Zoey Deutch on Cannes, Chanel & Playing Jean Seberg in ‘Nouvelle Vague’

Zoey Deutch had barely touched down in Cannes when she tried on her Chanel red carpet dress for the first time. “I got off the plane and went straight to the fitting,” she told WWD, speaking at the Hotel Majestic fresh from her final fitting.

“It felt like I was going to my wedding without seeing the wedding dress first. And then I walked in, saw it, and just went, ‘Oh — it’s perfect,’” she said.

Deutch stars in Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague,” in a competition slot in the festival. She plays 1960s star Jean Seberg, the ideal “American-in-Paris” who became an icon of French cinema and style — despite being from Iowa — decades before Emily was a twinkle in Darren Starr’s eye.

The film explores Seberg’s early years in film, as well as her relationship with Jean-Luc Godard.

The dress in question was a custom Chanel gown, floor-length, subtly floral, and pulled from the pages of history (or Pinterest, as it were), based on a photo Deutch discovered and sent to Chanel’s team in the earliest stages of design.

It was not a Chanel but was emblematic of the time period, Deutch said, and served as an inspiration.  

The collaboration was months in the making. It started during production for the film, when the fashion house created a custom look for Deutch in character.

Chanel supported the production both financially and fashionably, with costumes by Pascaline Chavanne.

“They took that image and built something entirely new from it,” Deutch said.

The atelier adapted the pattern from the original into new embroidery, slimmed the silhouette, lengthened the shape, adapted the neckline and hand-stitched the blooms to match the archival inspiration with a contemporary feeling.

The result was a white silk organza gown with a tiered peplum waist. Every inch was a nod to Seberg.

The film, which centers on the birth of French New Wave cinema and the early days of French film magazine “Cahiers du Cinéma,” also transported Deutch into a totally new way of working, both linguistically and stylistically.

“When I first got the script, I only had the English version, and it needed to be translated. So what I wanted to do first was figure out Jean’s dialect. She was from Marshalltown, Iowa, but by the time she was shooting ‘Breathless,’ she had this affected voice [similar to] the way a lot of movie stars at the time spoke.”

Deutch researched Seberg’s voice extensively, tracing it back to her early training when Seberg worked with a dialect coach to eliminate her Midwest American accent.

Once the French and English dialogue was finalized, Deutch began four months of French language work. “Obviously phonetically, but also to learn it,” she said. “Because it’s not the speaking French that’s the problem — it’s the understanding and reacting. Everyone knows acting is reacting. How do you react if you have no idea what they’re saying?”

Her approach was rooted in listening. “It was more actually studying other people’s lines than studying my own,” she said. “I had a little bit of a leg up in that she wasn’t French and she was just learning French. She admitted to feeling insecure while filming ‘Breathless’ because she was doing basically all improv in a language that she was still learning.”

To get into character, “there was a lot of digging into what I perceived to be a great deal of mystery and sadness behind her eyes, and doing the inner work of where that came from,” said Deutch. “Not just her voice or the way she dressed, but her spirit.”

Acting in French changed her approach, stripped away her habits and served as a masterclass.

“You learn all the things that you fall back on, the safety nets you have, the -isms and things that make you feel safe in the context of a scene,” she said. “I couldn’t do any of that.”

She worked on her French, but her transformation went beyond language. Deutch famously chopped off her long, thick curls and dyed them platinum to play Seberg — an act that initially surprised director Linklater.

He questioned her commitment (or offered a reprieve) and suggested a wig instead. But Deutch thought it was an opportunity to transform and went for the big chop.

“To me, the greatest part of my job is that I get to live all these different lives. I was so excited to chop all my hair off and dye it blonde for this role. But if you were to ask me to do that in my life, I would be like, absolutely not,” she said. “I can live a really boring life in my personal life, because I live these insane lives, and there’s this sort of power in doing something when it’s not attached to me.”

As it turns out, going full pixie wasn’t exactly low maintenance. “Everyone was like, ‘Oh, it must be so much easier.’ No. It’s significantly more work,” she said.

Deutch adapted that symbol of French style — the head scarf. The star relayed that friends teased her for trying to cosplay as a stereotypical Parisienne, but in reality, it served the very practical function of covering the hair. Protection from poof was her priority.

Living in Paris during filming with her new Seberg look gave Deutch a sense of place she hadn’t felt before as a tourist in the city. Three months in Paris changed her perspective. Her central Saint-Germain housing helped; walking was the key.

“You don’t really know it unless you live in it. But I really fell in love with Paris, in a way that I felt like I could live there,” she said. “Everyone always says, ‘Get lost in Paris and walk around.’ And I just kept walking. That was the best part for me.”

