French Star Swann Arlaud Is So Much More Than Those ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ Memes

Yes, the Hot Lawyer from “Anatomy of a Fall” knows all about the memes. 

“They’re less about me than about the character,” Swann Arlaud told IndieWire, smiling about the fancams and edits that turned the Parisian character actor into an unlikely sex symbol for the Letterboxd set. “I think people responded to a different kind of masculinity, someone in service to a woman, a kind of devoted lover. So I don’t really feel responsible for what it triggered.” 

Offline — or at least on the French web — the 45-year-old has been more celebrated for his melancholy, for that singular blend of wiriness and weariness that makes so many of his characters feel like young men with old souls. That persona has netted Arlaud three César Awards so far, and nearly a record-breaking fourth earlier this year. (“I was rather relieved not to go on stage,” he said of the miss.) 

But Arlaud is just as wary of industry prestige. “My first instinct is almost always to refuse a role, because I feel I won’t be capable,” he added. “Doubt is part of the work. It’s what protects us. It’s what allows us to keep going, to start over, to try to do better. You do take after take after take, rehearsal after rehearsal after rehearsal. So we doubt, and that’s what pushes us to go back, to add another layer, and then another. In the end, after stripping away what’s less interesting, something remains. The day you stop doubting yourself, you start worrying.” 

That is precisely what drew the actor to “A Man of His Time,” which returns him to the Cannes spotlight. 

“At first, I really wasn’t convinced I was the right person,” he explained. “I remember telling [director Emmanuel Marre], ‘I don’t think I am this character.’ And he said: ‘He’s someone whose suit is too big for him. He wants access to something, he believes he absolutely can attain it, but in reality, he isn’t built for it. He’s too fragile, too lost.’” 

Set in occupied France, “A Man of His Time” casts Arlaud as an amoral arriviste whose less-than-stellar rise to Vichy middle management owes less to broader historical forces than to his own (limited) backroom opportunism. While the role aligned with Arlaud’s political interests, he was most drawn to an off-the-cuff filmmaking approach that echoed his own process.

“Emmanuel [Marre] works through improvisation,” he said. “He wrote a very detailed screenplay, then told us not to use it. Instead, we explored in every direction, filming endlessly. I was half-lost in it, trying to get things right, while he shot take after take. And eventually I realized that whenever I tried to ‘make the basket,’ what he preferred was when I missed. That’s what he kept. That’s how he builds something almost documentary-like: he captures awkwardness, hesitation, mistakes. That creates an enormous sense of truth, because we’re all imperfect.” 

“There was nothing to reassure you,” he said. “So I had to accept not knowing, to surrender, to get lost, to let go. To say: I’m going to fail, and that’s OK, I’m going to be bad, and that’s OK. I’m going to look ugly, and that’s OK. I won’t know what to answer, and that’s OK.” 

“Emmanuel kept reminding us that these characters also don’t know,” he said. “They don’t know there will be a D-Day. They don’t have the historical perspective we have now. So the idea was not to view history from above, but to move through life day by day. Not to look at the ‘guilty people’ of history from a distance, but to look at ourselves and ask: if this starts again tomorrow, where would we stand? Who would we become?” 

Arlaud did not arrive at the latest César ceremony empty-handed. Not that he needed another trophy — a fourth would make him the only actor in French history to reach that mark — but he also couldn’t let the moment pass. Held in late February, just after the Berlinale, the ceremony unfolded amid lingering controversy, and the actor came prepared with a speech pushing back against Wim Wenders’ assertion that artists “have to stay out of politics.” 

“We’re not here to give lessons,” he said. “I’m not going to explain geopolitics to anyone — there are many people far more qualified to do that. But I also can’t say nothing, close my eyes, and pretend that while civilians are dying and dangerous ideologies are rising, I can simply stand on my little red carpet and be happy. If I went onstage, I couldn’t just say, ‘Thank you, I’m happy to be here, I love you all.’ Of course I’d say those things too, but it felt impossible not to say more.”

“Saying something is not political is already a political statement,” he continued. “The moment you cast a gaze on a situation, an era, or a society, it becomes political whether you want it to or not. And as artists, we have that responsibility because people give us the floor. There’s no obvious reason why what I have to say matters more than anyone else — except that people are willing to listen. From that moment on, yes, I have a responsibility, because I can speak and maybe be heard.”

Call it another twist in the story of an accidental heartthrob turned self-effacing star — or simply the irony of teller and tale — but despite his discomfort with visibility, Arlaud has become one of the most outspoken left-wing voices in contemporary French cinema. He publicly supported Adèle Haenel after her César walkout, backed France’s Yellow Vest movement and Doctors Without Borders’ work in Gaza, and during France’s snap parliamentary elections in 2024, addressed a sprawling crowd gathered at Paris’ Place de la République. 

“It wasn’t easy, because I value my privacy, and the little anonymity I still have left,” he said. “I don’t want to be a spokesperson or a standard-bearer — but people asked me to speak. I hesitated, then told myself the moment was too serious, and that I had my own small part to play, my own hummingbird’s share. Standing on a platform in front of 60,000 people was terrifying, but I don’t regret it. Even for our children, in 20 years, they may ask, ‘All of this was happening, so where were you?’ Well, I was there.” 

All the same, he would love to recede from view. The actor has no further projects booked and plans to recharge his creative batteries for the rest of the year. He’ll certainly remain active politically — especially as the French far-right soars towards the May 2027 presidential election with the wind seemingly at their backs — but he cannot say how that engagement might take shape. (“I’ll certainly participate,” he said. “Forces are going to mobilize once again to avoid the worst. If I’m needed somewhere, I’ll be there.”) 

“She knows me,” he said. “So she knows both what she can get out of me and what she can’t. She won’t insist on something if she knows it simply isn’t me. But if she knows there’s something there, even if I don’t see it myself, then she can push. And because we know each other so well, we can save time.” 

And all the while, Arlaud will continue negotiating his discomfort with becoming a meme.

“From the moment you’re in a film, something gets taken from you,” he said. “Something no longer belongs to you; it belongs to other people, and everyone invents their own story around it. There’s a kind of dissociation. That can be frightening or flattering. But what’s reassuring is realizing that this public figure exists somewhere between the image you project and what people decide to see in it, because it reflects their own projections too.” 

“A Man of His Time” premieres at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival and is currently seeking U.S. distribution.