The Immigrant trailer is here! Watch it below. Marion Cotillard plays Ewa Cybulska, a Polish Catholic woman who immigrates to America in 1921 with her sister to flee ffrom war and deprivation.
At Ellis Island, Ewa and her sister, Magda (Angela Sarafyan), are separated by after Magda is quarantined for lung disease and Ewa, who is classified as a person “liable to become a public charge,” is prepared for deportation.
Ewa is rescued by Bruno Weiss (Joaquin Phoenix), a well-connected representative of the Travelers Aid Society, who produces burlesque shows and is a pimp. She is soon forced into prostitution by Bruno and rejected by her relatives. However, the questionably moral Ewa also schemes and steals.
The ‘Inception’ actress recently spoke with New York Magazine’s Vulture about her role in the film and having to learn Polish phonetics in two months to play Ewa.
Cotillard said, “It was kind of stressful, because she is Polish, so I had to nail the accent. It’s not like when I learn another language but can keep my French accent. I always want to find the authenticity of a character. And there were 20 pages of Polish in the script. I didn’t even think about that when I first read it, because the script itself was in English; it just said “in Polish” when there was dialogue that was supposed to be in Polish. So I didn’t realize the amount of work I’d need to do. And I didn’t really have that much time to prepare.”
She added, “I had two months, which is nothing, and Polish is a very, very complicated language, and it shares almost no words with English or French. Sometimes, I would ask my teacher if she was really teaching me Polish, or if it was actually Chinese or something! But when you know that you won’t have enough time, you just have to jump into the work and not think about the result.”
Cotillard also said about her character Ewa, “She’s someone who’s devoted to people and can keep her blood cold. Also, she’s someone who went through a lot in her country. She saw horror, and so she’s really learned to control herself. And I think if she didn’t have this goal — which is having her sister survive this — she would be a totally different person. Her life is important because of her sister’s life. If she doesn’t survive this, then her sister is going to be lost.”
Marion Cotillard apparently threw bread at director James Gray (We Own the Night) the first time he met with the actress over dinner because he criticized an actor that she likes.
Cotillard responded, “I never play with food, but I got really upset.” She refrained from saying the actor’s name, but added, “James would look like a fool for saying that he’s not as good as everybody thinks he is. [Laughs.] People would look at him, like, “Seriously, Gray, are you out of your fucking mind?” So I can’t say. For James’s sake.”
“The Immigrant” will hit theaters in the U.S. May 16.
