So close and so far Sophie Marceau. So close since “La Boum“, favorite personality of the French, such a natural nature. And, at the same time, the actress cultivates the discretion, always unexpected, passes from the comedy of Lisa Azuelos to the universe of François Ozon. A modest wisp. And here she is, author of “La Souterraine”, not memoirs of an actress written by someone else, but short stories, tales, fables, poems where we hear a voice, where one is touched by a style, transported into a chiaroscuro universe. We discover fragments of her childhood, women who would like to free themselves from their destiny, a man she cannot leave, a heartbreaking mother. We get drunk on her imagination while meeting a double of herself, portrayed by impressionist touches, metaphors and flashes.

Why “La Souterraine”?

Sophie Marceau. Because that’s what most resembles the atmosphere of the book, an underground river: fluidity, energy, but also mystery.

What do you like in writing?

S.M. I think I wrote first to try to explain things that I didn’t understand. Afterwards, when I became known, writing continued to accompany me, but like a small world of my own. I needed this bubble to find myself. It’s an activity that goes well with the boredom of certain days, the doubts, the questions, with this profession of actress where you are constantly subject to different rhythms, where you have to manage the speed, then after the void, the nothing. Me, I’m like nature, I hate a vacuum.

Is writing very different from acting?

S.M. Not that much, in both cases it is the search for a truth. I’m a hard worker, I can spend hours looking for the right shade of color, that’s what I like about writing. I had the chance to meet one of my favorite painters, David Hockney. I visited his studio in Normandy, and he only told me about the infinite variety of the color green, it was wonderful.

In your book, precisely, you restore the time of your childhood by tiny details, the small sheet of the packet of Gitanes of your father for example…

S.M. It was magnificent and mysterious, this sheet of silver, I was fascinated, how could such a marvel be made? This astonishment of childhood continues to accompany me today and so much the better, otherwise life would only be sad news.

“Men who serve only to serve”, you write about your father…

S.M. Serve, he did it with great dignity and probity. As a child, I lived in a family where the adults were very busy, working all the time, there was no place for psychology, no place for culture either. I was very bored, I didn’t have much to do, so I invented a universe for myself. The impalpable, esoteric, not really definable world has always been a refuge for me. I was lucky to be born in an environment where there was nothing but where nature was present, trees, three pieces of wood… It’s true that there are a lot of things from my childhood in this book.

A childhood illuminated by your mother, a woman with a sacrificed existence…

S.M. If we go back to the genealogy of the women in my family, it is really the history of the women that we find. They are strong, have experienced war, have many children, have worked hard but have never claimed the same lives as men. My mother is special, I don’t know what went through my grandfather’s head, I didn’t know him, I only know that he was a railway worker, and that the arrival of my mother inspired him with repugnance. He made no secret of it either. It was a mistake to be a woman. It’s heavy to bear, and it weighs on the descendants too. This developed in her a great determination and a great generosity. The injustice bristled her.

You say your mother was very beautiful…

S.M. But we told : especially if you want to be a good person, don’t take any advantage of it! Beauty, you should neither bet on it, nor use it.

Difficult, under these conditions, to convey to you a conception of femininity…

S.M. She didn’t have the codes, Mom. And then, not pointing out any signs of femininity in me was also a way of protecting myself. Later, when I became an actress, when I had fun playing characters, transforming myself, taking photos, I learned that we had the right to feel beautiful, that we even sometimes had needed to play certain roles. The physical, I can’t say that I didn’t care, but it’s not on that that I built myself.