As for the role itself, Deutch focused tightly on one chapter of Seberg’s life. “It was of less importance to me to focus on that,” she said of the later, more tragic years. “I didn’t want to read the last page of the book when I was still on page 20.”

Instead, she looked at the moment before Seberg became an icon and explored the uncertainty and trauma of her early failure after “Saint Joan,” her turn as Joan of Arc, was panned.

The result is an ebullient film by Cannes reviews, that epitomizes the hopes of that generation.

Before Cannes, Deutch had already worked with Chanel on wardrobe for the film, which was shot mostly in Paris. Costume designer Chavanne custom made two outfits for the film, including a cappuccino-colored dress with a striped bodice and a tulle skirt.

Chavanne watched films such as the documentary “Chambre 12, Hôtel de Suède,” and dug through the Cinémathèque Française documents for her first step, then hit up the flea market in Saint Ouen to dig through vintage shops there.

In the Cinémathèque’s archives she found treasures such as the original receipt for Seberg’s striped dress, which Godard purchased at the now-defunct Prisunic store on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

Both the original and Linklater’s film are monochrome, so part of Chavanne’s biggest challenge was getting the tone right.

“The movie you see today is only in black and white, but when we made the movie, it’s in color. You don’t get to make it in gray,” she told WWD.

The process required a lot of testing, and she pored over Chanel’s own archives in a warehouse on the outskirts of Paris, where the brand houses books as well as original pieces and fabrics.

When she came across the striped dress, she knew it would have to be in the film. The shape was completely modern, and the stripe has not only a special place in French cinema but has also become emblematic of French style.

“With the mariniere, there is a real connection,” she said. Brigitte Bardot is another cinema icon that made the stripe famous, and it’s also a call back to Coco Chanel’s personal style.

The original was silk, but because it gets wet in the film, the brand experimented with fabrics. That’s one of the hardest things about recreating vintage looks, she said, because the textiles used now are so different and don’t carry the same shape or stretch.

And while she took some liberties on the dress, one look that had to be faithfully recreated was Seberg’s “New York Herald Tribune” T-shirt from “Breathless.”

“Many people have attempted this T-shirt because it’s so emblematically famous, so it was not easy,” she said. It required many tries and finding the right textile to get the stiffer shape. It took several tests to get the right look.

“It’s not only about the clothes, because the clothes are not just to be on the actors — it’s a meeting between the actors and the clothes,” she said of the way they can transform on the screen.

Deutch fell so in love with the striped dress that she decided to wear it to the Cannes photo-call. It’s the first time in memory that a costume has been worn for the rooftop cast photos and press conference, which is usually a casual affair.

And then there’s the fashion. “She was absolutely an icon,” Deutch said. French New Wave film was centered on realism, and Seberg styled herself.

“The clothing and the looks that she wears in [‘Breathless’] are just pitch perfect. They are so classic and sexy and effortless,” she said. “I loved everything I got to wear. I wish that’s how I dressed every day.”

Before hitting the screen, Deutch dreamed of becoming a fashion designer. “I still sketch all the time. Getting to make custom things and work with designers — I feel like I get to live both of my dreams.”

WWD shot the star as she headed to the famous 27 steps of the Palais des Festivals, looking calm, cool and collected despite internal jitters. “I love fashion,” she said. “But the red carpet part? Still terrifying. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo of myself at a premiere where I look like me. I’m just too nervous.”

That nervousness, though, is part of her process. “Someone once told me that early in your acting career, the parts you get are just whatever you default to when you’re scared,” she said, crediting someone “smarter — maybe my mom.” (That mom is actress Lea Thompson of “Back to the Future” fame.)

If you get bubbly, you’ll be cast in the talkative role; if you revert to seriousness, you’ll get the brooding one, she relayed. “Red carpets kind of bring that out — your default,” she said. Her early parts were rom-coms.

The actress is busy, having just finished “Our Town” on Broadway and is set to start shooting “Voicemails to Isabelle” in Vancouver. She’s itching to get back to the stage, in part because every day is a new opportunity to try something new.

“It was like I was saying a prayer, a two-hour prayer every day with 28 of my favorite people in the world on a stage with 1,000 people watching,” she said of the experience.

In Cannes, Deutch was reveling in the scope of it all. “It’s intense with so many cameras, so many people yelling your name,” she said. “But it’s also surreal and beautiful and completely thrilling.

“Building these looks and these moments — I feel so grateful that I get to do it, especially when you’re wearing something that feels like a story.”