[IMG:L]It’s rare that an interview lasts longer than the actual film in question. Usually they’re pulling the stars away before we even have time to ask all our questions. But when the film is only five minutes long, an interview even twice that length is luxurious.
Paris Je T’aime is a collection of five minute films. Though totaling two hours, each segment is an independent story dealing with love in the title city. Producer Emmanuel Benbihy chose 18 different directors to tell their stories, with only the time and location constraints to guide them.
Hollywood legend Gena Rowlands both stars in and wrote the segment Quartier Latin. She and frequent costar Ben Gazzara play a divorcing couple. In their last conversation, they take a few stabs at each other while sorting out the final details. In a slightly less glamorous, excessively chilled Beverly Hills hotel room, Rowlands bundled up and chattered out her interview for the film.
Hollywood.com: When you’re doing a short segment, do you have the same acting process as a feature length film?
Gena Rowlands: Pretty much. It’s just shorter but you still have to go through all the steps that you do for a long movie.
HW: What are the steps for you?
GR: It’s mostly thinking about the person you’re playing and observing other people. Thinking of people, for example in this, this is an older couple that’s getting a divorce after a long marriage. I think that they were married when they were young. But the husband’s a player; he loves young women and they’ve quarreled about it before. They’ve separated. They’ve divorced. They’ve remarried. They had a couple of daughters. And it continued and it was a constant thing of friction and hurt. But now they haven’t been together and so when you think of that, you think of people you know who’ve been married for a long time and who’ve divorced, and how they feel about each other still. And what had they hoped was going to happen, and then in the end how they handle it. And somebody my age doesn’t handle it like a 30-year-old.
HW: How would it have been different with a younger couple?
GR: I mean, your husband comes in and says his young girlfriend is pregnant, it’s not going to be hysteria the way it would if you were younger and it was a big surprise. Even though it was a surprise to my character, it wasn’t so out of character with him that it would be that big a surprise. Though I do believe that she had hoped that they would live out the end of their lives together, that they would grow old together. But when he tells her she’s pregnant, she just knows that that’s the moment it’s over. I mean, it’s really over. So then I hoped to show in a few lines, I wanted something that would let the audience see what they had meant to each other at one time. What they had seen in each other and where their conflict was, and how they understood each other’s humor. For example, when he says, I can’t remember his exact dialogue, “Are you still seeing the writer?” And I said, “No, he’s long gone.” He says, “Anyone new?” And I say, “Yeah.” He says, “What does he do?” I say, “He’s a cyclist.” But an American doesn’t say a cyclist anyway. But the expression on Ben‘s face, you know immediately that he knows that I’m putting him on. He said, “Cyclist?” I say, “Bicycles.” He says, “Where does he bicycle?” I say, “Oh, up hills, down hills, anywhere they’ll let him.” And he says, “Isn’t he a little old for that?” I go, “Well, he’s not as old as I am, but it’s not out of the question.” Now that’s got a double meaning. For him, it is out of the question. She’s like 23. So then they start doing these little verbal things but they kind of think the other one’s funny a little bit too. You can see that they at one time and still enjoy each other’s company in a way, even though it’s ending very badly.
HW: You wrote the segment too, so this is all what you intended to convey?
GR: I had hoped to show also that even though they were divorcing and it is over, that there is residual love in a couple who had been married a long time and had been through a lot together, had children together. Even if it was a bitter divorce. And this goes back to the question you asked me, I’ve seen that so much by now. I’ve seen a lot of people who are divorced and no question about them getting back together again. There are a lot of mean things said at the time, and yet there’s a certain intimacy, a certain regard that they still have for each other, and that’s always touched me a lot.
HW: What was your reaction when you heard the concept behind the film?
GR: Well I didn’t know Emmanuel Benbihy. He called me asking me if Ben [Gazzara] and I would like to do a scene in a movie. I said, “Sure. I’d love to act with Ben anytime. What kind of movie?” He said, “Well, there’s all these 5 minute movies from all the arrondissements in Paris. And then they’re all connected.” I thought, “This guy is not working on his front burner. It’s impossible.” I said, “Well, let me get back to you.” I started checking around and then I found that Gerard Depardieu and Fred Auburtin wanted to direct Benny’s and my scene. I know that if Gerard is attached to it, it’s legitimate. I’ve worked with Gerard and I like him. He’s a good friend and I knew that he liked Fred Auburtin a lot. They’ve directed another full-length picture together. So I thought that this is legitimate somehow. I thought, “I still don’t think they can do it but it’d be a lot of fun to go to Paris and see Gerard and Benny and me and Fred…” It’s not a big hardship to go to Paris. This is not hard duty. I said, “Okay, sure, I’ll go.”
HW: Were you aware of the others shooting at the same time?
GR: Not until in Cannes. I knew who many people were involved. I knew [Steve] Buscemi was doing one with the Coen Brothers and I had met Juliette Binoche because at the end of the scene, she’s there. But I hadn’t met the other actors or directors or writers because we’re shooting ours and they were shooting theirs. But then they invited us to Cannes so we all went. Everybody was there. It was the funniest thing. I’ve never seen it, it was the whole stage covered with actors and writers and directors. Then we all ate together, just chummed around together for a few days and had a wonderful time.
HW: When you were approached to star, did they ask you to write it at the same time?
GR: No, they didn’t but they had sent a couple of scenes and they were very good, but they were very French. And I thought it was Ben and me, two Americans our age in Paris, it’s got to be very American, what we’re doing. So l just wrote it out and we did it.
HW: When you first met Ben Gazzara, did you ever think you’d work together a lot?
GR: I never thought yes or no. I’ve known Ben for many, many years. He was a very close friend of my late husband John Cassavetes. And we did several movies. We were all very close at that time while we made those things. It was almost like a repertory theater. I knew him very well. Peter Falk, Ben, all of the guys that we worked with. And then for some reason Ben and I worked a lot together. We did Love Letters and we’ve done several television movies. Hysterical Blindness. Yes, I consider him a very good friend and a wonderful actor. I’m always very happy to work with him.
