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Stars get close in 'Blue' movie

Stars discuss Cannes favorite at Toronto Film Festival.

Léa Seydoux in "Blue Is the Warmest Color."
Léa Seydoux in "Blue Is the Warmest Color."Read more

IT'S UNLIKELY that you will see another movie this year in which a fondness for your co-star is as important as it is in "Blue Is the Warmest Color."

This lesbian coming-of-age story, a cause celebre at Cannes due to its lengthy and intense sex scenes, puts stars Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos in such close, unclothed proximity for so long and with so many of the intense highs and lows common in a new relationship that the movie couldn't have worked if the pair didn't feel especially comfortable with each other.

"In a way we can say it was love at first sight," Seydoux said during September's Toronto International Film Festival, about the auditioning process. "We got along immediately . . . And because it was very small and intimate - we spent almost six months together naked - it became even stronger."

"From our first meeting it was so natural," echoed Exarchopoulos. "I did not expect to find such a good friend on a movie. Especially on this one."

"We supported each other," she added. "When one of us was more down then the other, we tried to laugh and make things more light and funny."

And there were a lot of down times, both physically and emotionally. The actresses have been very vocal about how difficult director Abdellatif Kechiche made the work.

"Abdellatif would want me to slap her," Seydoux said, "and I would tell her with my eyes, 'Oh, I'm so sorry.' I don't want to do that but I have to. But we were very close, and we're still close.

"What we said about the shooting? Of course it was real," she added. "We don't lie. You see on screen that it was difficult. And it's only 10 percent of what we did. We shot many, many scenes that are not in the film. And very intense scenes. Abdellatif made the film softer in a way, even if it's not so soft.

"All the scenes that you see in the movie took at least five days. And sometimes even more."

"If you do a film with Abdellatif, you have to have a blind trust," Exarchopoulos said.

But the mature 19-year-old (Seydoux is 28, with a more international film resume, including "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol," "Inglourious Basterds" and "Midnight in Paris") said the film does an excellent job capturing the emotions of young lust/love.

"In every relationship, I think you have ups and down and misunderstandings, trouble of communication," she said. "And it's the same in every language. With passion, it's really up and really down because you need each other, and you have to adapt to this person, and it's hard to share everything with someone.

"Your first love shakes you up and rattles you, because you think you're going to die because of love and sadness and solitude. Finally, and you don't know where, you find it in you to go on and continue. But you will never forget."