An Incredible Scene

There's a sweet scene in Emmanuelle Bercot's On My Way, in which Catherine Deneuve – the film's star, and one of cinema's greatest living icons – sits down in a French farmhouse to share a cigarette with a local man she's met on the roadside. Bercot's film is a road movie about the past, aging and the fraying of families over generations; but if Deneuve's 60-something leading lady is deemed to be old, here she's set against someone so ancient his fingers can barely roll up a smoke. As Deneuve grows impatient, she improvises, impishly, whilst the old charge goes slowly about his business.

Deneuve calls it “an incredible scene” and it's easy to agree – offering a blessed, unexpected moment amidst On My Way's plotted drama. But when asked about it, she initially seems like she wants to guard its magic: “What more is there to say than what you've already seen!” Deneuve laughs.

The 70-year-old grand dame of French cinema is holding court, in front of a small press corps, in an opulent Parisian hotel: a vision of royalty in a Keith Haring jumper, questions answered through plumes of cigarette smoke. When Deneuve's arrival nears, PR preparations go into overdrive; the actress, almost 50 years after starring in Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, is still one of the most famous faces in France. But Deneuve is no cold star, but warm and endearing, a sentiment echoed by Bercot: “Catherine would never take advantage of her status... to pull rank on certain things.”

Bercot wrote the leading role, of a grandmother who embarks on a spontaneous roadtrip, with the star in mind. “My number one inspiration for this movie was working with Catherine – she inspired me from start to finish,” she says. Deneuve is just as complimentary of the director: “She's always very prepared, she's done her homework, and so on the set she's really present. That's contagious, that kind of energy.” And she's aware that, at 70, still having roles written for her is a privilege.

“It's exciting,” Deneuve beams. “You have done so many films, been in so many roles, and yet directors, when they write something for you, they have the impression that they can write something that you have not done yet. And that's what every actor hopes for every time they do a film.”

That's what Deneuve has found in her celebrated collaborative relationship with André Techiné, whom she has worked with on six films, from 1981's Hotel America to the forthcoming L'Homme Que L'On Imait Trop (English title TBD) – the actress offering that each time the pair are “digging deeper”. For Bercot and Deneuve, they both took great delight in setting Deneuve on the road amidst a cast of non-professionals.

“I was trying to be very open,” Deneuve says of the experience. “It's always surprising to work with non-professionals, because it's always so fresh. They're always so young at being an actor, it's interesting to see them at work.”

Bercot was inspired to make the film by her own travels in France – wanting to make a portrait of the odd things she'd find in rural wanderings. Where most road movies come with a destination, On My Way does not; it's less a journey into somewhere specific, more a trip back into memories. Deneuve ends up wandering into a reunion of '60s beauty queens, a nod to her own pin-up past. As she does, she comes across a cast of non-actors, from a disarming love interest, played by impressive newcomer Paul Hamy, to key roles for the experimental pop-singer Camille, and Bercot's own son Nemo Schiffman. “Working with a child, there's a real innocence which is quite beautiful,” says Deneuve, of all the screen time she split with her 11-year-old co-star. “Helping him to learn his lines, learn how to make a movie. We had a lot of fun together, we did a lot of singing together.”

And that approach – setting this screen siren against a host of unknowns – is never better than in that beautiful moment in which Deneuve and the old-timer sit down for a smoke. “We didn't have a script, and the man just started talking, and we had no idea that it was going to be so personal,” says Deneuve, touched by the memory. “It was very moving and very funny at the same time, and that's what's interesting about the scene.”