Louis Garrel Looks Back on the X-Rated Classic ‘The Dreamers’ and Being ‘Shocked’ by His Sex Scenes with Isabelle Huppert in ‘Ma Mère’

Louis Garrel has become a French icon of the screen at only 43, known for his brooding good looks but also his fantastic range in often-dangerous movies. A filmmaker and an actor and the son of director Philippe Garrel, he broke out of Bernardo Bertolucci’s wildly erotic 2003 May ’68 drama “The Dreamers,” regularly stars in films by Christophe Honoré, worked with Roman Polanski on “An Officer and Spy,” and played the German professor Friedrich Bhaer in Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women.” He also played the incestuous son of Isabelle Huppert in Honoré’s salaciously disturbing 2004 “Ma Mère,” a movie that younger, stateside audiences are finally chattering about.

This year, he stars in Venice‘s warmest and most playful competition entry, Nanni Moretti‘s comedy of romantic destiny “It Will Happen Tonight.” Garrel plays Matteo, an idealistic bookstore owner in Rome who falls for the very married actress Greta (Jasmine Trinca). Their paths cross over the years, even as Matteo marries the nurse caring for his ailing father and Greta’s relationship with her husband and daughter grows stagnant. It’s popular Italian director Moretti’s first film since a heart attack left him hospitalized last year. That Matteo’s father suffers a terminal illness while trying to find his joie de vivre again is undoubtedly a nod to Moretti’s own renewed lease on life — and filmmaking.

It’s one of the most delightful performances of Garrel’s career, even if it feels like a far cry from the often pitch-dark roles he plays. Or the films he writes and directs, including festival circuit favorites like “Regular Lovers” and “Jealousy,” that all revolve around talky, unraveling romantic relationships in the vein of the Nouvelle Vague. Garrel often stars in his own films, too: “I think it’s very interesting for the audience, even for me as a spectator, when I see a movie directed by the guy who is playing on screen, because suddenly you see he’s suffering from this situation, but he’s organized it,” Garrel told IndieWire over a chat during the Venice Film Festival, where Garrel is a contender for the jury’s best actor prize.

Below, we also dig into Garrel’s memories of Bertolucci, whose presence has been felt all over the festival. The Italian director of “Last Tango in Paris” and “The Conformist” is the subject of Luca Guadagnino’s seven-hour documentary “Joie de Vivre,” and elsewhere, the final script he wrote before dying of lung cancer in 2018 has now been adapted into director Andrea Pallaoro’s competition film “The Echo Chamber.”

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

IndieWire: I saw “It Will Happen Tonight” yesterday, and it was a pleasantly light, entertaining entry in an otherwise grim festival thematically and formally.

Louis Garrel: This is what I heard about. It’s not the first time that I am in a movie, in a competition, and hearing the critic saying, “Oh, what a [breath of] fresh air. You know, nice fresh, fresh air.”

Nanni Moretti had a heart attack last year. This movie is about getting your grip back on your life. When did you first meet him?

I presented several movies [at a festival he organized], and then he was presenting the movie with me, introduced me to the audience, the Italian audience. He portrayed me as a sex symbol on his Instagram because I was presenting a movie and the audience was very feminine. So he made a stupid video to humiliate me a little bit.

Sounds like it worked.

One day he called me, and he said, “What are you doing in September and October?” And I already had something to do, honestly. I was hired on the movie like a young man who is called to by the love of his life. My life is calling me to make a movie with him. I said, “No, I’m free, Nanni, don’t worry. If it’s for you, I’m free.” So he said, “OK, how is your Italian?” And I said, “You know how my Italian is. We had a conversation three weeks ago.” And he said, “Yes, but OK, maybe we can think about making a movie together” … I went to Rome, and then we made a small test with Jasmine. I think he wanted to see if the chemistry was there between the two of us, and we did the movie. He sent me the script. Honestly, he could have sent me the worst script ever; I would’ve done it. Yeah. I’ve been crazy about Nanni since so long, so I was too happy to.

‘It Will Happen Tonight’Venice

This movie features a flash mob with you and Jasmine Trinca dancing to the Rolling Stones. On paper, that sounds bad. But it works here. How was it written in the script?

I don’t remember if it was written or not. Maybe because it was in Italian, and my Italian was not so perfect. But I remember that suddenly they said, “Oh, you have to rehearse the choreography.” And I hate to dance because it’s too ridiculous when I dance.

I feel like you wouldn’t normally like a scene like this. That’s why I wanted to ask you about it.

Yeah, I know. But in the previous movie I played in, “Juste Une Illusion,” it’s a Toledano-Nakache movie in France. I dance also, but Camille Cottin, she was the leading role, the masculine-feminine leading role. She’s dancing so well that when I enter, it’s a comedy. So everybody loves when I dance because I don’t know how to dance. So I was very scared. But at the end, the clumsiness is accepted by Nanni.

Was there something that you were looking for as an actor that this movie spoke to, or is it really just about the Nanni relationship?

