anything more complicated than familial relationships? Be it husband and wife, parent and child, or sibling to sibling, the DNA of cinema is abounding with narratives that attempt to navigate the intricate bonds that connect us.

Golden Globe and Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) gets her chance to dive deep into quite the sibling interaction in Arnaud Desplechin’s  Brother and Sister (Frère et Sœur), a drama that examines the hostility between esteemed stage actor Alice Vuillard (Cotillard) and her brother Louis (Melvil Poupaud), an acclaimed author.

Having two younger brothers herself, as she does in the film, the graduate of the Conservatoire d’art Dramatique in Orléans, slips effortlessly into the role of the older sister who seems to bear the full weight of not only the expectations of her elderly parents, but the responsibilities of not casting too large a shadow for her brothers.

With an impressive resume of work in such films as Inception, Midnight in Paris, Public Enemies, Contagion, Rust and Bone and Ismael’s Ghost, the noted French actress, singer and environmentalist steps in front of the microphone during the 75^th Cannes Film festival to meet the press at the Palais to talk about her latest project.

Marion, here is a woman who seems to have love, family, and fame and yet deep inside her is the penetrating hate and jealousy. How did you navigate that?

Oh, how do I explain the character? I don’t know whether I can explain her. I don’t judge her either. She’s a rough character. Rough like a rough diamond. There are very dual feelings within her opposites and it’s quite interesting in the cinema to have characters who adopt a given stance. Melvil’s character says this. She was very hard. She has a very bad character, personality. And then suddenly she becomes very gentle and starts to love people. I think she deeply loves people. She’s just never known how to express this. I think she deeply loves her brother, in fact, but she didn’t know how to love him as a brother.

How did you dissect that? How did you find her core then?

When you prepare for a character in the film, it’s different each time around. I wanted to explore the character’s childhood to understand the character’s fears, joys, and pathologies. How a being is actually fashioned as the years go by. What I love about preparing for this character was that there were a lot of things I needed to invent. There was a lot of information about this woman, but at the same time, there was huge scope for imagination. And that enabled me to imagine all sorts of things about her. Things that I’ll keep for myself. One of the things that really amused me is that she’s really upset by the fact her brother is writing and she really wants to know exactly what he is writing. I had lots of fun writing parts of his book and it really wasn’t nice what he was writing about his sister. That was a delicious moment when preparing for the character. I wondered why she was so upset, disturbed, and overwhelmed. Of course, he revealed a part of her life that she wanted to keep private, hidden from the public eyes.

Can you walk us through how you and Melvil framed their complicated sibling relationship? Did you get their adversity right away?

Yes, right away, I view this film as being a love story. When we started shooting, I felt quite a strange need, which I’ve never really felt before. I felt the need to remain at a distance from Melvil. Usually, between shoots, we come and talk together, we chat, and we know each other quite well as actors. I like to learn more about people. I like to talk with people. Melvi and I had an opportunity to meet some years ago, but we didn’t know each other all that well. Yet I felt in the film that it was necessary to remain at a distance and not become too close. I didn’t want to explain things to him in any way. So, I was quite pleased when at the end of the shoot, I could say, “I’m sorry,” in a cafe. I said I wasn’t very warm. In fact, I avoided him on purpose.

That must have proved a fun set (laugh).

When we were being made up in the morning, I did my best to ensure that our paths didn’t cross. I don’t know. I had the impression that this really created a good feeling. I’m very pleased now that we can talk together normally. But I really like that moment of creating this kind of relationship. It created a lot of mystery for me. When it comes to a loving relationship also, when you don’t dare to look at someone when you don’t dare to love that other person, there’s that magic moment when you Look deep into the other person’s eyes.

Would you describe that approach as following one of the great masters of acting and their methods?

I don’t really have a method, a pre-established method. What I was saying earlier on what’s in common the way I prepare all my parts is to explore the childhood of the character. Of course, it depends on the director who you work with. Some directors need to rehearse a lot and I love that. For example, when I worked with the Dardenne brothers, we rehearsed the film from beginning to end with the right setting, with the costumes on, and with the actors. That makes it possible to explore things differently. How can I explain this? I don’t want to be too vague or mystical. I try to connect with the character. That’s how I start. I try to be very available at a given point in time at that very instant. I try to be open. So anyway… Yes, I try to be very open. I try to connect with the character, the mystery. Each part you play is different as well. So, this meeting will take place in a different way each time round. I need this preparatory period to meet my character and explore the character. It’s quite a strange situation because you actually become somebody else. It’s a kind of a non-method when I go about preparing a character.

Are there criteria for you in choosing a part?

What attracts me to a given part? Well, I like all of my parts to be different. Up until now, I’ve never really played the same kind of character twice apart from the times, it was the very same character. I need my characters to be different and so, each time I make a new film, I want them to be as different from me as possible. Even if sometimes it’s interesting to play a character who’s similar to you, it’s interesting to embody someone who resembles you. It’s more difficult for me but it’s also a worthwhile exercise. When I read a script, and feel totally obsessed with it from day one, that’s why I may choose this or that film. In this case, Arnaud sent me the script, I read it right away and I called him up immediately. It was already part of me, the part.