In the early 2000s, Léa Seydoux was not yet 20 years old and she had a big problem: she had fallen in love with an actor, to the point of making a real obsession with him. She follows everywhere this actor whom she describes today as“arrogant”literally stalks him, but the man doesn’t want her. “I said to myself: ‘I’m going to become more famous than him, prove to him that I exist’she explains to the site Deadline in August 2021, before concluding half-laughing, half-bitter: “I won, but actually not really. Because he never liked me.” The same kind of disappointment happened to her when she was a child. At school in rue de Jardinet (Paris 6th) in the 90s, Léa was a sad and lonely little girl.
Her parents divorced when she was 3 years old.
And to ward off this fate, she already decides to act and goes to the director’s office: “Sir, I have no friends…”waiting for him to take her hand to introduce her to potential classmates in the yard. “Suffice to say that they weren’t jostling! But I wasn’t too worried”she tells the Worldin September 2013. “One day, I said to myself, people will love me and the boys will all be in love with me. So, I invented imaginary friends for myself, (…) I escaped from school by spirit with premonition that I would later stop being transparent and something big would happen to me”. A melancholic but very imaginative little girl. This melancholy of childhood finds its origin in the divorce of her parents when she was only 3 years old. Nannies, a recomposed family of five children and led by bohemian bourgeois before their time, often absent. His mother, Valérie Schlumberger, is a wealthy heiress who works in humanitarian aid. As for his father, Henri Seydoux, he is a former figure of Parisian nights, an entrepreneur who invested in the shoemaker Christian Louboutin and rebuilt his life with one of the muses of the brand: Farida Khelfa. Henri is a bit like the artist of the Seydoux, a family of industrialists whose name is inseparable from the seventh art. Jérôme, Léa’s grandfather, whose fortune is estimated at more than 1 billion euros, runs the Pathé company and Nicolas, his great-uncle, is chairman of the supervisory board of the production and distribution company. Gaumont. No wonder Léa embraced this career. His first screen appearance dates back to 2004 in an episode of the series Father and Mayor on TF1then in 2005 in the music video for singer Raphael, Let’s not leave angryfilmed by Olivier Dahan, the director of The kid.
Leah’s world
She then turns in advertisements (Vodafone, La Laitière, Mars) in Germany and Sweden or in France in 2007 in a Levi’s spot where she tears off the pants of a certain Raphaël Personnaz. But the pub, it’s going for a while and it’s not very intellectually rewarding. Léa then decides to bet everything on the cinema, claiming to have lost nothing. Also in 007, she joined the Talents Cannes class alongside director Mathieu Amalric and actor Pierre Niney.
Result, the following year, she turns in two films: Of the war by Bertrand Bonello and a leading role in the rewriting of The Princess of Cleves : The beautiful person by Christophe Honoré. Everything will then follow very quickly at the national and international level. Léa suddenly becomes a star, squatting on all the magazine covers, attending all the festivals, filming with the greatest directors around the world, both a James Bond girl and the muse of an auteur cinema that is by nature demanding. An XXL exhibition that makes you cringe: does Léa owe this sensational start to her career to her talent alone? Yes, according to the actress who says in The world in 2010 or on France 2 in 2016 never having asked his grandfather to find him a role. Nevertheless, suspicions persist despite his obvious talent for acting.
“I can understand that my little sentence on the school of life was considered ridiculous”
In 2013, she was cited among the people most hated by the French with the actor Nicolas Bedos, another son of. Some are watching for blunders, missteps, skids… In May 2016, the first hitch: “We both come from the school of life”she says to Madame Figaro thanks to a cross interview with the filmmaker Xavier Dolan. “School of Life”, the Seydoux heiress? It is the outcry on the social networks which unearth in the wake an interview of Paris Match dating from 2013 where the star evokes his experience of public transport in Château Rouge in the 18th arrondissement of Paris: “In the bus, when an African sits next to me, the tchourai, the scent of seduction they spray on, makes me take off and makes me want to eat chicken yassa”. It’s the total bad buzz. Nobody believes in this Léa version of the neighborhoods.
