Queen of French chic

>> Supermodel Laetitia Casta on Rue des plaisirs
and taking it off for the cameras

by MATTHEW HAYS

Laetitia Casta can hear the question coming. Sitting in the über-trendy Hotel St. Paul in Old Montreal, she’s courting the press in the wake of her latest feature acting stint in Rue des plaisirs. The film, by French vet Patrice Leconte, has Casta playing a tragic prostitute.
But the playing-the-prostitute questions aren’t the ones she’s anticipating. Rather, Casta knows critics and audiences alike are often a bit skeptical about models who go thespian. Has she felt any insecurity about moving from modelling to acting? “Oh no,” she says convincingly. “Because every project I do, I do it with my heart. Of course, if critics say mean things I hurt like anyone else. But I can’t be scared about what people think. I have one life to live and it’s for me.”

It’s a fair question to ask, and Casta seems to intuit that it’s probably not the last time she’ll be answering it, in large part because of her huge success as a model. A hit by the time she was 15, she’s scored a number of designer clothing and cosmetics gigs, including Guess? Jeans, Victoria’s Secret, Revlon and Ralph Lauren. Tons of photo shoots followed that involved over 100 magazine covers (including Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue) and appearances on Letterman after Rolling Stone featured her completely naked (except for a string of pearls) on a ’98 cover. So beautiful and identified as a French national treasure, the mayors of French cities elected her to be the official face of “Marianne,” the official symbol of the nation, used on stamps and coins. (Despite the accolades for her beauty, Casta’s film influences sound anything but skin deep: “Kubrick, Orson Welles and Tarkovsky,” she responds to the what-filmmakers-do-you-love? question.)

An imperfect beauty

Some critics have noted her non-capped teeth, which place her definitely in the not-a-member-of-the-Osmond-family camp. The Web site AskMen.com has rushed to Casta’s defence, stating on their Casta page that “She doesn’t have a Colgate smile, but dismissing her because of her teeth is akin to criticizing Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of the Mona Lisa because the woman pictured is ugly.” Eloquently put.
For Casta’s part, she considers her modelling something to draw on in the acting department. Both Isabella Rosellini and Marilyn Monroe began as models, she reminds me. “So many women move from modelling to acting. The more you have experience, the better you’re going to be in the acting business. If I was doing bread before, like baking, then I’d bring that to acting too. It’s the same thing. You add some ingredients together, you make food. It’s the same thing as making love, as making pictures, it’s how you do it.”
Cooking isn’t what Leconte had in mind, however, when he cast the photogenic Casta in his latest. Patrick Timsit plays Petit Louis, a guardian angel who hovers over Casta’s character as she toils away in a WWII-era whorehouse. Timsit is convinced that all poor dear Casta needs is the right man and all will turn out well. The film waxes philosophic on fate, love and destiny, with Vincent Elbaz showing up as a hunky loser who falls for Casta.

Restrained sexuality

Oddly enough, despite its bordello setting, Rue des plaisirs (or Love Street, as the press kit’s English translation has the title) is short on shocking sex scenes. This puts it out of step with the current French trend—à la Romance, Fat Girl and Baise-moi—which puts outright sex scenes front and centre. “We didn’t want to do something clichéd,” Casta says. “It would have been too easy and obvious to do something like that. It’s not a documentary. It’s from the imagination of the director.” Casta hasn’t heard of Breillat, but has seen Baise-moi, and was less than impressed.
“I thought it was supposed to be shocking, but I went and I wasn’t shocked at all. It had every cliché I could think of. The rape scene was harsh, but after that I didn’t think much of it.”

There’s lots of cleavage in Plaisirs, but very little nudity. If asked by a director, would Casta peel off for the cameras? “I’m going to look at why the director wants it done. If it means something for the scene, yes. I’m not going to do it just to sell more tickets. I did some nude photographs with another woman. But it was like sculpture or painting, it was very well handled. The hands, the knees, often these parts of our bodies can be more sexy and erotic than the usual ones shown. I like it when it’s done differently.”

Along with her other high-profile appearances, including in the films Asterix and Savage Soul as well as on Letterman, one might well suspect Casta was angling for a breakthrough English-language role. “Actually no, not actively,” she says nonchalantly. “I’m not looking to become famous. Rather, I just want to be involved with the best projects I can. When projects come to me, it’s simple: if they look interesting, then I’m into it. When I do interviews related to specific projects, I don’t think of it as about me. I think of it in relation to the project. So fame isn’t really hitting me, oddly enough.” :

Rue des plaisirs opens Friday, March 29