Joie de vivre
Sophie Marceau gives rom-com French flair in ‘I Love America’
Quintessentially French, Sophie Marceau gets laughs, sympathy, perhaps even a little envy, as a single Parisian approaching 50 and looking for love in “I Love America,” a French and English romantic comedy debuting April 29 on Amazon.
Marceau became an overnight star back home in a 1980 teen comedy. She was 14.
In the ’90s she was internationally famous starring opposite Mel Gibson in his Oscar-winning best picture “Braveheart” and Pierce Brosnan’s 007 in “The World Is Not Enough.”
Today Marceau has credits covering nearly four decades. Because of ad campaigns and her work as a cultural ambassador, she is instantly recognizable in Japan, Korea and China.
Does Marceau, 55, rightly embody that phrase we hear every so often: a showbiz survivor?
“Actually, I can say that,” Marceau said in English in a Zoom interview from Paris, “but ‘survivor’ sounds a little bit dramatic. It can be dramatic, actually really be dramatic. And we see it more and more now with the social network and everything.
“But fame? I think it’s the best school ever. If you go through it, you can go through a lot of (expletive).”
Among the very few to have been famous since childhood, how did she not just survive but thrive?
“When you are pushed in the water, you have to swim. Otherwise?” she said with a Gallic shrug. “I’m not saying it was easy, but it was a big thing. It was like a nuclear bomb in my life and it’s still there. It’s interesting. It’s totally surprising as well.
“But you have to make it your choice to make it livable for yourself and for people around you. You learn very quickly when you are that young and something that big happens to you. It’s a very good school that. A hard one.”
As Lisa in Amazon’s buoyantly French romantic comedy, Marceau has a French gay best bud in the City of Light who encourages her to try online dating.
She has come to L.A. following the death of her mother, a complicated woman whom no one would ever call an ideal parent — and which becomes a major focus of the film.
“That relationship of a parent and child is really complicated,” said Marceau, who with a son and daughter would know.
“And when you get 50 you think about that. When you lose your parents, you think about that. You really think about all your life — and I think that is worth making a movie about it.”