For the purposes of the filming of the film “Celle que vous crois” adapted from the eponymous novel by Camille Laurens, director Safy Nebbou has developed a ploy so that Juliette Binoche and François Civil do not cross paths. Find out why.
The one you believe: I’m fooling
The one you believe is a film directed by Safy Nebbou released in cinemas in February 2019. This is the film adaptation of the eponymous novel by Camille Laurens published in 2016.
Juliette Binoche plays the main role, that of Claire Millaud, 50, who creates a fake Facebook profile to spy on her lover. She becomes Clara, a beautiful young woman of 24 with whom Alex, a friend of her lover, falls in love. Claire, prisoner of her avatar, falls in turn under the spell of the young man. If the exchanges are virtual, the feelings are very real. She sinks into her lies, and the virtual mixes with the real. Until a point of no return.
To play the role of Alex, François Civil was chosen. The rest of the cast notably consists of Charles Berling, Guillaume Gouix and Nicole Garcia in the role of Claire’s psychoanalyst.
The director’s strategy on the set
Throughout the first part of the film, the characters of Claire and Alex do not meet physically. Their only exchanges are in writing, by interposed screens or by telephone. Thus, Alex only knows the voice of Claire (or rather Clara), and imagines that she is 24 years old.
On the set, for the sake of authenticity, the director Safy Nebbou wanted François Civil to actually give the reply to Juliette Binoche for the scenes on the phone. But he also wanted to that they do not meet physically, like in the first part of the film.
A difficult bet to achieve on the set, since Juliette Binoche was not aware that François Civil was a few meters from her. The latter explained in an interview for The little newsletter that he was sometimes hidden in cubbyholes.
Juliette Binoche had declared in an interview given to our colleagues from First having discovered the deception one day when she had a pressing desire:
I knew it at some point because I had to pee (…) and all of a sudden there was panic on board. The time to make him go there, and to make him come back there, I realized that he was hidden in a cupboard.
A profitable strategy
The two actors did not meet in real life on the set of The one you believe that when shooting the scene of the first encounter between the characters. A strategy that paid off for François Civil:
Safy had this idea of not seeing each other until the work plan required that we see each other. Our first “physical” scene was the photo shoot. And the same day, we shot a love session. Being a small voice for two weeks in Juliette’s head without seeing her created frustration in me and caused a kind of tension to rise.
