Léa Seydoux

There was a sex scene in Blue is the Warmest Color that I was supposed to take down from the blog. I kept watching it instead—kept coming back to it, in different moods, different times of day, with wine and candles in the bathroom. Not because the scene itself was anything special, but because of her. Because Léa Seydoux in that moment made something click.

I don’t know how to explain it exactly. I’m not saying I’m in love with her, or that I have some chance with her, which I obviously don’t. What I mean is that watching her work clarified something about what I actually want from beauty and intelligence and presence. She doesn’t perform. She doesn’t care if she’s hot. She’ll take any role if it interests her, no matter how uncomfortable. She loves the work and doesn’t need to advertise it. There’s nothing calculated about her.

Some photographs came out in V Magazine, shot by Nan Goldin. They told me the same thing. Not that she’s the most beautiful woman in the world—I mean, she might be, but that’s not the point. The point is the indifference. The sense that she’s lived in a way that doesn’t need anyone’s validation, that doesn’t register being looked at.

So yes, I’m obsessed with her. But what I’m actually obsessed with is the proof that this kind of person exists. That you can be that careful with your work, that disinterested in the machinery of it all. Since I’ll never actually know her, I have these images instead. The performances. It’s not nothing.