We recently connected with Fanny Lecendre and have shared our conversation below.

Fanny, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

For me, filmmaking has always been more than just capturing images, it’s about telling stories that resonate, that heal, and that bring people close to one another. I realized that the act of storytelling, whether through acting or directing, is a way to process my own experiences and share something deeply personal with others. Every film I direct (regardless of whether I write it or not), every role I take on, is a little piece of my own journey.
In addition to the schools I attended, learning the craft became synonymous with getting to know myself and opening up to my own vulnerability. It takes time.
Stories are how we understand each other. For me, the importance of telling stories lies in their ability to create empathy, to help people feel less alone in their struggles. Stories spark connection, they spark change. Filmmaking, in its truest form, is about making the invisible visible. I know that on a personal level stories always help me shine light on the parts of myself that I often hide or overlook. And on a larger scale it’s about holding up a mirror to society, to human nature, and saying “This is who we are”. Sometimes that’s uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s painful. But it’s always necessary.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a French film director, writer and actor. I went to a cinema school in Paris, I wrote and directed my first short film when I was 25. Shortly after that I won a grant at the Cannes Film Festival to direct my next film “Northern Light” which was selected to dozens of festivals in Europe and USA. In parallel I was working on feature films as assistant director. I worked on the film Dheepan, directed by Jacques Audiard, which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes.
I had the opportunity of moving to Los Angeles to work with the LA Dance Project and I was part of the production team of Marfa Dance Episodes, directed and choreographed by Benjamin Millepied (in partnership with the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas).
I’ve always had a passion for acting and I was already taking classes in Paris to improve my directing but living in Los Angeles made me want to take my acting more seriously and I decided to join the acting conservatory at the Lee Strasberg Institute. It immersed me in a community of talented actors and creatives. I produced an acting workshop in Paris last year in collaboration with the Lee Strasberg Institute. And in the last 3 years I directed 3 new films. You can see my work on my website www.fannylecendre.com

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Acting is about truth and once I realized it can be therapeutic, it changed everything for me. Now every character I write or every character I play carries a piece of my own life, of my own past — one of my traumas, wounds or unresolved issues. It’s great because I can release it through the character, almost resolving it for myself, while also giving the character something real, authentic. Studying acting and digging into Method Acting with amazing teachers who studied with Lee Strasberg himself has been a game changer for me, for both my acting and my directing.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Being a director and an actor is not about fame or success; it’s about something deeper. It’s a calling, a need, a way to explore who you are through the character you play, or you write. If it feels therapeutic, if it helps you understand yourself better, then it’s worth it. I believe we all carry some sort of trauma and perhaps acting offers a way to find answers — or even to feel an overwhelming sense of love in a short amount of time. For many of us, there is always a void we’re trying to fill. Today we have a tendency to think that we can have everything all at once, leading us to think that choosing one thing means giving up other possibilities, but it is through choosing, committing and fully engaging that life truly begins to unfold.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.fannylecendre.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fannylecendre/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fanny.lecendre
• Other: https://vimeo.com/user9251077

Image Credits

All images property of Fanny Lecendre