5 years after the fourth and remaining season of the hit French collection “Call My Agent!” received an Worldwide Emmy Award, the gang is again for a characteristic movie that sends its beloved agent-turned-filmmaker Andréa Martel (Camille Cottin) into the south of France and straight into the chaos of a film shoot gone off the rails.
The hotly anticipated Netflix film additionally sees its characters return to the Cannes Movie Competition, the place the favored forged — Cottin, Fanny Sidney, Grégory Montel, Liliane Rovère, Laure Calamy, Nicolas Maury and Thibault de Montalembert — walked the purple carpet in fashion on Friday. Like Mike White’s “The White Lotus,” which picked Cannes because the backdrop for Season 4, the manufacturing of “Call My Agent The Movie” is on the Croisette filming further footage for backstage scenes across the Palais des Festivals.
In an interview with Selection at Cannes alongside co-writer Lison Daniel and director Émilie Noblet, Fanny Herrero, the collection creator and co-writer of the movie, mentioned the film will chart Andréa’s transformation as she pivots from super-agent to filmmaker, assembling a troubled manufacturing affected by forged meltdowns, contract disputes and behind-the-scenes disasters in true “Call My Agent!” vogue. However the Cannes shoot suggests it’ll finish nicely for Andréa’s film. Choosing up 5 years after the bittersweet finish of the collection, which noticed Andréa fold her expertise company A.S.Ok., the movie sees Andréa dropping her lead actor simply days earlier than taking pictures begins. “She has to bring her old team back together,” the synopsis says, alluding to Mathias and his daughter, who’ve launched a expertise company, and Noémie, who turned a producer.
Herrero mentioned one of many largest writing challenges was discovering “the right organic plot” to carry everybody again collectively, not solely due to scheduling conflicts but additionally as a result of they “all went in different directions.” Mathias (Thibault de Montalembert) launches a expertise company along with his daughter, whereas Noémie turns into a producer. In the end, Herrero and Daniel broadened the collection’ canvas. “It’s very rich because it allows us to expand on what we’re telling about cinema, about the making of a film, about behind the scenes,” Herrero mentioned.
The movie begins throughout the conventions of the “Call My Agent!” collection, “then we take the characters and the story elsewhere,” Herrero mentioned. “At one point, the shooting of Andréa’s film begins, and we head to the south of France, into landscapes that are completely different from their usual Parisian backdrop.” Noblet, who had not been concerned within the collection, mentioned she approached the movie by following the “cinematic conventions” of “Call My Agent!” “We had a little more time and more budget, so it’s more sophisticated, but it’s actually the same rhythm,” Noblet continued.
The characteristic expands the franchise’s signature movie star cameos with a pair of Hollywood stars, George Clooney and Eva Longoria, alongside French expertise comparable to Laurent Lafitte, Vincent Macaigne and Laetitia Casta, amongst others.
“Lison and I used to fantasize about actually having an A-list American actor. At one point, we thought, ‘We’re making the “Call My Agent!” film, so let’s go all out,’” mentioned Herrero. “We weren’t crazy; we’d been given a little leeway. We weren’t in full-on delusional mode; the producers encouraged us in that regard,” she mentioned, noting that the collection’ international success had earned admiration from stars starting from Brad Pitt to Cate Blanchett. Herrero revealed that Pierre-Antoine Capton, the boss of Mediawan, performed a decisive position in securing Clooney — an excellent good friend of his — for the movie.
Herrero, Daniel and Noblet had the identical constraint for the Clooney cameo. “It had to be a single unit of time, a single location, a single scene, and no more than one day. That’s what he’d given us. So we had to figure out how to coordinate that moment, both in the writing and in the directing,” Herrero mentioned.
Clooney initially turned down the primary model of his scene — which was a “comedy scene but with more slapstick,” Herrero mentioned. Clooney finally labored intently with the writers on a brand new one which sees him meet Andréa (Cottin) and Noémie (Calamy).
Fanny Herrero, Lison Daniel and Emilie Noblet
“He said, ‘I want to do this — I love the show too much,’” Herrero recalled. “He got involved, he suggested ideas to us — it was a true collaboration.”
Noblet admitted she was intimidated directing Clooney for the primary time. “Fanny and I went up to his room, and he said to me, ‘Tell me whatever you want; it’ll be fine.’ And that’s exactly how it went,” she mentioned. “He was excellent, very professional. We shot for six hours, and he talked to the film crew between each take.”
Longoria’s cameo within the film grew out of a real-life assembly in Paris with Herrero. Longoria had spoken to her about adapting the collection for Latin America and expressed an curiosity in taking pictures extra initiatives in France.
“We thought, why not offer her a little cameo in the movie? We loved the fact that she’s already connected to ‘Call My Agent!’ She’s also a fantastic comedy actress; she really adds a little extra spice to the film. And she said yes right away; she was super excited,” Herrero mentioned.
Longoria performs a producer somewhat than an actress “because she’s actually a producer herself.”
“People are less aware that she’s also a producer. And we like to show that actresses can also eventually become producers, become powerful women — which is really the case with her. She’s truly an accomplished businesswoman.”
And whereas the film marks a long-awaited reunion for followers, Herrero, Daniel and Noblet hinted it is probably not the final.
“They’re still alive,” Herrero joked. “They haven’t stopped at all. No one’s dead, no career has ended. No one’s in prison. Anything’s possible.”
A lot of the French key forged of “Call My Agent” broke by way of due to their performances within the present. Cottin, as an illustration, has grow to be one in all France’s most bankable actors who’s labored with worldwide filmmakers comparable to Michael Mann (“Allied”), Ridley Scott (“House of Gucci”), Tom McCarthy (“Stillwater”) and showrunner Phoebe Waller-Bridge (“Killing Eve”). She not too long ago starred in Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache’s “Just an Illusion” which is flourishing on the French field workplace. Calamy, in the meantime, received a Cesar Award for her position in “Antoinette dans les Cévennes” in 2020 and has since been nominated twice in the very best actress class, in 2022 and 2023.
“Call My Agent” has additionally grow to be a cultural phenomenon, sparking native variations in plenty of international locations with high expertise hooked up, together with the U.K., Spain, Italy, Germany, South Korea, Indonesia, the Center East, Philippines, Malaysia and Poland.
The movie is produced by Mediawan-owned Mon Voisin Productions and Mom Manufacturing, with the participation of French broadcaster France Télévisions.
