Ms. Lennie, as an actor for more than two decades, what does cinema mean to you?
It’s a difficult question to answer… I feel that what happens between me and cinema is constantly evolving. Of course, it’s a place where I encounter stories that make me ask questions about the world. For many years, it was the backbone of my life. Everything I studied, watched, or wanted was somehow connected to cinema. It was like an absolute love story, a story of total passion. That has changed and evolved as I’ve grown older. At one point, I became exhausted by cinema; I rejected it. Then I fell in love with it again. And I think that now I’m enjoying a quieter, more mature stage. I’m still in love, but without the madness of those earlier years. Fascinated, but without completely losing myself in it. I give a lot to it, but not everything. And I expect the same in return. I think we’re both quite happy with where we are — cinema and I.
Do you think your approach to the craft has also changed since the madness of your early years?
Certainly! I made my first film when I was fifteen, with no previous experience. Since then, imagine how much I’ve changed! It has changed to the extent that I have changed. I think that some of that intuition, that magnetism I felt at the beginning, is still pretty much intact. I actually nurture it. Meeting different directors, who ask you to approach the work in different ways, to be in front of the camera in different ways, means that every project becomes a kind of rediscovery. Of course, I now have a much greater command of my instrument, of the specific technique that acting sometimes requires in cinema. I’m more trained, but I’m also more attentive to not repeating myself over and over again…
You recently described making a movie as “embarking on a powerful creative process.”
Exactly. When you join a creative project, you kind of enter a very powerful current of energy. Especially if the project really interests you, of course. You come into contact with other people’s imaginations, with a lot of people thinking and working around an idea. When your body and mind understand the journey that the film is proposing everything falls into place. That’s very powerful. And very joyful, too.
Is that how you seek out your projects? Simply by following your interests, or do the stories sometimes come to you?
For example, Pedro Almodóvar called me to cast me in Bitter Christmas, and that was a wonderful surprise. More than 20 years has passed since we worked together on The Skin I Live In. So many films, and so much life. Our reunion felt so different from that first time.
In what ways?
I’ve had the opportunity to explore, listen, rehearse, have dinner, raise a glass and walk alongside Pedro in a much more expansive and intense way. I’ve been able to better understand where his cinema and his imagination come from. Pedro has always enjoyed telling many stories within one. There are always secondary characters who bring their own dramas into the story, branching the narrative out further and further. I didn’t find it particularly difficult to connect with this material in this film either, the journey that my character Elsa goes through. Elsa can’t stop because if she stops, she’ll break, and she doesn’t want to break. It’s her body that forces her to ask herself questions. Her pain, the way it turns into panic, and her journey around grief is something I feel close to, and something I’ve seen in many people around me.
Pedro apparently said that he is impressed by your simplicity and effortlessness in front of the camera, that your acting never wants to prove anything. Does that resonate with your intentions?
I find it very flattering, of course. And I have to admit that I like those qualities. In life in general, and in acting in particular. It’s not something I consciously train or seek out, but it is something I find interesting. It’s a very easy and very difficult art at the same time. Profoundly mysterious at times. Conveying a sense of ease and simplicity is difficult, so if I’ve managed to achieve that, I think that’s something to be happy about.
What do you gain from working with a director a second time? You’ve also cultivated relationships with directors like Isaki Lacuesta, Diego Lerman, Pascal Rambert, Miguel del Arco…
What I like most about my work is meeting talented people with whom I can share a passion, a way of life. I love feeling that sense of friendship on set. I love the idea of asking ourselves questions together, and I really enjoy putting myself in the hands of artists who know me well and know how far we can go together. There’s something very challenging about that encounter. There’s also a certain amount of risk. Both of those things interest me when it comes to giving myself over to a story.
“It fills me with questions. Always. Sometimes I know how to answer them when I finish the film, and other times, not at all.”
Pascal Rambert even sometimes referred to you as his muse, right?
Pascal Rambert changed the way I inhabit a stage. He opened every door and window of my imagination and my body. His texts and productions are so profoundly demanding that they require very finely tuned instruments. I’ve worked with him on three occasions, and I never get used to it. I feel that he is the director who has made me feel the most terrified before going on stage, and at the same time, the person who has given me the greatest sense of calm and security so far. You always feel that things are going to happen when you work with him. You have to take responsibility for the text from beginning to end and commit yourself completely to what you are doing, because that is what holds the production together. They have been transformative experiences, and getting to know Pascal is one of the best things that has happened to me in my career.
Does working with different directors also require different qualities in an actor?
Yes, absolutely. There are directors who are easier than others. There are directors who are more transparent than others. There are directors who want to manipulate you because they think that’s the best way to find what they’re looking for in you. And your part of the job is to let yourself be guided, or at least to make it seem as though you’re letting yourself be guided… I find that encounter with the other person fascinating, and it fills me with questions. Always. Sometimes I know how to answer them when I finish the film, and other times, not at all. So I think actors need to have a great deal of intuition in that regard.
In what other ways is intuition or instinct important to your process as an actor?
I think it’s fundamental. So are judgment, perseverance, discipline, empathy, and the ability to see the world and other people. But instinct is something we tend to suppress quite a lot in our everyday lives. There’s something animal about it, something elusive, and it’s also exciting. It takes you to unexpected places, protects you, strips you bare. I’m a big fan of instinct.