Under the spotlight for the release of his autobiographical book A burnt life (Observatory editions), Emmanuelle Seigner also faces numerous criticisms. In question, his passionate defense in front of the cameras of TF1 and seven to eight for her husband, the Franco-Polish director Roman Polanski. Accused of sexual assault by several women and threatened with extradition to the United States for the sensational Samantha Geimer affair of 1977, the multi-award-winning filmmaker to whom we owe The pianist enjoys the family support of his wife and mother of his children Morgane and Elvis. If these arguments are far from unanimous, the 56-year-old actress maintains her convictions in The Sunday newspaper, bringing the nuance she wishes, conscious of upsetting certain people. In this interview for the JDD, she also talks about this feeling of paranoia that gnaws at her…
I could see myself ending up murdered more
Emmanuelle Seigner presents herself as a strong woman, who assumes her choices and remains true to herself. When her family is shaken by the arrest of Roman Polanski in 2009 in Zurich, when he was to get a prize at a film festival, Mathilde Seigner’s sister explains what worried her the most: “I rarely feel guilty but I have felt guilt over our children. They were young and hadn’t asked for anything. I could never have predicted this arrest.” She then confides that she was however tormented by another feeling, paranoia: “I could see myself ending up murdered more. I had periods of intense paranoia. I walked around for a while with a knife in my bag. Everything worried me. As soon as someone looked at me, I said to myself: he wants to assassinate me.“
A link perhaps with the terrible tragedy that her husband suffered in 1969, the appalling murder of Sharon Tate, at the time married to Roman Polanski and pregnant. She was killed by followers of guru Charles Manson. A horrible news item that has always haunted the artist. “Jack Nicholson thinks we have to go back to the Sharon Tate affair to understand the sequence of events. A horrible murder committed in America and by Americans. The media immediately accused Roman Polanski, a Pole who made bizarre films. Unconsciously, perhaps the media felt they were taking their revenge with the Samantha Geimer affair. When I met Roman, some warned me: be careful, he killed his wife. The rumor, the lie, the malice are terrible“, says Emmanuelle Seigner in the JDD.