PREMIČRE 

September 2002

ARDANT...

DIVINE FANNY TELLS, WITH CHARACTERISTIC UNPRETENTIOUSNESS, HOW SHE PERFORMED THE ROLE OF

MARIA CALLAS THE DIVA. IN ALL SIMPLICITY.

Interview by Ghislain Loustalot

The Ritz hotel patio, 12:47 p.m. Fanny Ardant has already been waiting for two minutes at a table for three.  We introduce ourselves, apologize for the delay, sit down and order lunch quickly. Several meters away, a small grey mouse crosses the restaurant’s courtyard. Fanny smiles, as always “To hide my shyness” she says. “Because I never feel comfortable”. Meanwhile, steaks, fries and cold cuts, which will remain untouched, are served. One is here because of the Franco Zeffirelli’s film titled “Callas Forever”. Not for the tea. I tell her. But she’s so sublime, so perfect that I would even order an entire thermos for her. I tell her that also. She laughs, relaxes, though not completely, because we have to talk about her work, or rather the sum of work necessary to get inside the skin of Maria Callas, to trace the secrets of an actor starting from the preparation.

ROOT OF THE HAIR...

I wear a longer and lighter wig than my natural hair. The point was not to look like wearing a helmet, because on the screen black becomes even darker, next to soften my face to look more gentle – it has to be remembered that the story is about the last year of Callas' life. The stylists hesitated on the shape of my bun. The one which Callas wore very high in the late seventies was more characteristic but it didn’t look good on me. My nose seemed bigger and Franco was going to make it even bigger, to get rid of my “parisian” look. Finally, we chose a different bun, lower but easier to comb.

 ...THE NAILS

I bite my nails permanently. I can’t help it. Stopping it would make me suffer like a chain-smoker who wants to quit smoking. In most of my films, I stroke men's cheeks with the back of my hand. This is not just for effect but to hide my nails. I succeeded in having them long only three times in my life: in Confidentially Yours, in the play Master Class, in which I also played Callas -- director Roman Polanski threatened that he would put artificial ones on me -- and finally in Callas Forever. It was my greatest work to play this role. Maria Callas was proud of her hands, she showed them gladly, she gestured with it a lot. I also had to discover such natural behaviour. With the long nails, I wasn’t so shy anymore. I became someone else, able to gesture in a way that was not mine and closer to hers.

SLOW DOWN TO BE CONFIDENT

Indeed, this is my first film in English. I had to work a lot for this language, with which I am not comfortable, so not to limit my emotions. I didn’t want it to frustrate me. The accent is mine, strange, as strange as my French one. The rhythm was suggested to me by the dialogue coach, who helped me a lot, telling me this magical sentence: "Maria Callas speaks only when she wants to speak”. The opposite of me. I always feel the need to fill the silence. So I slowed down the pace to a minimum and I learned how to use the breaks and the silence which gave me a lot of confidence.

AUTHORITY

Master Class begins with the lights on. Maria Callas was coming on stage, Hermčs bag, a suit, and the audience applauded. Then she said very curtly: "Oh, no! No applause, we are here to work.” During the first rehearsal, I came on stage and I retorted while opening the arms. Roman [Polanski] stopped me: "You look like Jesus Christ. Just stretch your arms, like you are pushing them back, then you will have authority.” He gave me a wonderful trick to play with this role. In that play it was Callas who helped me live. I listened to her sing lady Macbeth and at the same time I was looking at the stage's “emergency exit”. I did the amalgamation of it. I was talking to her, “Maria, help me”. It was as if she was living in me.

A GESTURE OF THE HAND 

I saw a recorded concert in Paris in 1958 and I noticed this gesture of the hand, that she frequently put on her chest, as if she was trying to cover herself, she seemed focused on herself and at the same time as if she was in pain. Then an unknown young girl sent me a photo of Callas from another concert, and the same gesture was reproduced. This is a gesture that I kept...

WORK PHOTOS 

I worked while looking at the photos especially. For a very long time, I kept a black and white photo in my screenplay. One sees Callas leave the Maxim restaurant into the sun. She has a short hair cut, the glasses, and just in front of her, Onassis puts the money back into his pocket. This photo tells everything, I didn’t need to know more. I also have a calendar with the photos of Callas which I hung in my bathroom. I spent hours in my bath listening and watching Callas. In one documentary film, one sees her eyes very closely. She is talking with Pasolini, one feels the anxiety of a little girl, and at the same time a great expectation, as if she was wondering if this is the man who will feed her for the rest of her life. In the film, one sees many famous photos of Callas. It is me in all of them, it’s my face inserted into the documents. You can’t imagine the effect it gave me.

THE EYES, THAT COMES FROM WITHIN 

Callas used to say: "I always refer to the music, I get back to the score and to nothing else". It is necessary to understand that it is essential. In a scene where I sing the aria of ”Habanera” from Carmen - "L’amour est enfant de Bohčme...” one would think that I imitated the way Callas played with her eyes. Now, there is no documentary in which Callas sings the role of Carmen, so I couldn’t imitate her. How did I work then? Just like she did, I referred to this exciting and delightful music and I let this woman take over me, the woman who has fun with the men. This is the reason it works. The music and only the music. The music holds me and dictates my behaviour. It’s a great lesson for an actress: the eyes, that comes from within.

DIVINE BREATHINGS

I repeated every aria like a condemned soul to assure the miming. I carried my small tape recorder everywhere: in the train stations, at the airport, in the taxi, in my bath. I knew that when Franco says “action”, the adrenaline would obliterate all my work. Therefore it was necessary that these arias be second nature to me, I had to control every little breathing to the fraction of a second. My modesty would have refrained me from telling you, but at the same time, it is an actress' pride: on the "Habanera”. The dolly was in a ring, and Franco let me sing all the arias from the beginning to the end without any cuts. We filmed the scene in a single take with me singing for real and very loudly to give the illusion, to make all the muscles vibrate. Finally I heard a big “wow” from the crew members. They had expected about twenty-five takes.

PASTA DIVA

During the two and a half months of filming in Romania, I spent all my free moments and every evening alone, confined in my hotel room. I ate my supper alone. I called room service and ordered the same dish every evening: penne all’arrabiata. They even nicknamed me “the madwoman from 515”. One evening, towards the end of filming, Jeremy Irons said: "Fanny, you can’t remain like that anymore. Come on, I invite you to the restaurant”. And there I ordered penne all’arrabiata.

THE VOICE 

I didn’t read anything about Callas in order not to cut my wings, play like a robot. I perform the Callas of collective unconsciousness. It’s the voice that counts. That’s what I am like in my life, I always keep up-to-date with the facts, although I never watch the news or read the newspapers. When I was little, my family called me "the Phythie" because I knew everything. At that time, I received my first Callas recording. Her voice guided me in the direction of the tragedy, through the the soul. She sang very low, she let her voice be hoarse like the voice of a shrew, very primitive. Me, I don’t like the shrills.

TRAGEDY

I am a very dark person. I think it is necessary to live in the present moment, because happiness is very quickly taken away from us. In the film, this was what destroyed Callas, the inability to sing. I performed it based on this melancholy which always accompanies me, and with this conscious idea that I have failed in my life.

© FANNY ARDANT Online

Translated by Aleksandra Darsant

Edited by George Sand

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