FINDING MARIE ANTOINETTE

Even before Coppola started writing the screenplay for MARIE ANTOINETTE she could only envision one actress in the lead role: Kirsten Dunst, who seemed to possess both the sprite-like spirit and the dazzling, pale complexion for which the French Queen was so famous. Dunst, who made her debut in Woody Allen’s NEW YORK STORIES and went on to garner a Golden Globe for Neil Jordan’s INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE, first worked with Coppola in the director’s acclaimed debut THE VIRGIN SUICIDES. She has since gone on to roles that range from the popular teen hit BRING IT ON, to the femme fatale of the blockbuster SPIDER-MAN® series, to the surreal comedy of ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND.

Says Coppola: “In everything I read about Marie Antoinette, I pictured Kirsten. She has that same quality of being a bubbly, full-of-life blonde who has a lot more going on than people assume. Kirsten also had that same playful, creative spirit that I sensed in Marie Antoinette. She has that certain mix of charm and depth – and, being part German, she also has the perfect skin and look for the role. I knew Kirsten could bring Marie Antoinette to life, as I had imagined her.”

Biographer Antonia Fraser was equally excited about the casting. “I thought, ‘that’s absolutely the right face,’” she says upon hearing that Dunst would tackle the role. “That’s exactly the kind of jewel eye and prettiness that was so alluring. When I saw her in person, I thought she was a perfect physical match. She especially has that gracefulness for which Marie Antoinette was so renowned.”

Like Coppola, Dunst found herself riveted by the concept of Marie Antoinette as a vivacious, sweet, yet slightly rebellious teen who found herself in incredible circumstances of both luxury and scrutiny. She immediately drew a link between Marie Antoinette and her modern-day counterpart — the late Princess Diana, another young outsider who struggled to find herself amidst a stifling cult of celebrity and royalty.

For Dunst, the parallels between Marie Antoinette and her own life as a child actress also resonated. “I could really relate to her because I started acting when I was 11 and since then, I’ve been constantly surrounded by adults, constantly surrounded by people I’m trying to please. That’s why I really understood the situation Marie Antoinette was in – leaving her home and coming to this place where there were all these expectations and all these judgments about her.“

Dunst continues: “When there are so many people paying so much attention to you and wanting so much from you, it can make you feel very isolated and lonely. You’re constantly wondering, ‘Is this person using me?’ or ‘How do people see me?’ It created a kind of sadness in Marie Antoinette that hasn’t really been seen before. I think Sofia probably wanted me to play Marie Antoinette because she saw that I had that same sadness and loneliness in me.”

Though the film covers some 19 years of Marie Antoinette’s life, and required Dunst to move back in forth in time throughout the shoot, she saw Marie Antoinette’s emotional evolution as often stunted by her very unusual circumstances. “I think over the years Marie Antoinette developed into a kind of wise child,” Dunst observes. “She came to Versailles as a teenager but there, she was so isolated, that she remained child-like through much of her life. Her tragedy is that she didn’t really come into her own and become an adult until it was too late.”

For Dunst, part of the challenge of playing Marie Antoinette was creating a character who doesn’t have a solid sense of being a completed person. “I had to allow myself as much as I could not to worry about feeling solid,” she says. “But that is part of what interested me in what Sofia was doing. This isn’t a history piece so much as it is the story of a girl who was very human, very real and is very understandable to us today. People don’t really act the way you often see them in period films, and Sofia wanted something much more natural, without accents. For me, it was more freeing and I think will help people to better understand what Marie Antoinette went through.”

The chance to work again with Coppola was also a major draw for Dunst. “Sofia’s almost like an older sister to me, in a way,” she remarks. “What’s nice is that we didn’t ever really have to over-analyze the scenes or talk about them too much because I pretty much know what she wants most of the time. I look up to her and I admire her but she also makes me feel really confident in what I’m doing. I also especially like working with a woman director. It was always a very open and relaxed atmosphere.”

To prepare for the role, Dunst immersed herself in some of Marie Antoinette’s most famous activities. “I took dance lessons, singing lessons, harp lessons, etiquette lessons and more,” she notes. “I felt like I learned a little bit about the things people did during that period.”

