Noémie Merlant replaces Lea Seydoux as Emmanuelle

There are important updates about the new Emmanuelle movie, directed by director Audrey Diwan, inspired by Emmanuelle Arsan’s novel and based on a script co-developed by Diwan and Rebecca Zlotowski.

According to Deadlline, actress Noémie Merlant (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Tár) has stepped in to take the lead of the project, replacing the 007 star Lea Seydoux, initially in the role.

Initially, when I write, I always feel the need to seek an intimate connection with the story – Diwan said. – So my movie will take place nowadays, Emmanuelle is a woman who is close to my age. I wanted to explore her quest for pleasure, what she represents when you have already made a way in your life. When we are not in discovery, but in research. With my co-writer Rebecca Zlotowski, we imagined a woman who has power, who has fought her way out, climbed her mountain, and built herself an armor too. She feels alone. But how do we get out of loneliness? Emmanuelle is the story of a woman trying to let go. The whole film is about drawing a path to the other.

The movie will take place in Hong Kong, in the luxury hotel where she works. I like the idea of its corridors where my characters brush against each other, meet, seek each other. Beyond the question of bodies, I want to explore that of a world that formats any form of relationship, to seek how this system can go wrong, how we connect to others, how we touch our own vulnerability. What weave between them deeper and deeper bonds. With a stranger in particular, a client of the hotel. But I won’t say more for now. This is the principle, what we show and what we hide.