NEW YORK — Most folks would get starstruck around Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Not Mélanie Laurent, Pitt’s French co-star in the war flick Inglourious Basterds.

Being on the red carpet at the film’s premiere with the couple was “completely crazy,” concedes the slightly standoffish actress. “But you don’t feel like, ‘Oh my God.’ Everybody is crazy, hysterical, but it’s not real. You just have fun. They are so cool. They always say to me, ‘Hi, you look great.’ ”

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Gallery Links:
Studio Photoshoots > 2009 > Session 10

Now that Mélanie has spent some time stateside promoting Inglourious Basterds, there’s finally been a little more press about her in the English-speaking world which had so far focused almost exclusively on Brad and Diane. First is a brief feature on her Basterds playlist at artistdirect.com, which includes a video she’s featured in.

Playlist: Melanie Laurent of “Inglourious Basterds”

“There are so many emotions in Inglourious Basterds,” says Melanie Laurent. “[It's] so funny, violent, cruel and dramatic!”

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Next, an interesting feature on Mélanie and Diane called “Glorious Women” in the Boston Globe, where they talk about their characters and their experiences working under Tarantino.

Don’t be deceived by the delicate bones and honey blond hair. Sure their shoes are great, and both of their faces glow with the naturalness only professional makeup artists can achieve. But writer-director Quentin Tarantino doesn’t casts powder puffs, and this pair is no exception.

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Finally, an interview by the website Screencrave, which is the first full English-language interview of her that I’ve seen. She mentions shooting her full-length film next summer, and presumably she’s referring to Les Adoptés, which had been originally planned to film at the end of 2009.

Now we’re moving on to the heart of the film, the Jewish-French damsel who will be sure to sweep you off your feet and surprise you, Mélanie Laurent. For someone who was not professionally trained as an actress, it’s hard to find an actor who is more unlike their character. For however serious and steadfast she was on screen, she was equally as light-hearted and care-free in person. She was a joy to be around and made everyone around her smile.

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As a reminder, Inglourious Basterds finally opens to the general public this week, August 19th in Europe and August 21st in North America!

After a couple days in Montréal to promote Inglourious Basterds, Mélanie was in New York yesterday for a Q&A session for the film at the Jewish Heritage Museum. Photos have been added to the gallery and there’s a brief article about the appearance below.

Gallery Links:
Public Appearances > 2009 > “Inglourious Basterds” Q&A in New York

French actress MELANIE LAURENT was determined to land a role in QUENTIN TARANTINO’s new World War II movie INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS because she wanted to avenge the Nazis on behalf of her Jewish family.

Laurent portrays the character of Shosanna Dreyfus in the film, a French-Jewish girl who goes on the run. She later becomes the owner of a cinema and hatches a plan for revenge on the German occupation. The star admits she has harboured a hatred for Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler since learning about her own grandfather’s Holocaust history, so she immediately connected with the challenges faced by Dreyfus. And, after scoring one of the movie’s leading roles, she is delighted to be seen as the “face of the Jewish vengeance”.

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Mélanie is featured in the August 2009 edition of UK fashion magazine Dazed & Confused, photographed by none other than Ellen von Unwerth. The feature is only a couple pages long, but she looks fantastic in the photos — check it out! I added captures from the online edition to the gallery, but if you have scans of the magazine itself, please do send them in!

Also, I’ve added outtakes of what appears to be the same session featured on the cover of Heeb Magazine back in July.

Gallery Links:
Studio Photoshoots > 2009 > Session 08

There’s a nice little feature on Le Figaro’s website about Mélanie which summarizes her career from her discovery up until the present day and then her future projects. No breaking news, but she does talk briefly about her character in La Rafle. I’m rusty with translating and not fluent in the first place but I am hoping in the future after I brush up we’ll be able to bring you (amateur) translations of some of her French press for readers who don’t speak the language. It’s better than nothing, right?

En ce moment, c’est l’actrice française que tout le monde s’arrache. Cet été, pas moins de trois films sortent en salle, affichant son joli minois, sa fine ­silhouette fluide et sa peau diaphane. À 26 ans, ­Mélanie ­Laurent enchaîne les rôles avec bonheur et ­détermination. Vingt-deux films en dix ans de carrière. Tout semble sourire à cette comédienne, César 2007 du meilleur espoir féminin, à l’instinct sûr et au grand regard vert.

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Also, I happened to stumble upon a newly-posted teaser trailer for her next post-Basterds film, Le Concert! It’s only 30 seconds long, but Mélanie-centric, and we finally learn the name of her character: Anne-Marie Jacquet. I’ll add screencaptures to the gallery soon, but in the meantime, here’s the video of it. Enjoy!

Finally, a feature on Mélanie in English! This is from Interview Magazine’s website. The photo is from April 2009 but it looks like the article itself is from around May, pre-Cannes.

