Mia Hansen-Løve had to teach Léa Seydoux how to kiss and make love in front of the camera to film One Fine Morning. But why? Seydoux has starred in a number of French films with plenty of sex, allured as one of the most enchanting Bond women of all time, and most recently, got super freaky in David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future. Needless to say, the Blue is the Warmest Color actress has plenty of experience with on-screen intimate encounters.
Still, Hansen-Løve recalled seeing Seydoux blush when she was asked to kiss Melvil Poupaud, who plays the love interest in their new film One Fine Morning, which releases in theaters this weekend. After Sandra (Seydoux) and Clément (Poupaud) meet through their two young daughters, the pair begin an affair—he is married, she is widowed—that starts with a playful kiss in his lab. Their first kiss (which, delightfully, starts as a joke) is a tender, electric moment—possibly because of how awkward it was to film.
“[Léa] was so afraid,” Hansen-Løve told me over coffee at the New York Film Festival last October, where the film had its North American premiere. “She came to me and she said, ‘Oh, Mia.’ I couldn’t believe it!”
