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Meryl Streep on Brigitte Lacombe:
Quote source: Style.com
Article & Images Source: Dailymail.co.uk
Meryl Streep is camera-shy and Gwyneth Paltrow fierce: Photographer Brigitte Lacombe on how she quietly catches Hollywood's biggest stars
By Andrew Preston For Event
Published: 01:11 GMT, 8 February 2015 | Updated: 01:11 GMT, 8 February 2015
The notoriously private Meryl Streep ‘loves’ her; Martin Scorsese has welcomed her into his film family; and she’s had intimate glimpses behind the scenes on many top films. But photographer Brigitte Lacombe knows her place in all this.
‘You are the least, least important person on a movie set,’ she says.
‘If you are taking portraits, you can control the environment, but on a movie set you simply can’t. You really are just a witness and you catch whatever strikes you, whatever you can.’ But what a witness.
Working as an on-set photographer has taken the 64-year-old from Fellini’s favourite studio in Rome to Marilyn Monroe’s dressing room at Pinewood Studios, and from grand French chateaux to Transylvania in the company of Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger and a bawling baby.
‘It’s such a private, intimate thing to be able to see these people at work,’ she says.
‘I consider myself incredibly lucky to have followed actors and directors at the top of their game.’
GWYNETH GIVES ME THE GLARE
The Talented Mr Ripley, 1999
I love this picture of Gwyneth Paltrow in her beautiful leopard coat in the famous Caffe Florian on Piazza San Marco in Venice. She was filming a difficult scene with Matt Damon for director Anthony Minghella. Sometimes it can feel like a very private, intimate moment on set and this was one of those times. When she turned to look at me it was as if she was looking through me.
I’m not sure if she was in character or if she felt like I was intruding. Maybe it was just before they shot that scene and she was wishing I’d go away. It’s certainly a fierce and reproachful look.
MERYL SHOWS HER METTLE
The Iron Lady, 2011
I didn’t take that many pictures because there were some very intense scenes where Mrs Thatcher is portrayed as old, ill and really quite lost. Meryl [Streep] was so focused, but I managed to get this little moment with her on the side of the set. We hoped they would use it as the poster image, but often if the actor is not looking straight at the camera it won’t get picked. It didn’t, but it is my favourite and I think hers also.
When someone is looking away, not engaging with the camera, the moment feels more private and makes the character more vulnerable – it’s like looking at someone when they’re not aware you’re looking at them.
Meryl never seems to be afraid as an actress and she is always up for a challenge. I think she’s remarkable because she has such a distinctive look, yet she manages to make you believe in all the different characters she creates, which is quite a feat. She’s also extremely intelligent.
STREEP’S AHEAD
Kramer vs Kramer, 1979
Meryl Streep still hates having her picture taken but I think she trusts me. I still have to persuade her to let me photograph her but we have known each other now for more than 30 years. We met on the set of Kramer vs Kramer – that was the film when she won her first Oscar, and that was my first film poster.
She is extraordinary looking. The director Mike Nichols once said she ‘looked like she’d swallowed a lightbulb’. It’s true there’s a luminosity to her, which you can see in this shot with Dustin Hoffman. I don’t like to think about technique and composition much, but I do love how it looks like she’s coming out of the camera.
RENEE'S BABY BLUES
Cold Mountain, 2003
Renée Zellweger, here with Nicole Kidman, was having a really difficult first day on set because she had to have a little baby with her who was not collaborating at all. It was very nerve-racking for her and everyone else, as you can see from the expressions on all the faces.
This was a long shoot over all four seasons in a very remote part of Transylvania in Romania, but director Anthony Minghella’s were the happiest film sets. I first worked with him on The English Patient and then on all his projects after that. He was very talented and cultured, and generous and much-loved as a director. He always remained open to comments and suggestions from those around him.
DICAPRIO'S GREEN PARTY
The Wolf Of Wall Street, 2013
A lot of film-making is done using green screens. I think it’s beautiful visually and I love the fact that everything is pretend. Martin Scorsese did shoot some scenes for this movie on a boat out on the water, but most of it was done like this one with Leonardo DiCaprio inside a gigantic studio with a real, life-size boat.
Scorsese likes to have a very solid team of people who he knows around him and he’s folded me into that team. I have worked with extraordinary people in cinema but he is maybe the most extraordinary. The set goes absolutely silent as soon as he appears. It’s very disciplined and respectful, and people know they are working for a master. You get the sense that everyone wants to excel for him. There were some incredible comedians like Jonah Hill in the cast, so it became like a competition to see who could make Scorsese laugh most.
A DUMMY'S GUIDE TO CINEMA
Birdman, 2014
I was only on the set of Birdman for one day and was very lucky – you could spend a week on a movie and never get an image where you have the entire cast and director together. I don’t know Michael Keaton at all [in a tie next to director Alejandro Iñárritu], but I think he has a good chance of winning the Oscar; he was daring, and smart, to take on the role.
The cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who won an Oscar for Gravity, was setting up the lighting for a scene when he suggested this idea to me. It was such an odd sight – hundreds of dummies sitting in a Broadway theatre. When they were shooting, only the people in the front few rows were real, the rest of the audience was made up of these dummies, but if you watch the film you have no sense of that at all.
PRINTS OF THE SHOWGIRL
My Week With Marilyn, 2011
I was in London on the set of Martin Scorsese’s Hugo when a friend who also knew Michelle Williams suggested I work with her.
I went to Pinewood Studios on her last day filming My Week With Marilyn, about the star’s week in London after her husband Arthur Miller had left the UK.
I had two hours in the dressing room Monroe used when filming The Prince And The Showgirl. Michelle had taken on the character completely, all I had to do was follow her with my camera. She was magical.
HAVING A FIELD DAY
Marie Antoinette, 2006
I love this image of Kirsten Dunst in Milena Canonero’s glorious period costume alongside director Sofia Coppola dressed as a young, cool hipster. There is something quite delicate about Sofia Coppola – she speaks softly but is very strong; she has authority in a feminine way. The picture shows her team at work in a beautiful setting on what was a small set.
It was the last day of shooting when they picked up a few scenes they wanted to add to or change, so I was lucky enough to see lots of different set-ups, from outside in the fields to Marie Antoinette in a bath tub.
SHADE LADY
Dangerous Liaisons, 1988
This was one of Uma Thurman’s first roles. I love the way her sunglasses in this shot stand out as a modern contrast to the period costumes.
Film sets can be really intense places and this captures a relaxed, languid moment when she and John Malkovich were just hanging out between scenes. We were shooting in beautiful locations in chateaux in France.
Quote source: Style.com
Article & Images Source: Dailymail.co.uk
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