To play a long role in Italian also was very attractive for me because I have this stupid dream to work between France and Italy, like Jean-Louis Trintignant did in Franco-Italian productions. And also the fact that he’s a lonely father at the moment, my character, was very touching, I think. And also to create a love relationship combined with this real life that they have, all of them. Jasmine[‘s character] has a husband, a daughter, a boring life sometimes. Me, I have a very complicated life also. And then suddenly I know that it would be a fantastic space for love because we all need it in this boring life sometimes, to have this impossible love that we have in mind, where we escape from a terrible life sometimes. Like a version of a romantic comedy.

It’s interesting talking to you at this festival because Bernardo Bertolucci has quite a presence here this year. Another competition film, “The Echo Chamber” by Andrea Pallaoro, is directed from the last script Bertolucci wrote before he died. And then Luca Guadagnino’s documentary about him is also playing here.

Is it showing?

Yes, showing here. It’s a seven-hour documentary about Bernardo Bertolucci. One of the movie’s purposes is to get Gen Z interested in Bertolucci, and yet “The Dreamers” factors in about 10 seconds of it. That movie was your breakout, and your introduction as a screen actor to most audiences.

Still today, some young people in the street — 18 years old, 19 years old — come to see me. I watched “The Dreamers.” I loved it. And 20 years after, it’s still a secret film that young people are passing under the coat. It’s crazy because I think it’s a movie that you don’t watch with your parents. It’s a movie that you watch by yourself alone in your room with your friends. So it’s a very precious movie. It’s a subversive subject, I think, also. And it’s the beginning of sexuality. It’s so intimate. So yeah, I don’t understand Luca. I’m going to call him right after you.

‘The Dreamers’©Fox Searchlight/Courtesy Everett Collection

Bertolucci talks about how he really felt this love relationship with Marlon Brando when they were doing “Last Tango.” How would you characterize what your relationship with him was on The Dreamers?

He didn’t have a son. We talked a lot, and also because May ’68 was a lot about sons [staging] a revolt against the fathers. We talked a lot about the admiration that he had for his own father. Attilio Bertolucci was a poet. So he told me, “I stayed the son.” And I could feel the pain also to the fact that he never had the son, but also the freedom of not being a father, maybe because he wanted to escape this position and never wanted to become a father. But first of all, on “The Dreamers,” the big memory is the trio that I formed with Michael [Pitt] and Eva [Green]. I think we fell literally in love, the three of us. We had a strong relationship and everything. When you start to work at this age, it was more than a movie because it was the first time, when I was more or less a virgin of cinema.

So I couldn’t exactly understand that we were doing the movies. The last day, when Bernardo said something, I couldn’t stop crying. And I still long for this feeling that I had at that time. He said, “The dream is over.” And then I realized that it was over. I mean, all this bubble, this space, this world that we created for two and a half months in Paris, all these costumes, these people that I fell in love with, you know, Michael, Eva, and Bernardo, and the sound engineer, everyone.

I don’t want to keep telling you about this documentary that you haven’t seen yet. Maybe “The Dreamers” is not in there because Gen Z and younger have reportedly stood against too much sex onscreen.

That’s a good question to ask Luca, because I know that he liked “The Dreamers.” Maybe he did it to annoy me.

Christophe Honoré’s “Ma Mére” — in which you star in a graphic incestuous relationship with your mother, played by Isabelle Huppert — is another movie that’s gained renewed interest in the States.

I know. That’s crazy. I heard about that. That’s the most terrifying movie that I saw. I think I did it when I was 17 or 18. Then I saw the movie, and I didn’t have any kind of idea of the movie that I was making. I was so happy to play with Isabelle Huppert, and I have a fantastic relation with her. I used to call her Marlon Brando on set because she was strong, like Marlon Brando, and then she was very intense, and I was playing her son and everything. But then when I saw the film, I was shocked. I shocked myself. I said, “What did I do?” It’s very shocking.

‘Ma Mére’TLA Releasing

It’s strange that you didn’t know it was shocking. Your character is having sex with his mother in the movie.

Yeah, I know. I know. That’s my punk era. You know that I played the son of Isabelle, but also the lover of Isabelle. I don’t know if it happened so much. I played the lover of Isabelle, but on stage, not in a film. [“False Confidences.”] I found it very interesting to play the lover of my mother, in a way.

You’re in this other upcoming movie, “The Custom of the Country,” an Edith Wharton adaptation with Sydney Sweeney.

We shot it in Portugal, in Lisbon. That was very interesting because the director [Josie Rourke], I loved her. The first second I met her, Sydney couldn’t do it because she suddenly had a different schedule. I didn’t see the film, sorry, but she was playing a boxer. She had to lose her muscles… Then, I was invited on the set, and finally, we did it. So she is playing a young woman who’s looking for a good marriage. But then, on the step of this good marriage, she meets a lot of men. And then I think, I don’t remember well, but I think they all, more or less, suffer [beacuse of] her. It’s not a revenge movie, but it’s a very… I think it’s going to be good. I hope.

So you’re one of these men along the way?

Yes.[With] a big castle and a big library. We shot in the most beautiful library in Portugal.

Do you want to do more Hollywood productions?

Yeah, sometimes I have this desire. I would love to. They need to find a French character. It’s hard to find because when you are Spanish, you can play in the U.S because you have lots of Spanish community. But the French community is very French. You know what I mean?

“It Will Happen Tonight” premiered at the 2026 Venice Film Festival before playing TIFF.