Monday, October 12

Fanny Ardant as Maria Callas

What happens when a great actress portrays a great opera singer? Franco Zeffirelli's "Callas Forever" is one of the answers. Fanny Ardant has a great career and has interpreted many amazing women. Here it is what Michelle Placido thinks of her: "The thing about her that struck me most was her way of observing, and how she moved before shooting a scene. First thing in the morning, five minutes before shooting, most actresses in their dressing rooms are all busy with their makeup, with the lights ... they're almost, how can I say it, flustered. Instead Fanny is reserved, and this interior elegance leaves its mark, she transmits it to everyone around her. And this enticing capacity of communicating the "essential" gets effortlessly carried over onto the set. To some extent, I feel like I've "stolen" from her a kind of introspectiveness that came over me before shooting a scene."