Dunst even had to learn the famous “Versailles glide” – the exaggerated movement in which ladies in giant hoop dresses appeared to never touch their feet to the ground.

Dunst faced not only emotional challenges in portraying Marie Antoinette’s journey from playful child to tragic Queen but the physical challenges of being transformed into an 18th Century fashion goddess complete with rib-crushing corsets, truly massive hair and extensive makeup, including the lavish rouge circles that were emblematic of the French aristocracy. “The daily process was pretty brutal,” Dunst admits. “There was a constant flow of dry shampoo and hair spray and they were always piling more and more stuff on me. I often needed a break after the hair and makeup sessions because it was so stressful.”

When it came to wearing corsets, Dunst was amazed that women put up with it. “It’s very hard to breathe and get a sense of your body in the clothes from that era, so I tried to get away with wearing as little underneath as I possibly could. I wore corsets in Versailles but once Marie Antoinette goes to Le Petit Trianon, I wanted her to feel freer and to feel the fabric against my skin to convey that change. I always felt like Marie Antoinette must have been like a bird – always trying to get out of all these cages around her.”

AN UNEXPECTED LOUIS XVI

Just as Coppola envisioned Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette, she had a similar picture in her mind of Jason Schwartzman as King Louis XVI, known as France’s most awkward, timid and reluctant monarch. Schwartzman, who came to the fore with a lauded performance in Wes Anderson’s RUSHMORE, has more recently been seen in such contemporary roles as David O. Russell’s I (heart) HUCKABEES and Steve Martin’s SHOPGIRL. He was an unexpected choice for a period piece, which is part of what struck Coppola as being just right.

“I always felt there was something very sympathetic about Louis XVI,“ comments Coppola. “He was never meant to be King and was only in that position because his older brother died. I think he was plagued with this sense of being very inadequate – he was near-sighted and said to be inept at a great many things.

So I really felt that Jason, who has this very vulnerable and sensitive side, would make Louis more touching and believable. I think he brings heart to Louis XVI. And another thing about Jason is that he looks like a Bourbon. When you look at those old portraits, he fits right in, although Antonia Fraser said – and I agree – that Jason is a lot more handsome than Louis.”

Coppola was also impressed with how Schwartzman threw himself into the role, gaining more than 40 pounds to portray the famously chubby monarch and taking extensive lessons in order to learn how to dance, ride horseback and carry himself with 18th Century royal comportment – albeit in a uniquely nerdy and myopic way.

Schwartzman was taken with Coppola’s intrepidly modern approach. “I liked the idea of giving these historical figures some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and helping to bring Louis XVI fully to life,” he comments. “ We tend to forget that when thinking about historical figures, or anyone from long ago — that they were real moving people who were sometimes afraid and who sometimes got too full, and sometimes slouched, and sometimes doubted this or that. I remember seeing Amadeus when I was a kid and having my mind totally blown apart because it was the first time I realized people from the 18th Century laughed. I was so young and my perception of the past was very much, ‘They were old and cold and uptight.’ Seeing that film changed me, it made those people real and accessible. What I found so compelling was that the film took the characters seriously without ever losing sight of the fact that no matter what title they held, or how genius they were, they were always, at the end of the day, just people. I find that to be true with Marie Antoinette as well. It’s not like watching people up on a pedestal from far away – you’re right in there with Marie Antoinette and Louis in their daily lives. So it’s a very intimate story about something huge.”

Schwartzman immersed himself in Louis’ life in preparation for the role – a process that led to at least as much confusion as certainty. “It seems that the view of who Louis was is completely different in every historian’s interpretation,” he says. “Even his personal diaries weren’t very personal. On the day he meets Marie Antoinette, the woman he is going to spend the rest of his life with, he writes in hunting log: ‘Met the Dauphine today.’ That’s it. And on their wedding night, when they are supposed to consummate the marriage, he writes: ‘Nothing happened.’ No more. So he’s quite tough to figure out. Ultimately, after all the research, I decided to base everything on Antonia’s book and Sofia’s script.”

