Anamaria Vartolomei is finally sitting down. In a few hours she’ll be at the London premiere of Mickey 17, in Leicester Square, London. The film is the first feature from Bong Joon Ho since the director’s Oscar-winning Parasite – and yet another entry in a notably hectic schedule for Vartolomei.
The French-Romanian actor recently wrapped on the first of a two-part biopic about Charles de Gaulle, the late French general and statesman, and on a bodice-ripping small-screen prequel to Dangerous Liaisons, in which she plays Isabelle de Merteuil, the role taken by Glenn Close in Stephen Frears’s 1988 take on that 18th-century romp.
“It’s an honour to keep doing the thing I love most, which is acting,” says Vartolomei, an improbable Gen Z veteran of the screen. “I’m 25 now. I started when I was 10. I’ve been working for 15 years. It sounds weird when I say it.”
Mickey 17 stars Robert Pattinson as the well-meaning ne’er-do-well of the title. Cornered by violent mobsters, he and an unreliable accomplice attempt to escape an overcrowded futuristic Earth with a wacky religious cult led by Mark Ruffalo’s preening fascist.
Having signed up as an “expendable”, Mickey is variously the victim of extreme medical research and radiation, only to be digitally reprinted. Again and again.
During his 17th incarnation he is left for dead but rescued by intergalactic critters; when he returns to base he meets the assertive, prematurely reprinted Mickey 18 (also Pattinson, of course).
The rival Mickeys are alternately courted by Vartolomei and Naomi Ackie’s characters until they are forced to work together against the sociopathic cult leader and his narcissistic wife, who is played by Toni Collette. Got that?
“The Mickeys were written in a very different way in the script,” Vartolomei says. “But just Robert Pattinson’s talent brings it out even more. He was the perfect choice for it.”
Mickey 17 has received mixed reviews since it premiered at Berlin International Film Festival. Those critics expecting the tart social satire of Parasite have been disappointed to discover that the film is closer to the larkish tone of Okja, Bong’s English-language action comedy from 2017, about a corporately created superpig.
There has, additionally, been furious speculation about the release dates. It’s unusual for the follow-up to an Oscar-sweeping film – Parasite won the Academy Award for best picture, the first film not in English to do so, as well as for best director, best original screenplay and best international feature – to find itself released during the March lull.
Nor is it common for a Palme d’Or winner – Parasite took home the biggest prize from Cannes film festival in 2019 – not to play in a big festival competition. Mickey 17 premiered out of competition at Berlin.
For Vartolomei the larkishness is precisely the point.
“I don’t even know what my job was supposed to be on the spaceship,” she says, laughing. “I like that there is mystery. I think [Bong’s] work is really impactful, because he can bring tough topics and subjects to the screen, adding a touch of dark humour.
“All his movies are genre-defying. You have action. Here you have sci-fi but always with that touch of humour. He has such a sensitive vision. Everything becomes personal. It becomes a true cinema experience.”
After Okja and Snowpiercer, Mickey 17 is the third English-language feature from the South Korean director. It’s a first for Vartolomei.
“I thought, in the beginning, that it would be easier: I just have to say the line in my head in French and then just repeat it the same way in English,” she says. “But it’s not the same. My secret plan did not work. I worked with an English coach to learn stress words and rhythm. It was a linguistic re-education for me.”
Vartolomei was born in the Romanian city of Bacau, then lived in the ancient town of Darmanesti before moving with her family to the Parisian suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux when she was six. Four years later she landed her first leading role, opposite Isabelle Huppert, in My Little Princess, Eva Ionesco’s autobiographical account of being her photographer mother’s Lolita-styled muse.
“I just started by doing theatre in my school because they offered a class after school and I followed my friend,” Vartolomei says. “My father works in construction. He worked for a theatre actress who gave us the address for a casting website. And that’s when we found My Little Princess.
“My parents were very present, because they’re not from the industry and they didn’t know how it works. They wanted to protect me. They were very supportive. And then I grew up, and when I was 15 or 16 I discovered other movies with Isabelle Huppert. I didn’t know who she was. I’d love to do another movie with her now.”
Vartolomei, whom French Vogue has called one of the great hopes of French cinema, has subsequently worked with the actors Charlotte Gainsbourg and Juliette Binoche and the directors Bruno Dumont, Anne Fontaine and Tran Anh Hung.
She came to worldwide prominence with Happening. Audrey Diwan’s visceral adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s 1963 account of obtaining an illegal abortion in France won the Golden Lion at Venice International Film Festival and, for Vartolomei, a César – a “French Oscar”.
The star and director studied breathing and uterine contractions for the film’s harrowing backstreet-abortion scene. It’s a remarkable performance, typical of the staunchly feminist roles Vartolomei has gravitated towards as an adult. It left an indelible impression on Bong, who was president of the Venice jury that year.
“I didn’t want to rush into adult roles, because sometimes you receive a script and don’t feel ready to play it,” the actor says. “I just tried to play characters that resonated with me. I was sort of reborn for Happening as an actress. It was my first really deep character at 19 or 20 years old. I was playing a woman dealing with pregnancy, her body and femininity.”
She was similarly motivated to play Maria Schneider, the late star of Last Tango in Paris, the most shocking movie of 1972, in Jessica Palud’s troubling Being Maria. Schneider was traumatised on set after its director, Bernardo Bertolucci, and star, Marlon Brando, conspired to include a graphic sexual act, involving butter as a lubricant, without informing Schneider beforehand. She was 19 at the time; Brando was 48.
Even though the act was simulated, Schneider said she felt violated and “a little raped”. She subsequently struggled with her mental health and substance abuse. Bertolucci dismissed her claims as a misunderstanding. These events are dramatised in Palud’s film, which premiered at Cannes last May, with Matt Dillon as Brando and Giuseppe Maggio as Bertolucci.
“Obviously, Maria Schneider was a very tough topic,” Vertolomei says. “I wanted to talk about the women that have been invisible. She was invisible all her life. We tried to do her justice. It was an intense experience. When it’s fiction you can create whatever you want. But with Maria it was different, because all her life she wasn’t heard. I really wanted to give her a voice. I wanted people to listen to her.”
Vartolomei returned to Romania last year to star in Traffic, a crime drama directed by Teodora Mihai and written by Cristian Mungiu, among the great directors of the Romanian new wave.
“I’m Romanian, so I’ve always loved Romanian cinema and Cristian Mungiu,” she says. “This was my first Romanian-language movie, and it was also by him. Working in English? I don’t know how it will go. I don’t have any expectations. But I do hope that I can work in different languages. I would like to go places. Cinema, for me, has no boundaries. It’s the best thing you could ever do.”
Mickey 17 is in cinemas from Friday, March 7th
