Marion Cotillard praises Adam Driver for being able to sing while simulating oral sex

‘We found ourselves singing in very complicated positions,’ said French star

Marion Cotillard has revealed that Adam Driver makes movie musical history in the new film Annette, by simulating oral sex while singing.

The new comedy drama from French director Leos Carax stars Cotillard as an opera singer and Driver as a stand-up comedian whose lives are completely changed when they have their first child.

In the official Cannes press pack interview for the film, which opens the festival tonight (6 July), Cotillard said the shoot was a challenge because Carax wanted “all songs to be live”.

She said: “On most classic musicals, you record your songs in advance and then you do playback on the set. But there, Leos wanted everything to be completely live. It added to the complexity of the set: we found ourselves singing in very complicated positions, doing back-crawling or mimicking cunnilingus; acrobatic positions that technically modify your song [the way you sing].

“But that was the effect Leos was looking for: he wanted the voices are modified, thwarted, by the real [situation].”

Carax’s film is full of elements that will surprise musical fans, according to Cotillard, who says the characters indulge in taboos such as “sexual tickling”. “We strangely never see people f***ing or doing trivial things in musical comedies,” she said.

The Cannes Film Festival, which was cancelled in 2020, is two months delayed this year due to the pandemic. It is running 6 – 17 July.

Along with Driver and Cotillard, Tilda Swinton, Jodie Turner-Smith, Timothée Chalamet and Frances McDormand are among the stars headlining some of the festival’s most intriguing movies.

Find The Independent’s 11 picks of the best of the line-up here.