After giving the reply to Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard in “Allies”, Camille Cottin continues her international career with “Stillwater”, where she forms a duet with Matt Damon. During her first reading with her partner, the actress was intimidated, fearing to talk too much about him.
Stillwater : Matt Damon arrives in Marseille
In 2021, Tom McCarthy, Oscar-winning director of spotlighttakes the viewer to Marseille alongside Matt Damon with Stillwater. In this drama, the actor lends his features to Bill Baker, an oil driller from Oklahoma who arrives in Marseille with the hope of returning to the United States with his daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin).
The young woman is serving a prison sentence in France for a crime she denies having committed. Bill therefore makes every effort to clear her and get her released. To overcome the language barrier and help him in his efforts, he can count on the support of Virginie (Camille Cottin), an actress he met by chance.
Stillwater is inspired by the true story of Amanda Knoxaccused of the murder of Meredith Kercher in Italy in 2007. In August 2021, a few weeks before the French release of the film, the American whose innocence has since been proven gives a huge rant on Twitter, assuring that no one asked for his permission to have his story brought to the screen:
Does my name belong to me? My face ? My life ? My story ? Why does my name refer to events in which I did not participate? I come back to these questions because other people continue to take advantage of my name, my face and my story without my consent. The recent example is Stillwater.
An anger to which Tom McCarthy responds to Variety by declaring:
Stillwater is a fiction and not a work on his life. The film is inspired by real life events, like many films, but Stillwater talks about the evolution of Bill Baker, his relationship with his estranged daughter and that with a young French woman and her daughter whom he meets along the way.
An intimidating first reading for Camille Cottin
To embody Virginie, the director therefore calls on Camille Cottin. After allies and the series Killing Eve but before House of Guccithe headliner of Bitch, princess of hearts and of Ten percent continues his international career with Stillwater. Asked by 20 minutes during the promotion of the feature film, the actress explains that the collaboration with Matt Damon was “intimidating at first”but that she quickly managed to overcome the pressure thanks to the professionalism of her partner.
Matt Damon’s concentration even upsets the actress during their first reading, as she humorously tells Anne-Elisabeth Lemoine on the show canes at home in July 2021:
I was very impressed. I remember, we did a reading together and he had his extremely charming smile, his kindness, his piercing blue eyes. We sat down and the first scene, I had all the text. He was just saying, ‘Yes ma’am’. I was there: ‘But what depth, what dimension’. And I saw all my lines of dialogue and I said to myself: ‘I have too much text, I have too much text…’
She adds about the impression made on her by the interpreter of Jason Bourne:
‘Yes ma’am’, I was there: ‘WOOOW!’
As for Matt Damon, he is also full of praise for Camille Cottin. Invited on the JT of France 2, he says:
When I play with someone like Camille, it’s very easy. I have always said that there are actors who are so good, that they are good for two.
A pleasure to collaborate which is felt on the screen.