A shitstorm to which she will return in January 2022 in the pages of Vanity Fair : “I can completely understand that my little sentence on the school of life was considered ridiculous. I just wanted to say how much I made myself more with my feelings, with what I observed, than with masters “before concluding : “Yes, cinema has made me a better person. That’s why I can say that it saved me, especially from my only condition”. The stalker teenager has become a mother in love, as for the melancholy and lonely child, she has turned into a luminous actress, from whom we tear off the air always a little grumpy. With a strong character trait: a self-confidence that commands admiration. In early 2000, Léa was on a plane to Sweden for an advertisement. Next to her, one of the girls who is to tour with her asks her:“And if that doesn’t work, what do you do?” Response from Léa Seydoux: “It will work”. Won.
In the skin of Emmanuelle
The announcement had the effect of a bomb at the Cannes Film Festival: Léa Seydoux will shoot under the direction of Audrey Diwan – Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2021 for her film The Event– the remake of Emmanuelle, the cult erotic film of the 70s. We imagine that the negotiations with the filmmaker were tough since Léa demanded contractual clauses concerning her possible nudity on screen. The actress had in particular deplored the multiple takes for scenes of only thirty seconds – mostly sex scenes – on the set of The Life of Adele by Abdellatif Kechiche in 2012. No more question for her to relive that.
A flawless look
Léa benefits from the advice of her sister, stylist Camille Seydoux. As a result, the actress regularly occupies high places in the rankings of the best dressed celebrities. The style at the Seydoux? A family matter.
big contracts
Since The Life of Adele, Léa never stops stringing together juicy contracts with major brands. It started with Prada and its sister brand Miu Miu. In 2016, she joined the Louis Vuitton team and only wears clothes designed by Nicolas Ghesquière during major events. She is also the face of the perfume Spell on You.
fiancée, one child
Léa Seydoux and André Meyer, international model, met for the first time in 2010. She was then 25 years old and neither of them intended to settle down. Three years later, Léa and André have changed their minds: “It was love at first sight in two stages. A few years ago, I saw him for the first time. He was a little young; me, not very mature either and absorbed by my work. In short, we I had vaguely kept in touch with him. One day we met again. And there, I said to myself: It’s him!she explains in Paris Matchin 2015. In January 2017, the couple gave birth to little George, much to Léa’s delight: “George? He’s very handsome… I love him!”, she said two years later. Léa’s daily life with George and André? That’s so sweet.
His filmography
2008: THE BEAUTIFUL PERSON
Léa imposes her captivating presence.
2009: INGLORIOUS BASTARDS
Quentin Tarantino offered him international experience very early on. A fleeting but striking appearance.
2011: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: PHANTOM PROTOCOL
A foray into the Tom Cruise action franchise. She plays a hired killer.
2013: THE LIFE OF ADELE
Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, a feminine love story that will touch Steven Spielberg, president of the jury at Cannes. Palme d’Or.
2019: ROUBAIX, A LIGHT
Always in the register of social cinema, she bursts the screen in front of the camera of Arnaud Desplechin.
2021: FRANCE
Bruno Dumont entrusts him with the role of a TV star journalist. A satire of the media world with a singularly inhabited Léa Seydoux.
2021: DIE CAN WAIT
After 007 Spectre, in 2015, the actress returned to her role as a James Bond girl for the last time, opposite Daniel Craig.
2022: CRIMES OF THE FUTURE
In competition at Cannes 2022, a science fiction film about the posthuman by David Cronenberg. sad and lonely girl.
2022: A BEAUTIFUL MORNING
By French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve, a Rohmer-style tale about the end of life. Léa plays a daughter facing her father suffering from a neurodegenerative disease played by Pascal Greggory.
See also: Video: Léa Seydoux, Lea Michele, Léa Salamé… What character do the LÉA have?
Sylvain Monier