Co-stars Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet will receive the Excellence Award Davide Campari at Locarno, dedicated to actors with extraordinary careers.

“I would be sad if Mélanie was getting it all by herself, and I would feel awkward if I was the only one. It’s wonderful that we are getting it together,” Canet tells Variety ahead of this year’s Locarno Film Festival.

In their fest opener, “The Flood,” directed by Gianluca Jodice, the duo plays Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, living out their last days in isolation and poverty. This time, the famous queen isn’t urging anyone to “eat cake.” She is just trying to survive.

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“They get arrested, and she understands it’s the end of everything,” says Laurent, who “based everything” on Stefan Zweig’s book “Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman.”

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“She wasn’t stupid; she wasn’t obsessed with partying, but she had a husband who was asexual. He was nice to her but she was bored. She wasn’t supposed to have any power, and he was unable to lead. They weren’t the bad guys; they weren’t cruel on purpose. They were victims as well – of many things.”

After reading the book, Laurent “fell in love” with the oft-mocked royal.

“We forget these women were married off at 14 to someone they barely knew. Louis XVI was like a child; he looked at the world in a naïve way,” she explains. “In the film, it’s a very complex relationship because there’s so much tenderness between them. She really liked him, and he was probably in love with her, in a way.”

Although “The Flood” deals with the fall of the monarchy and the French Revolution, it’s an intimate drama.

“We’ve made so many movies about these events, and when you picture Marie Antoinette, you think of lavish parties and hundreds of extras. Here, all this wealth is taken away. They go from the richest people to the poorest ones over the course of 24 hours,” says Laurent.

Canet adds, “It makes it interesting. In his journals, valet [Jean-Baptiste Cléry] expressed how Louis XVI was experiencing all this, how shy he was, and totally disconnected. I realized he suffered from some form of autism. He kept focusing on locksmithing and his favorite clocks. When his father was dying, he said, ‘After me, the flood.’ He knew his son wouldn’t be capable of being the king of France.”

Stripped of all their belongings, Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI are the shadows of their former illustrious selves. But Canet, barely recognizable in the role, still found it hard to physically transform into the monarch.

“We were doing all these makeup tests, and I wasn’t happy with it. I knew it could help, but it also hid and limited my expressions. I was showing what we came up with to people around me and the response was good, so I finally allowed myself to dive into the process,” says Canet.

Laurent adds: “When your makeup artist is actually making you look like shit… There is something about it that feels so good. You don’t have to be beautiful and sexy, so all you care about is the emotion you have to deliver. It gives you so much strength.”

In the past, Laurent has worked with Tarantino on “Inglorious Basterds” and alongside Ewan McGregor in “Beginners,” while Canet appeared in “The Beach” and Jerry Schatzberg’s “The Day the Ponies Come Back.” They are both César winners. But it hasn’t always been easy for them. It still isn’t.

“Someone was driving me yesterday – I am shooting another movie right now – and she was telling me all about my career. ‘…And you’ve worked with Brad Pitt! Twice!’ I thought: ‘That’s true!’ But I am in a weird place right now, confidence-wise, so maybe it’s good I am getting an award,” laughs Laurent.

“I started working when I was 14 and never stopped, but every day I am telling myself I am lucky. I say: ‘Wow. I’ve survived.’ I know so many actors who used to work much more than me and I don’t see them anymore. It’s scary, but I am still here.”

That’s why “creating your own opportunities” is so important, notes Canet, especially as a director.

“Now, I just want to do the things I haven’t done before. I can do that because I don’t have to wait for the phone to ring,” he says.

“I’ve always had this passion for directing, and maybe that’s how I express myself better, but I like being an actor – so much. I might be wrong, but I think I am actually improving. I am getting to play more complex characters.”

Canet’s “Tell No One” and “Little White Lies” were successful – he also directed “Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom.” Laurent made “Galveston” or “Wingwomen” for Netflix, while “Freedom” will launch on Prime Video in November. But potential collaborators are still afraid of actors-turned-directors, she says.

“At least in France, less so in the U.S., I’ve really felt it, and I’ve lost so many projects,” she reveals.

“Many are afraid I will be annoying on set or give out directions to the crew. Which is so not the case, because you actually start to understand directors even more. There is a price to pay, but I have no regrets. The pleasure of directing a movie, that joy of having a dream and seeing all these people who help you achieve it, is what I love the most. Maybe one day it will be completely normal for actors to direct.”

Or to do both at the same time.  

“With the next movie I am working on as a director, I was already getting anxious. I was wondering if it’s a good idea for me to play the main part and then I realized everyone does it. When I see Bradley Cooper in ‘Maestro,’ I am not shocked by it – it feels right,” she says.

“It has been a while since I got a part like this one, since I could cry, scream and feel like a proper actor again. Directing gives me so much pleasure, and now that I’ve started doing it, I can’t stop. But it was so much fun to really act again.”

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