Poor Jacek. I had 24 hours of her from Saturday through Sunday and he got nothing. Saturday morning it was a screening for Little White Lies (Les Petits Mouchoirs) directed by Guillaume Canet. It’s not a bad movie, and she’s lovely in it, but goddamn, the film started at 9am. I had to be in makeup by 11am to make it to her red carpet before noon, and at 11:30am the movie was still happening and finally at 11:35pm I had to run with a bare face to slap some concealer on at the office to head to the theatre. The f-ck?

Unless Daniel Day Lewis is in your picture and your name is Martin Scorsese, there is no reason it should be two hours FORTY MINUTES LONG!!! I love Guillaume, so much, but it’s a bit vain. Enjoyable enough, but a bit vain. You don’t need to include all your favourite songs in a montage.

So I met them on the carpet. He had a broken hand sustained by extreme parasailing, and surgery two days before. He’s beautiful. And he’s chill. And he’s friendly. I was delighted. Then she came and reminded me of my own ugliness.

Seriously, if you ever want to feel badly about yourself, go look at Marion Cotillard in real life. Goddamn. She’s exquisite. These are the way that features should be arranged. Her eyes, her skin, barely any makeup, her neck, her mouth, it’s not possible, and there she is, living and breathing right in front of you. Maybe it’s a good thing Jacek wasn’t around. He would have embarrassed himself.

For that particular interview, Marion was thoughtful enough, spoke softly, very shy, a little like Michelle Williams in that way, like she’ll break if you aren’t careful. And in English she doesn’t know yet how to play very well, to have light moments with the language, so when she talks it’s mostly airy fairy floaty, and spiritual. Didn’t bother me so much on the carpet but one on one... more on this later.

First there’s the drama that went down at the screening. They couldn’t get the movie to play and eventually the screening had to be moved to a different location entirely and it was a clusterf-ck of a herd getting people to a different venue. Guillaume handled it ok, but Marion apparently took it badly. She was so upset, she couldn’t go to the after-screening cocktail. And on the one hand that’s cool for her to care so much about Guillaume’s film (it’s an ensemble, he wrote and directed) and on the other it’s a little... too much emotion. Marion doesn’t seem like she can roll easily with the sh-t of life.

Having said that, she did recover in time to make it much later for the Vanity Fair party where I saw her in much better spirits by the bar, at one point leaning across and nipping Guillaume on the neck. Please. I die. Later on they were talking to Vincent Cassel. I die more. And then Josh Brolin came over to tell some story about what I can only assume was a crazy person because he was bulging his eyes and huffing up his face and shouting out an imitation and I could only turn to Laura and say: Mel Gibson?

Sunday afternoon it was the junket. One on one interview. Guillaume, again, was good. Marion, again, looked incredible – it’s SO f-cking crazy how goodlooking she is – but goddamn that girl is a downer. Maybe it was a really low energy morning. Maybe she partied too hard the day before. But there was a stoner quality about her that was a little eye rolly by the end, particularly when I asked her about her own little white lies and she replied that she thinks honesty is freeing and blissful and she tries be free and blissful all the time.

It could be the ultimate in cleverness, sure, but I don’t know that she’s down like that, subversive like that. And then later on when I was exchanging war stories with French journalists at another event, when the conversation turned to Marion, they told me it was widely known in France that she and Guillaume are notorious weed smokers. Don’t know if I trust the accuracy of the French gossip circuit but she didn’t give me any reason to doubt it either. And it’s not like I object to the habit or anything, not at all. But I can’t help but feel just a little disappointed that she wasn’t a little more...engaging.


Photos from Wenn.com and Joe Scarnici/Jason Merritt/Gettyimages.com