Schwartzman viewed Louis’ predicament sympathetically. “I came to see him as a young man who was placed in a position in which he felt overwhelmed. He didn’t see himself as strong enough, handsome enough or brilliant enough to be King, but he also really believed that God had intended for him to be King,” he says.

When it came to his young wife, however, Louis was completely at a loss. For his scenes with Kirsten Dunst, Schwartzman recalls Coppola’s advice. “Her note to me was that any time there was an uncomfortable silence, don’t try to fill it and don’t try to make Kirsten comfortable; just let the tension be there,” he says.

“This was really difficult, especially because Kirsten is such a nice person. But I think it worked very nicely because you see that Marie Antoinette is so eager to be liked by Louis and he just can’t seem to find a way to make it easy for her to be in his presence.”

In the bedroom, all the pressures on Louis and Marie Antoinette lead to an incredible seven-year drought of passion. Although theories about just what was wrong have ranged from the psychological to the physiological, Schwartzman has his own view: “I think Louis had performance anxiety — on a huge level,” he observes. “It must have been tough to be so young and on the cusp of so much power with all these people looking at you and wanting things from you – and at the same time you still feel really awkward and uncomfortable in your own skin. If you take two people in this predicament and throw them into a bedroom situation, all kinds of inappropriate feelings are going to come up.”

Another challenge for Schwartzman was bringing his character to life with precious few lines of dialogue. “Louis is a silent person but with Sofia, silence is never really silence,” he explains. “We went through each of the scenes where Louis is sort of just sitting there and talked about what he is really thinking about in his head. We discussed all the things he really wanted to say but couldn’t. Was that really what Louis XVI was thinking? Nobody can know for sure, but I think we came up with a good synthesis between what is known and Sofia’s interpretation.”

Throughout, Schwartzman especially enjoyed working with Coppola. “From the second we started this film, I trusted her with my heart and soul,” he says. “I think a lot of us on the set share similar experiences and she used a lot of memories, references and pages from our lives to give us all a common ground during the production. She would say ‘It’s like this song’ or ‘it’s like this movie’ or ‘it’s like that time we were at dinner’ – and you really understood what she was talking about.”

Much of the role was a revelation for Schwartzman. “Being a King is something I never thought I’d be asked to do,” he admits. “I learned how to ride horses, how to dance a minuet, how to bow and how to use proper 18th Century etiquette. I could now sit at a dinner table with the best of Versailles and fit right in. It’s been a really enriching experience.”

CASTING THE COURT

From the moment she arrived in France, Marie Antoinette was surrounded by an entirely new culture and a chaotic coterie of nobles at Versailles, who seemed to either revere or revile her without really knowing her. To bring the human side of Versailles to life, Sofia Coppola continued with her iconoclastic vision, choosing a wide range of distinct personalities from around the world to breathe fresh air and life into 18th Century figures who today are mostly just names in history books. “Our cast is definitely eccentric,” Coppola admits. “We have Rip Torn, a Texan King of France, Asia Argento, an Italian Madame Du Barry and Judy Davis, an Australian Comtesse De Noailles, so it’s a very mixed group, which seemed right because it was a very eccentric and decadent time and the cast really gives it that flavor of extremism. I loved watching these actors imagine those characters.”

The actors were all drawn to the project for similar reasons – for the chance to bring more color, verve and human foibles to historical characters, than is usually required in movies. One actress who had an especially good time, she says, was Judy Davis, the two-time Academy Award® nominee who plays the Comtesse de Noailles, a woman who was known, even to her own family, as “Madame Etiquette.” “She’s a real zealot,” says Davis, “and those characters are always very interesting and amusing to play. I think there’s also quite a bit of humor to be discovered in her. Marie Antoinette’s every impulse was to fight the whole system of privilege, form and etiquette at Versailles, and meanwhile, my character has an almost religious fervor for that system. It was her life and her structure.”

Davis also enjoyed Coppola’s style on the set. “She’s a very playful director with a light touch and that is quite refreshing,” she says. “And she’s written a cheeky modern script.” That script reminded Davis of just how much the mythmaking that went on centuries ago still effects our impressions. “The power of propaganda is such that 18th Century talk of Marie Antoinette still has potency today,” she observes. “It will be interesting to see if anything can dismantle the rumors that have been used to condemn her since she was a young girl.”

