Ever since French actress Lea Seydoux dropped my jaw playing back-to-back roles in Midnight in Paris and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, I’ve vowed to follow her career very closely. You see, it’s not stalking, because I write about movie news. The first news about Seydoux’s career that perked up my ears was word that she was going to be starring in a new telling of the Beauty and the Beast story opposite acting powerhouse Vincent Cassel which, to that point, I thought was about the best news ever. But now there’s a new development in the lovely young lady’s career that just might rival it.
According to Variety, Seydoux is set to star in a film called Blue Is a Hot Color, from Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche. It’s set to be a relatively low budget adaptation of a graphic novel by Julie Maroh that tells the story of a girl who, quite unexpectedly, falls in love with another woman and then has to face the judgment of her friends and loved ones. This not only sounds like a story that’s ripe with both dramatic and comedic potential, but it also sounds like a movie that will be full of moments that I’ll have no problem shamelessly ogling. If any of my other favorite, young, French actresses get cast as the love interest, then I just might keel over from excitement.
Will this be a movie that those of us in the U.S. will be able to see though? I have high hopes. Kechiche is a director whose past works, including films like Black Venus and The Secret of the Grain, have been tearing up Venice and winning all sort of Caesars, so adding his rising star overseas and Seydoux’s now-blossoming career in the States could lead to some sort of distribution deal. A company called Wild Bunch will be handling the French distribution and selling of overseas rights, so consider this my plea for the powers that be in Hollywood to get these guys on the horn right away. Come on fellas, I need this!