CheekyChicago

If you’ve seen Inglourious Basterds, French actress Mélanie Laurent has undoubtedly blown you away. She’s the overnight sensation who plays Shosanna Dreyfus, the secretly Jewish cinema owner living in Nazi-occupied Germany after narrowly escaping the SS raid that killed her family. Like all great Quentin Tarantino heroines, Shosanna’s a sensitive ingenue and a powerful femme fatale rolled into one.

Laurent’s candid performance makes her a trusty, down-to-earth rock amidst the movie’s circus of characters and plot twists. In her gut-wrenching “strudel and milk scene” with Col. Hans Landa (played by the brilliant Christophe Waltz), Laurent’s stoicism and underlying terror stir up a tension level that lasts the whole film. Opposite the projectionist Marcel (Jacky Ido), she conveys an entire back story with just a few heartfelt looks. Though she never interacts with the Basterds, her story gives us a more personal reason to cheer them on at every turn.

So where did Tarantino find Laurent, and where else have we seen her? Well, the director has said in interviews that he wrote the multi-lingual characters of Basterds with no particular stars in mind and then went about finding the best actors for the job. So he chose Laurent through a plain-old, traditional casting process – three rounds to be exact. More interesting is the way Laurent learned she’d been cast. She’s also a director (her short film De Moins en Moins went to Cannes in 2008) and French cable station Canal, an HBO equivalent, selected her to direct a pornographic short film about female sexuality for its X Femmes series. As the story goes, Laurent was in the middle of selecting lingerie for the porno when the phone rang; it was Quentin Tarantino calling to say she had the role. And yes, Inglourious Basterds marks the actress’s American film debut.

Talk about a dream introduction to Hollywood. Tarantino shot Laurent in a classic film noir style that critics have compared to Von Sternberg’s treatment of Marlene Deitrich, especially in the video montage scene where she gets ready for the Nazi film premiere. He also had the actress train as a film projectionist to prepare for her deft maneuvering in the final scene, and he tested her skills by making her juggle six reels of shorts before a screening of Reservoir Dogs. Laurent improved her English on the job, and her next move after Basterds was to meet and fall in love with Irish singer/songwriter Damien Rice. The two are now – you guessed it – collaborating on her first album.

lFor those interested in catching up on this actress’s French film work, we have some suggestions. Laurent won the coveted “Most Promising Actress” César Award (think the French Oscars) for her role as a 19-year-old dealing with her twin brother’s disappearance in Philippe Loiret’s Je Vais Bien, Ne T’en Fais Pas (I’m Fine, Don’t Worry). Unfortunately, that film’s a hard find on US-compatible DVD. More accessible (by which we mean “on Netflix”) is Paris, by acclaimed French filmmaker Cédric Klapisch. In that film, starring Juliette Binoche, Laurent plays the shining object of a middle-aged professor’s desire. Another one for the queue is La Dernier Jour (The Last Day), about a young man struggling with unrequited love for another man. Laurent’s kissing scene with the men in the movie is a popular clip among fans.

We’ll be keeping an eye out for Laurent at the awards shows, in record stores and in upcoming French films like La Rafle and La Concert. While no U.S. release dates are set for those titles, it’s a good bet that Laurent’s uber-popularity from Basterds could drive distribution abroad. How fitting if Tarantino’s wise casting choice had the side effect of introducing a new wave of fans to contemporary French cinema? Shosanna would be pleased.