“I play a 70-year-old woman who gets pregnant”, laughs Miou-Miou

A lunar fable, funny and tender! In Nona and her daughters, a miniseries created by Valérie Donzelli and put online this Thursday on Arte.tv, Miou-Miou plays Nona, a septuagenarian who lives her life at full speed in the heart of the Goutte d’Or, between the family planning that she manages and her lover André (Michel Vuillermoz).

As she prepares to celebrate the 44 years of her triplets Gabrielle (Clotilde Hesme), Emmanuelle (Virginie Ledoyen) and George (Valérie Donzelli), she learns that she is pregnant at 70! Meeting at Séries Mania with Miou-Miou, who plays this endearing feminist activist.

Other than an appearance in an episode of “The Art of Crime”, this is your first series. Is it different than shooting a movie?

No, it’s like a long story! I realized it was a show when I saw it. On the set, we do not realize it at all.

How did you react when Valérie Donzelli pitched the crazy story of Nona and her daughters, and told you that you were going to play the part of a 70-year-old pregnant woman?

I liked it a lot, because from the first episode, the situation is clearly stated. I play a 70-year-old woman who gets pregnant, her lover is not the progenitor although she has never cheated on him, she cannot have an abortion although it is her desire and we learn that she has had triplets forty-four years ago. To have such an irrational situation and to believe in it is incredibly powerful. This plinth is just huge!

How would you describe the series? Like a surrealist fable, a feminist tale, a poetic comedy?

I don’t think we can really define it! It’s a good sign. I think it’s a bit of all of these at the same time. At Valérie Donzelli, there is enormous freedom.

You play Nona, a free woman. You represented the idea of ​​the free woman at a time when it was not common. Was this role written especially for you?

It’s not me, it’s the period! I was 18 in 1968. The period and the opportunity to do The Valseuses, a film which shocked to an infinite point, to turn The Evasion, this story of a prostitute, or even playing one of the first female cops on the screen allowed ideas to be disseminated a little less in black and white than before…. The role of Nona was not written for me at all, Valérie Donzelli even considered other people. The meeting had to take place!

Faced with this unexpected pregnancy, Nona is fighting to remain independent …

She does not want to be under constant surveillance, nor to be watched… All this stifles her in relation to her freedom and everything she has always advocated. There, this non-stop monitoring, taking his blood pressure, fearing for his life, etc. It fed her. It’s a bit ambiguous, because she’s also happy to see her daughters.

Nona and her daughters speaks of parentage …

It talks about what we do with it, how we do in relation to filiation. They are interesting, his daughters, because they have very different jobs: a sex therapist, an intellectual and a mother … Something very defined and it begins to mix, to become fluid, to change boxes. It’s very interesting to see these human beings moving around and looking for their place.

It also speaks of motherhood …

It speaks of choice. The series is about the state of being pregnant, but not too much about giving life.

A word on the couple that you form on the screen with Michel Vuillermoz?

Marvellous ! This is unheard of. It is very scary for decision-makers who must find it disgusting to see a 70-year-old couple, love each other like that, frolic in bed, have fun and love each other so carnally! I found it fascinating. It was light!