Bonjour Tristesse's Lily McInerny On What It's Really Like To Work With Chloë Sevigny
‘I have known boredom, regret, and occasionally remorse, but never sorrow. Today it envelops me like a silken web, enervating and soft, and sets me apart from everybody else.’ Françoise Sagan was 18 when she wrote those words in her 1954 novel Bonjour Tristesse. It was an instant bestseller – and ignited a scandal in French society. In a postwar France still wrestling with its evolving values, the audacious author dared to write about sex and desire, twisted family dynamics and overwhelming emotion. ‘She was grappling with these hugely thoughtful, existential kind of themes – and she was patronised and labelled as precocious,’ says Lily McInerny, the 25-year-old actor who plays the novel’s protagonist, Cécile, alongside Chloë Sevigny, in an anticipated new adaptation opening at the Toronto International Film Festival this month.
McInerny read the book shortly before filming began, saving the final chapters until the day before shooting the corresponding scenes. ‘I wanted to try to capture that first reading experience while performing, because the story was transformative; it’s so relatable and relevant, even now, 70 years on,’ she says.
McInerny identified with 17-year-old Cécile from the first pages of the book. ‘It’s her unfiltered candour. Her melancholy, her sexuality; we don’t often hear women speaking from such unfiltered places so directly about their innermost desires, especially ones that aren’t necessarily deemed palatable. It was refreshing,’ she says.
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The film marks the second adaptation of Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse. The first, directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starred the icon of French new-wave cinema Jean Seberg. The story follows Cécile over a languid summer on the Côte d’Azur with her widowed father (Claes Bang in this version) and his young girlfriend. Cécile has her own romance, which is derailed after the unexpected arrival of a friend of her late mother, played by Sevigny.
Bonjour Tristesse is only McInerny’s second film. The native New Yorker always knew she wanted a career in cinema, and reminisces about a childhood filled with short skits she’d make with friends on iMovie. She attended the prestigious LaGuardia Performing Arts High School and gained small parts in TV and short films. Her first feature film, 2022’s Palm Trees and Power Lines, proved a career-changing role. In it, she played an LA teenager being groomed by an older man. Her work – raw and visceral but never overstated – won her a nomination for an Independent Spirit Award, and the attention of Hollywood.
As a newcomer, was she intimidated to go from an indie movie to tackling one of the most defining stories of French literature and cinema, as well as working alongside Sevigny, indie icon and one of McInerny’s personal heroes? ‘Absolutely!’ she says. ‘But I think if you’re not a little bit scared, something’s wrong. I learned so much from Chloë: she has this femininity, this coolness, this elegance and confidence. I’ve admired Chloë as an actor and as a woman for years. I hope I was able to channel some of my personal admiration for her into our character’s relationship,’ she adds.
McInerny is getting used to working with her heroes, having recently starred in Hedi Slimane’s ‘Portrait of’ Celine campaign, which she describes as a bucket-list career moment: ‘Hedi is so meticulous in his approach; he has a hand in everything from the styling to the make-up to the hair. It was a very small, intimate set: I was watching a master at work.’
At the time of our interview, only one promotional image from the film has been released. It features McInerny leaning out of the passenger side of a vintage convertible sporting a perfectly glazed red lip. Sevigny is at the wheel in a silk headscarf, while a sunglasses-wearing Bang sits in the back, against the backdrop of the French countryside at golden hour. ‘Every single frame looks like an editorial,’ she smiles. ‘Shooting on location in France, there was a sense of removal from the real world. I felt sort of cloistered in this fantasy land; it was such a gift.’
So too was the costume design by New York stylist Miyako Bellizzi. Inspired by the 1950s French Riviera, it has subtle contemporary flourishes, like the bespoke gowns designed by Renaissance Renaissance’s Cynthia Merhej. ‘I remember, so viscerally, trying on Cécile’s party dress for the first time, because I started to tear up,’ she says of a pale yellow silk and tulle gown. ‘It was the girliest I have ever felt on screen – and an amazing contrast to the turmoil that my character was feeling, like when you’re depressed in the middle of summer.’
McInerny is a huge vintage enthusiast. Before becoming an actor, she pursued costume design at college and interned at theatres, and her own wardrobe consists mostly of thrifted pieces. ‘I got the best shoot loot from Bonjour Tristesse,’ she says. ‘Miyako was very generous with the things she let me take home; they’ve become staples of my personal wardrobe.’
It’s a satisfying image. McInerny in 2024, walking the streets of Manhattan in Cécile’s wardrobe, paying homage to a character written in 1954. It is a contemporary reminder of the enduring relevance of Sagan’s vision, because some stories should never stop being told.
Bonjour Tristesse premieres at Toronto International Film Festival this month.
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