Léa Seydoux
Léa Seydoux dreamed of becoming an opera singer when she was a little girl. But at age 19, her life took another turn when she won the lead role in Mes Copines (My Girlfriends), a teen comedy. It seems she followed the right path. Now 23, she has starred in five movies, including Catherine Breillat’s Une vieille maîtresse (The Last Mistress) and Christophe Honoré’s La belle Personne (A Nice Person), and she’ll be seen in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards, due to be released in June.
“When you’re 19, you think, I’d like to play with great directors. But never in a million years could you imagine you’ll play in a Tarantino movie,” says the actress,
dressed in jeans and a turtleneck topped with a vintage Yves Saint Laurent jacket.
Meanwhile, doors keep opening up in front of her blue eyes. Ridley Scott chose her for a part in Nottingham, a movie he’ll start shooting this year, and she’ll be playing opposite Sylvie Testud in an Austrian film by Jessica Hausner called Lourdes, scheduled to come out this year. When she has free time,
Seydoux won’t be seen in designer boutiques. “I love vintage clothes, and there are plenty of vintage stores in my neighborhood,” she says of Paris’ groovy 3rd arrondissement. Seydoux, a voracious reader, also hopes to publish a book someday.
—Chantal Goupil