Isabelle Huppert on new film Elle: I am really a kind person

Isabelle Huppert has a reputation, or rather, she has two. One is as the iconic French actress, projecting effortless cool in well over 100 films that have brought international critical acclaim, BAFTA, Golden Globe and César awards, and the kind of career that legends are made of.

The other, as research for this interview revealed, is for a froideur that extends away from her films into the interviews that support them.

Isabelle famously dislikes talking about her private life (she is married with three grown-up children), or indeed, anything other than the project at hand. With the safety of distance between us and 25 minutes into our chat, I ask why she continues to buck the celebrity trend for maximum disclosure.

“That’s what I keep telling people,” she protests light-heartedly. “I am really friendly and I am really a kind person. But what I don’t want to say, I don’t say. And that is all.”

Her manner, and complete comfort with silence in a conversation, is such that that particular inquiry ends right there, but fortunately, it seems there is plenty that she does want to say.

She’s not keen on Brexit (“we want the English to stay as close as possible”), she describes Emmanuel Macron’s election as “a change of mood” and says she would love a role in a blockbuster TV show like Game Of Thrones. She is also more than happy to talk about her hit film, Elle, which is, to put it mildly, provocative.

The story follows Isabelle’s character Michèle, who is attacked and raped in her own home by a masked man in the film’s shocking opening scene. Michèle chooses not to report the crime, but lures the attacker out by embarking on a dangerous relationship.

It certainly has the potential to offend, but Isabelle insists that, if anyone has been affronted, they haven’t let her know.

“I was surprised because everybody was expecting it, including (director) Paul Verhoeven. It means that people got the film. There is a sense of morality about it. It is certainly not a psychological document about women being raped and things like this. People never mistook the film for what it is not.”

That’s no mean feat in the age of instant Twitter outrage and for a film full of so many nuances. Isabelle, who calls it a “post-feminist” film, admits it treads a very fine line.

“The movie manages to be never sentimental, never psychological,” she says. “So it is always on a razor’s edge because it goes quite far in the exploration of this attraction/repulsion she has for the man. This strange combination between violence and desire – obscure topics that usually you don’t want to coexist, being there on screen.

It is a very cerebral and intellectual experience – it almost separates her feelings from her body. You never fall on the bad side of the edge of the razor. That is what gives the film a great integrity.”

That integrity is helped by the direction of Paul Verhoeven, an often controversial Dutchman who gave the world Basic Instinct, RoboCop, Total Recall and the infamous Showgirls. Elle marks his return to major movie-making after a decade.

“He is wonderful, the complete opposite of what you may imagine he would be. First of all, he is completely on the woman’s side – that is the most important point for me. I never felt in danger and had complete trust with him once we established how we were going to do the rape scenes.

In order to trust someone you have to have reasons to trust him and admire him and I never found myself in situations where I’ve thought, ‘I am in danger.’ It’s not so much what you do, it’s who you do it with. This is why I only work with great people.

“And also the nice thing about our collaboration was that we never really talked about the character. We never tried to establish orientations or answer questions, which by definition we couldn’t give answers. He left me completely free. I did my own thing and he did his own thing. He directed the film and I created the role and it was a fantastic collaboration.”

However, it’s almost a collaboration that didn’t happen, or at least not with Isabelle, when the idea of casting a more “Hollywood” name nearly changed everything.

“Yes, this is something I prefer to forget,” Isabelle says, the froideur returning. “No, I am kidding. They tried to betray me for a certain time and luckily they didn’t succeed. They came back to France and humbly asked if I’d do it again and I said yes. End of the story, happy ever after.”

It’s difficult to imagine anyone else starring in Elle, and Isabelle is quick to agree.

“Exactly,” she says. “At least Paul Verhoeven was honest enough to recognise it and claim it loudly to the world.”

Verhoeven is the latest in a long line of famous directors who Isabelle has chosen to work with including Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Michael Haneke, but it’s the 1980 film, Heaven’s Gate, that English-speaking audiences may associate with her.

The film famously became known as one of the biggest box office bombs of all time. Isabelle says it was too difficult a discussion for America to have – and still is.

“It was political in the largest sense of the word but it was such a rejection of a certain idealised idea that people have about America,” she says. “That was the reason of the rejection because it really went against a certain idea of America as the land of freedom, America as the land of wealth.

It was too difficult to hear at that point. And, unfortunately, I have to say it remains more true than ever in a way.”

America certainly took Elle to heart though, and the film earned Isabelle her first Academy Award nomination. The Best Actress category was ultimately won by Emma Stone in La La Land, but Isabelle says she was pleasantly surprised that the film was received so well.

“I was very pleased to get that kind of recognition from the States for that film in particular,” she says. “Wherever it came from, I was happy. And, of course, it increased in America because I got so many prizes from everywhere – except the final big one, but still. 

I was really happy because we all knew that the film could be controversial and could disturb people and yet the film went beyond that.”

So has it made her determined to take one of the little gold men home in the future? “I haven’t really thought about it actually,” Isabelle admits. “If it happens, it would be nice but what can I say? You have to be a good loser sometimes, which I think I am. But I am a very good winner as well.”

At 64, she’s showing no sign of slowing down, and there is a raft of Isabelle Huppert films on the way this year and next. It’s great news for cinema and also for Isabelle who says for her, the process never gets old. “Not only do I love it as much as I did the first time, but also I still feel undeterred and completely new to it each time I do it.”

Elle is available on digital download, Blu-ray and DVD from tomorrow.