By James Mottram
“I am totally the available gringo,” Vincent Cassel laughs to FilmInk at The Cannes Film Festival when asked about Brazil, the country that the French-born actor now calls home. “Definitely. And I’m always more available. I created that position in Brazil! It surprises the Brazilians, who always say, ‘What are you doing here?’ And I say, ‘I’m here because I love it.’ They all say that they want to go to Europe. I say to them, ‘You talk like that, but once you’re in Europe, you’ll be sad not to be in Brazil.’”
First, let’s clarify something: Cassel’s availability is to the world of filmmaking. After directing a music video for a Brazilian band, the veteran French actor – who has famously played gangsters (Mesrine, Eastern Promises), thieves (Ocean’s Twelve, Dobermann), cowboys (Blueberry) and all manner of other unsavoury, unhinged characters in everything from Shietan and A Dangerous Method through to Derailed and Partisan – is ready for more work in the nation that is just about to host The Olympics. “I have a project that I really feel the urge to do, and it happens in Rio,” Cassel explains. “I’ve been trying to educate directors to my vision of Brazil so they would do it, but I think I’ll have to do it myself. I don’t want to direct just to direct. You really need to have something to say.”
And Brazil certainly seems to be inspiring the engagingly animated Vincent Cassel. What does he like so much about the place? “The daily life,” he replies. “Even though it is a mess, as we know. I mean, Brazil is a mess. It always has been a mess, as far as I can remember. But I guess Italy is a mess too. And that’s what I like about Italy: it’s not so organised. I like England, but I like Italy better. It’s true. Because you still have this space where things are not that clear. I love Paris too because it’s the exact middle between London and Rome. It’s not as organised and cold as England, and it’s not as disorganised as Italy. Things are much more square in England. That’s why people drink so much. They need to breathe, like in Japan. In Brazil, people say hello. People smile, and people take the time to show you a street when you don’t know where it is. People love to talk to you, and people touch each other there.”
Though he’s at The Cannes Film Festival promoting Xavier Dolan’s intense family drama, It’s Only The End Of The World (“He’s an old soul in a little prince’s body,” Cassel says of the film’s young director), there’s also plenty of excitement about Cassel’s role in the highly anticipated thriller, Jason Bourne, which continues the on-screen exploits of Matt Damon’s eponymous now-not-quite-so-amnesiac rogue government operative. “I’m in it, I’m in it,” the actor laughs. “It’s one of the classiest franchises on the market. Paul Greengrass is a wonderful director, and I’m glad to be in it. It’s a long process. I just finished the movie two months ago, and I think we shot for seven months. So I spent seven months being alone with a gun fighting! But it’s going to look good. Paul Greengrass invented that style.”
So the English director of Captain Phillips, United 93, Bloody Sunday, Green Zone, and the previous two Damon-starring Bourne flicks is maintaining his famously gritty, documentary-style aesthetic? “He’s raising the stakes on it, but it’s still a genre movie,” Cassel replies. “He kept on saying, ‘It’s a popcorn movie! It’s a popcorn movie!’ But the way that he talks about it is a real directing process. He comes from documentary, so he’s looking for that flavour, and the process to make it work. To make those incredible, non-realistic things look real is not an easy task, and he does it the best.”
Typically for Frenchman Cassel, Jason Bourne might be another foray into English-language film (alongside the likes of Black Swan, Trance, Birthday Girl, and Child 44), but it’s not exactly a standard Hollywood flick, despite the big budget and studio backing. “Paul is English, and the whole crew was English,” Cassel explains. “And Paul loves wine!” But will Cassel fit the Hollywood stereotype of the European villain? “The real villain is the government, and we all work for him. That’s the problem with the Bourne movies: people work for a big bad, dark system, and they have to cope with it. So, is Bourne a good guy? I don’t know.”
How does Cassel approach his career? “I’m trying to enjoy what I do as much as I can,” the actor replies. “I don’t really have plans. I try to stay free as much as I can. I heard Robert De Niro saying years ago, when I was a young upcoming actor, that the talent of an actor resides in his choices. I was like, ‘What the fuck does he mean by that?’ Does he mean the choices that you make as an actor on set, or the choices of the movies that you make? I think it’s both. I had no idea that I would make these kinds of movies. But now when I look back, it really represents the way that I think and what I am as a person. So you can’t sell out too much, or it shows.”
Anything but a sell-out, Cassel continues to essay distinctly unusual and compelling characters, often in equally idiosyncratic films. The buttoned-down, straight-man roles are few and far between, but what sort of characters would Cassel most like to play? “I have no idea,” he replies. “Acting has to be easy anyway, that’s one thing. It has to be fun, and I think the more that you have fun, even if it’s tough stuff, like playing something deep or sad, you need to enjoy the moment. To me, my way to do it is to have fun doing it, so you have to come to the point when it is easy. You need to enjoy being sad, and you need to enjoy being scary. The more that you enjoy it, the more you have fun, and the more you reveal yourself. You get caught by the game, like a kid.”
What part of the process is the most fun? “Between action and cut,” Cassel smiles. “The waiting sucks. When you’re a younger actor, everything is interesting, but now what I really enjoy is that moment that is really the acting moment. Even to watch the movies nowadays is not as interesting as it used to be for me. I mean, I have to do it…but just once,” Cassel smiles cheekily.
Jason Bourne is released in cinemas on July 28.
