Marilou Aussilloux, from Robert Guédiguian to Maria Schneider

On the poster of the Thief Pie who met with a nice success, she shines in the spectale alone as Maria around the heroine of the last tango in Paris that she co- wrote and co-staged

We discovered her at the end of the 2010s when she had chained the series Influence games of Jean-Xavier de Lestrade and The revolution interspersed with its first striking role on the big screen in Goodbye Albert Dupontel. Since then, Marilou Aussilloux has made a pretty way. On the big screen, this year she joined the Robert Guédiguian family this year for The Thief Pie who met with a nice success in theaters. In the coming weeks, we will find it in second roles in two exciting films: Love is additional of Mourad Winter (April 23) and Little Jaffna de Lawrence Valin (April 30). But if this year 2025 will remain marked with a white stone, it is for the show that it gives until Sunday at the Théâtre de l’Athénée, in Paris. Alone with Mariaonly one on stage that she co- wrote and co-staged with Théo Askolovitch and where she embodies a young actress in full conception of a show on Maria Schneider. An exciting abyss where the words of the heroine of Last tango Resonate with the questions of that which must interpret it. An hour of high -flying theater, both fun and deep and carried by a striking incarnation

When is this desire to create a show around Maria Schneider goes back? Is this linked to what you tell in the room, this physical resemblance to her that you have noticed?

Marilou aussiloux: Even if it is a fiction, there are a lot of real things in this room. Starting by the fact that since very young, I want to do something around Maria Schneider, I wrote several texts … And the click came from that day when a man compared me to her on the street and when when I got home, when I did not know her, I hit his name on Google and only appeared porn sites! Inevitably, I then wondered why I was compared to her. And I started investigating Maria. She has become a kind of obsession. I watched all her filmography and with each film my admiration grew up for her. I also went in search of the rare interviews she granted where, each time, I was fascinated by her strength of character and her power. We were then before Metoo. So I missed certain keys to understanding where his suffering came from and what had really happened on the set of Last Tango in Paris. But I identified myself. It has become a kind of model of courage. I even tried to look like her a bit like my beginnings as an actress. And one day, over my research, I came across this interview that she gave for an American media and which constituted for me the missing room. The one who was going to allow me not to speak in her place and to make a spectacle by giving him the floor. An even more essential question of consent for someone whose suffering has never really heard over these years since, because of their status, only the words of Brando and Bertolucci seemed to be proof. In Alone like MariaI give to hear for example the refusal it expressed – without being heard – to be locked up in a sex -symbol status. And how will she be sent back from a Buñuel shoot because she refused to be only a desirable young woman.

How is this Alone like Maria ?

From the start, I wanted to mix my point of view as a young actress – starting with what it means to have a big dream – and that of Maria. I was very inspired by this sentence that says dreams are sometimes too large costumes. To tell through her what I experienced: climb from Narbonne to Paris with this desire to become an actress and an idol like Maria in mind. Then I started talking to Thékolovitch, my co-director, when I need an external point of view on all this. Théo allowed me to have a step back, to show me where I stammered or I had to cut. Because we know each other well: I had helped him just before for his show to him around another intimate story, on the mourning of his mother. So the cuts he offered me lean on what he knows about me. It was not a too external look

And how did this idea come in a spectacle of work in progress?

Because we wanted to be in an ultra-sincerity! And so play with this idea that we cannot create a show on Maria Schneider because I don’t feel up to the task and I might never be. But if Alone like Maria opens with this feeling of failure, it especially tells the possibility a second chance to which we are all entitled. This show celebrates the attempt. There is obviously a responsibility to embark on this adventure but I especially did not want to do something too moralizing or didactic. Besides, I give very little my opinion. I just tell my journey in a mirror with that of Maria Schneider. And I leave spectators free to react to his words that I made. It is also different every evening. And above all, I really wanted to finish this show with light and hope. By these words where she says that this job as an actress can be magnificent, that one can make magic meetings like the one she made with Antonioni. Because it translates what I think. Despite everything that can sometimes happen on the sets or behind the scenes, I have a crazy love of my job.

Among your outstanding meetings to you, there is Robert Guédiguian…

One of my best experiences because it was so kind. And I’m going to be lucky to find him in September for his new film, still obviously in Marseille!

It was by casting that he chose you to The Thief Pie ?

Not really. In fact, he had seen me in Under the carpet by Camille Japy. I think he had written the role for Anaïs Demoustier who could not do it and he then called me to offer it directly, without passing hearing. I was hallucinated and so happy. I devoured her films when I was young. Because having been born in Narbonne, they were one of the rares that I could identify spontaneously, unlike those taking place in Paris. And it joins Maria Schneider’s words when she explains that what is magic in this job is to meet someone you admire and with whom you are going to work. I had the chance to live it

Alone like Maria At the Athenaeus Theater until March 23. Reservations: https://www.athenee–heatre.com/saison/Spectacle/seule-comme-maria