What makes Louis Garrel tick? We left the actor and director on the run in L'Innocent (The Innocent, 2022), a tremendous success with both the public and the critics. Now he's back in action on the red carpet with Quentin Dupieux's Le Deuxième Acte (The Second Act), which opened the Cannes festivities on Tuesday, May 14. His stroll with Raphaël Quenard, filmed in a long sequence shot that humorously mocks the film world's guilty conscience, is no better way of launching the festival, overshadowed more than ever by the specter of #MeToo.

Mechanisms for spreading rumors about those considered powerful have always existed. It's the response to the rumor that needs to be questioned, I think. It's clear that something important is happening in terms of the recognition of sexual violence, and that this needs to change. And the path is hard to find collectively.

I don't know a single woman whose life hasn't been marked by unpleasant or traumatic experiences inflicted by men. Fighting such violence is a necessity, an imperative objective. There's no room for quibbling here.

But I feel I express myself a lot. I always doubt everything, including myself. When I was 20, I was impacted by my encounter with a very brilliant man, who preferred Raymond Aron to Jean-Paul Sartre, because he got less wrong. And then, I think we're still in a time of listening. When it comes to such intimate wounds, you need time for everything. A time to listen and a time to speak.

We don't come from the same group, the same world, but we get on very well. What excited me was the challenge of shooting this 13-minute sequence with Raphaël Quenard, which opens the film. Comedy is normally very fast-paced. Here, over 13 minutes, it's impossible to be on the ball all the time; there are bound to be gaps. It's thanks to these pauses that Quentin manages to inject anguish and insanity.

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