Catherine Deneuve: “Much Better to Be in Europe Than in America If You Are Actress and Are Older”
Catherine Deneuve, the legendary French and international movie star (in fact, institution) receives Venice Festival’s Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement.
Deneuve is being honored in Venice this year with the festival’s Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement.
Naming her this year’s honoree, Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera rattled off the long list of acclaimed creatives Deneuve has worked with, and inspired, from directors Roger Vadim, Jacques Demy, Luis Buñuel, François Truffaut and Roman Polanski to such actors as Marcello Mastroianni and Gérard Depardieu.
She is also one of the rare performers to have received an Oscar nomination for a non-English performance, picking up a best actress nom in 1993 for Régis Wargnier’s Indochine.
When asked, Deneuve selected Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), and her work with Truffaut (The Last Metro) and André Téchiné (Scene of the Crime) as the most significant in her career.
The actress, who’s 78, has no plans to stop working. She has two new projects, with Léa Domenach’s La tortue currently shooting and the English-language feature Funny Birds, from directors Marco La Via and Hanna Ladoul, set to go into production later this year.
Noting her age, Deneuve said she felt it was “much better to be in Europe than in America if you are an actress and are older… things have changed a lot around ageism in the film business, but I still think things are better in Europe for that.”
Deneuve is a Venice regular. Her breakthrough film, Belle de jour from director Buñuel, won Venice’s Golden Lion in 1967, and Deneuve earned the Coppa Volpi for best actress at the festival in 1998 for her performance in Nicole Garcia’s Place Vendôme.
Deneuve will receive her lifetime honor tonight, August 31, at opening night gala.
