Meet the star of her very own festival double bill
Barbara Lennie had back-to-back premieres — in two sections of the Cannes Film Festival.
She was in the cast line-up, led by Penelope Cruz and Javier bardem, that walked up the fabled red carpet for the opening night picture, everybody Knows (in which she plays bardem’s wife, who has to keep an eye on the sort of ‘other woman’ played by Cruz).
and she played the eponymous Petra in director Jaime rosales’s gem of a film about an artist in search of her father, who discovers the high cost (in terms of lives) of such an undertaking.
‘The father is a monster, really, and it’s difficult to defend him. at one point, Petra thinks: “i came from this man? really?!” ’ she told me.
‘it’s crazy to have two films,’ said the Spanish-born actress, who spent part of her childhood with her parents in argentina.
‘Lack of sleep is the price. but it’s an incredible honour,’ she added, when we met yesterday at the Quinzaine beach, close to where Petra was screened in Directors’ Fortnight.
i have watched Ms Lennie in several foreign language movies, including Pedro almodovar’s creepy The Skin i Live in.
but the two films at Cannes are among her best work. in director asghar Farhadi’s everybody Knows, she wonders what are her husband’s motives when he helps out an old flame (Cruz) whose daughter has been kidnapped during a family wedding at a Spanish vineyard.
it was a refreshingly good choice to open the festival, given that (in my experience) openers are often leaden and deadly.
‘Penelope and Javier were funny and amazing,’ she said. ‘We all said it’s easier to come to a festival like Cannes when you are proud of your work.’
but she’s no overnight success. ‘i’ve been working for a long time,’ she noted, as i flicked through her credits on iMDb (the online internet Movie Database).
Originally a theatre actress, she will return to the stage in Madrid this summer. after that, she has a big international film project, which she’s not allowed to discuss just yet.