EIFFEL TOWER ❘ CULTURE


Clockwise from main: Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor dance away in Moulin Rouge!; the restaurants of Paris are at Rémy’s paw-tips in Ratatouille; and a scam involving miniature Eiffel Towers gets rather complicated for Stanley Holloway and Alec Guinness in 1951’s The Lavender Hill Mob


STEPPING INTO BIG SHOES


EIFFEL STAR ROMAIN DURIS ON PLAYING GUSTAVE EIFFEL As a proud Parisian, Romain Duris jumped at the chance to play Gustave Eiffel, the man who created the city’s most famous landmark. “Ever since I was a kid and even today, when I walk by the Eiffel Tower I am fascinated,” he explains. “To me, the monument has always been magical. And I was very drawn to the theme of the engineer-artist who finds refuge in his work and sees it through to completion as though it were a declaration of love.” Making it easier for Duris to get under the skin of Eiffel (who also built the


framework for the Statue of Liberty) was the scale of the production, from the lush period costumes to the construction of a life-sized reproduction of the Eiffel Tower. “Eiffel is incredibly spectacular,” he promises. “I realised this as I wandered around the set where foundations of the tower had been reconstructed full- scale. And everything is heightened exponentially on-screen. It lends even more strength to your acting.”


• Eiffel, in UK cinemas from August 5. It came out in June in the US Aug/Sep 2022 FRANCE TODAY ❘ 95


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