With his Shakespearean background, Emmy and Golden Globe winner Rip Torn was also excited to return to the past – with a more modern point-of-view. Torn plays King Louis XV as an unrepentant sensualist, whose main appreciation of Marie Antoinette is based on her physical attributes. “Sofia said ‘I’d like to see you in tights again,’” Torn laughingly recalls of his casting. “She said that she remembered me doing Shakespeare and Molière and wearing all the costumes of the day as if I had lived in them. I had pretty well figured I would never get a chance to play this kind of role again so it’s been a kind of miraculous, stunning experience for me.”

For author Antonia Fraser, Torn’s casting as Louis XV was one of the film’s most intriguing. “He really captured the essence of an aging satyr,” she comments. Meanwhile, leading British comic and rising screen star Steve Coogan (24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY) took on the role of Count Mercy D’Argenteau, the elegant Austrian ambassador who was handed the delicate mission of serving as advisor to Marie Antoinette when she arrived at Versailles. “Count Mercy’s very political,” according to Coogan. “He tries to coax and steer Marie Antoinette, knowing he can’t really confront her. He always has to cloak his words in ways that won’t offend her majesty — though I think sometimes he’d just like to kick her backside.”

Like the rest of the cast, Coogan was surprised by Coppola’s portrait of Marie Antoinette. “In this version Marie Antoinette was really the first victim of bad PR,” laughs Coogan. “What I really liked is the fact that Sofia tried to make a story about her that would resonate with a younger generation. She has not made a mannered sort of drama without any relevance to people today. She draws a parallel with the current cult of celebrity that we’re all very aware of.”

American actress Molly Shannon was nine months pregnant when she heard she was being considered for a role in MARIE ANTOINETTE. Her agent nearly turned down the film, concerned that Shannon would want to take some time off after giving birth, but Shannon told Coppola she would do anything she could to take part. Ten days after she gave birth, she was on the set in France, her newborn in her arms. "I think there are very few female directors doing what Sofia is doing and I was so excited to work with her that I just couldn't miss it," says Shannon.

Best known for her work as part of the ensemble cast of "Saturday Night Live," Shannon also saw a comedic element in her role as royal Aunt Victoire, Louis XV's meddlesome daughter. "The royal aunts were caught up in the goings-on and petty gossip at Versailles," Shannon notes. "I think they were women who never married, were sort of bored and sat around the castle with nothing better to do than talk about who did what wrong, who was sleeping with whom, etc. In that sense, they're great characters."

Another actress who had unique insight into her character is pop icon Marianne Faithfull who plays Marie Antoinette’s iron-fisted, politically savvy mother, Maria Teresa, Empress of Austria. Faithfull is not only often considered rock n’ roll royalty, but is also a descendant of Viennese nobles. “My mother was an Austrian aristocrat and I had 800 years of background to draw on for this role,” notes Faithfull.

Filmmaker turned screen star Danny Huston, who plays Marie Antoinette’s favorite older brother Emperor Joseph II, was also compelled by Coppola’s unique way of retelling this legendary story. “Sofia reminds me of a contemporary version of other great directors I have worked with,” says Huston. “She has a very youthful eye and I think a good way to describe her version of Marie Antoinette is ‘sexy candy.’ When I say that I don’t mean that it has no depth but rather that it’s a very colorful look at these characters who were caught in a very superficial world. But in the words of Oscar Wilde, ‘Only superficial people can’t be superficial.’”

Echoing the sentiments of his cast-mates, Huston especially enjoyed working closely with Dunst as Marie Antoinette. “She is absolutely wonderful in the role,” he summarizes. “She’s like this child who’s trapped in this very elaborate, golden cage. She’s so beautiful and dainty and personable, yet she’s also so alone. Every time I looked at her, my heart went out to her.”

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Marie Antoinette (2006)
Directed by Sofia Coppola
Screenplay by Sofia Coppola