French actress Mélanie Laurent was hard at work buying knickers for a porno film when Quentin Tarantino called to confirm that she’d landed a part in his spell-check unfriendly World War II extravaganza Inglourious Basterds. Tarantino’s job offer was the cue for Laurent and her costume department to spend the next few minutes dancing ecstatically in the Paris streets, waving G-strings above their heads. In the role that the director carved out for the 23-year-old Laurent, she plays a Jewish girl who, after witnessing her family being massacred by the Nazis, masquerades as a cinema owner in Paris, where she hatches a revenge plan.

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Gallery Links:
Studio Photoshoots > 2009 > Session 07

I’m Lindsey and I’ll be your newest webmiss. Thanks to Mélanie’s media frenzy, I also have a huge update! First, the much-anticipated Inglourious Basterds has a feature in Heeb Magazine. Mélanie is on the cover styled in a “we can do it!” / Rosie the Riveter throwback. The cover can be found in the gallery and the article here, on the magazine’s website, but avoid reading if you’re trying to avoid film spoilers, as quite a lot of the plot is revealed. There is a spoiler-free Mélanie-specific excerpt below.

There is also a new series of individual character posters for Inglourious Basterds, including Mélanie as Shosanna, which has been added to the gallery.

Gallery Links:
Magazine Scans > 2009 > Heeb (July)
Film Productions > Inglourious Basterds (2009) > Posters & Cover Art

“It’s really about the power of movies,” says Mélanie Laurent, the film’s 26-year-old star. Relying on broken English she learned less than a year ago, the actress parses each word as if Quentin Tarantino is standing over her shoulder with a French-to- English dictionary. She pauses and reflects for a moment before saying, “The cinema is a way of taking back power.” Laurent plays Shosanna Dreyfus, a character whose very name seems to be a playful reference to Jewish history—her French last name belonging to Alfred Dreyfus, the most polarizing Jewish figure in the history of France.

In addition, Mélanie was featured in the June edition of magazine Libération Next. Low-quality photos can be found in the gallery, and you can read the article in its original form here: Mélanie Laurent, Coup de fougue. No English translation available, unfortunately, but if you’re familiar with French it’s a good read. If you have full-size scans of the magazine itself, please send them in!

Gallery Links:
Magazine Scans > 2009 > Libération Next (June)

In other film news, new media has been released for two of Mélanie’s other upcoming films, L’Amour caché (August 5th) and the newly re-christened Jusqu’à toi (July 29th). The international title for Jusqu’à toi has also been changed from Shoe at your Foot to Every Jack Has a Jill. In the gallery you can find production stills, a poster, and trailer screencaptures for L’amour caché as well as production stills, a poster, trailer screencaptures, and screencaptures from 3 film extracts for Jusqu’à toi.

You can watch all the videos in their original form at Allocine. The Jusqu’à toi videos are worth checking out in particular — the movie looks adorable, and it’s exciting to finally see Mélanie in a comedic role.

Gallery Links:
Film Productions > L’Amour caché (2009) > Posters & Cover Art
Film Productions > L’Amour caché (2009) > Trailer – Captures
Film Productions > L’Amour caché (2009) > Production Stills
Film Productions > Jusqu’à toi (2009) > Posters & Cover Art
Film Productions > Jusqu’à toi (2009) > Production Stills
Film Productions > Jusqu’à toi (2009) > Extract #1 – Captures
Film Productions > Jusqu’à toi (2009) > Extract #2 – Captures
Film Productions > Jusqu’à toi (2009) > Extract #3 – Captures
Film Productions > Jusqu’à toi (2009) > Trailer – Captures

More to come as the Inglourious Basterds premiere dates near: they begin in Stockholm on July 20th and culminate in the US for the Hollywood premiere on August 10th. Thanks to tarantino.info for the steady stream of IB news!

Great, great news everyone! Mélanie has made her first appearance at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. According to this article, Mélanie arrived at Cannes on Monday. Thanks to Mariana, we have the translated article. I’ll be posting it at the end of this news feed. Mélanie attended the screening of a movie entitled “Che”, looking simply radiant, and dawning a very brunette color. I’m going to try and collect more pictures from this event, but so far I haven’t been able to find too much. However, stay tuned for more updates!

At 25 years old and despite a whooping-cough that is killing her voice, Mélanie Laurent is living on a little cloud. The reason? She’s just finished a 7 minute long short film called “De Moins En Moins”, the story of a “patient who, in her psychologist’s office, starts to remember less and less”. She’s also signed for a long feature film, will play as an actress in a film this Summer, and will direct a stage play in Paris, near the Champs-Elysées. “I’m starting to get recognized but nobody bugs me. There’s no hysteria or intimate embraces. I’m at a perfect inbetween place”.

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