“No one pushed me into acting,” insists Léa Seydoux, nervously tapping her elegant fingers. Born into not one but two French film dynasties (she counts Pathé and Gaumont studio bosses among her nearest and dearest), it would be easy to dismiss the screen beauty’s glowing résumé as the result of behind-the-scenes maneuvering. However, the 25-year-old Parisienne seems genuinely conflicted by her escalating presence on both sides of the Atlantic. After roles in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, Seydoux will appear in the latest installment of Mission: Impossible, and in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, alongside the French first lady, Carla Bruni. (With Seydoux’s off-kilter sexiness and penchant for hair chewing, it’s not hard to imagine Allen making her his next muse, à la Scarlett Johansson.) The fact that the actress has quietly fashioned an equally successful modeling career—she is the face of Prada’s forthcoming fragrance campaign—can only increase the likelihood of her obtaining superstar status. “I basically got into all this to avoid having office hours,” Seydoux says, sighing. “I liked the idea that you’d work really hard for certain periods of time, then not do anything for ages. But it didn’t work out like that. All I ever seem to be doing is working.”
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Seydoux wears J. Crew’s blue-and-white-striped cotton shirt.
Léa Seydoux
March 2011
