Interview with Vincent Lindon, President of the Feature Film Jury

How do you interpret your role as the President of the Jury?

I'm very honored. I'm heading into uncharted waters. The Jury is incredible, with very focused directors and actresses. It's reassuring. And the Selection is outstanding. It's like the sun is shining down on this Festival after the past two years. I'm aware of the responsibility, and feel a bit like Woody Allen who said, " I'm stunned to be a member of a club that would accept me as a member." It's not a small thing to award prizes to directors since it will probably change the course of their lives. I'm also going to try to take full advantage of what is happening and not live the present in the future, and the future in the past. Generally speaking, this is already very difficult to do in real life. To live things and be in the present moment is the hardest thing in the world, as in love, as in everything. Let time take its course. 

Are you going to watch the films from an actor's point of view ?

I'm going to watch them from the point of view of an audience member, a film lover. I think there are two paths to take when approaching works of art, and more specifically here, with feature films. With the first path, what you see on the screen goes to your brain before descending to your body, and the second path takes the opposite direction. I'll try to let my heart decide as a spectator first, and then listen to my brain afterwards. To give all the world's cinema a chance. 

You received the Best Actor Award for The Measure of a Man by Stéphane Brizé in 2015: how did you feel receiving this award? 

I was incredibly shocked. The same as with Titane last year. My love affair with cinema has been turbulent. Particularly at Cannes. These are two completely different awards. One is personal, individual, and comforting, finding yourself with a Palme d'or, which means that you've read a screenplay, made a decision, made a choice to be in a film that takes you very far. A little like the Olympics when you win the 100-meter freestyle, and three hours afterwards, the 4×100 relay. It's another sensation. 

Can you tell us about your first time in Cannes? 

1987, for A Man in Love by Diane Kurys. I was a really young actor. Opening day was absolutely incredible since I committed one gaffe after another. The director introduced me to Robert De Niro, who held out his hand saying, “Hi, Robert De Niro”. And I answered back, “Hi, Vincent”, without stating my last name. I beat myself up about this for two hours. 
After, I met two women while I was at the buffet, and one of them told me that her friend would really like to take a photo with me, and that she really wanted to show it to her husband since she was sure that he was going to like me. I was completely caught up in thinking about my blunder with Robert de Niro, and I said with a gesture, “A little later; I'll come see you after”. The friend insisted, so I repeated, “Later”, and I learned a little bit afterwards from Peter Coyote that I was a lucky devil since she was Amy Irving, the wife of Steven Spielberg. 

What role would you like to be offered? 

I would really like to play a great doctor, a great lawyer, a professor, or a schoolteacher. I like professions that unite people, the ones where we protect others, where there is a relationship with people. And of course, I haven't done two types of films yet, but my age now prevents me from doing either one. I dream of my own “Notting Hill-style love at first sight” role with, for example, the story of a divorced mother and father who go to their daughter's wedding and meet up again after 25 years, but it would take place on an iPad so it's not done! And obviously an action film such as The Equalizer (2014), like Denzel Washington. That would be really fun.

Does acting in a socially motivated film encourage you to be more socially motivated in life? Does the motivation come before the role or vice-versa? 

It's as if I had a guardian watching over me behind my back. Sometimes, the films keep me straight. On the other hand, I hope I never need to make films in order to conduct myself properly. A great role is a transaction between a character and an actor or actress. There is a dependent relationship: the character must also be as happy to have been played by you as you were happy to have been the character; if not, an imbalance is created. A good transaction is when both parties win, at 50/50. 
I can only play roles that, when reading the screenplay, I say to myself, " Wow, I have to be this character." Because this character is going to be in my life sooner or later. This is psychoanalysis; when you play a character for two months, it's not a fictitious person who does it; it's you who says and interprets these words, and there are secondary effects because I will have been him.