VOCABLE Du 18 au 31 octobre 2018 • 27
C.F.: No. Dear God, no. I mean, that’s a lovely
idea, but I have a child. I can’t go disappear
and be somebody else’s mom for two weeks.
But the premise was that we came to work
eight hours a day with each other. And that
was amazing. There was no pressure; it was
just us moving in and out of each other and
trying to see the rhythms of their life (before
the events of the movie). We had two weeks
to build the world that then gets shattered
by everything that happens.- N.Y. Magazine: There’s a part in First Man,
the Neil Armstrong biography on which the
movie is based, in which Janet
says she’s overwhelmed by
her sudden fame. Did you
ever feel that way after the
success of The Crown?
C.F.: Janet didn’t ask to be the
poster girl for American
wives. She didn’t know that
by marrying a ighter pilot
she’d suddenly be on the
front cover of Time maga-
zine. But up until The Crown,
I’d been relatively unscathed
by any of that. I’m still unscathed, because
I’m still me. But I think Janet found it more
restrictive and confining, like being in a
straitjacket. There’s a scene where she really
gives it to NASA. But Janet knew who she
was and what was happening. She had such
a backbone of steel. - N.Y. Magazine: You’ve now played several
women who are secretly stressing out while
having to seem calm for various reasons. Do
you relate?
C.F.: I suffer really badly with anxiety. Not
about work, but life in general. There’s a thing
of thinking somebody’s life on the outside
looks amazing, how wonderful, and that’s
such dog s**t. Internally, everyone’s strug-
gling. A few weeks ago, I saw someone who
was really crying on the side of the road, and
I thought, “Oh my God, I want to give them
a cuddle.” l
chance to meet her before her death in June?
C.F.: I was never in a room with her. I’ll always
regret that. But then at the same time, I
wonder whether, when playing her, it was
helpful that I didn’t meet her; there was some
distance. She was very private about her re-
lationship with Neil anyway. I didn’t want
to put her in a position where she was having
to talk to some random actress about her
marriage. Nobody wants to do that!
- N .Y. M a g a z i n e : What was the most diicult
scene to ilm?
C.F.: Damien is a very trusting director and
doesn’t interfere unless he
feels like he has to. The hardest
scene was Karen’s [Neil Arm-
strong’s daughter] funeral. But
he didn’t put us through the
wringer. That felt, as much as
it could have, good, in a sense.
But there was one scene, the
night before Neil goes away
before the launch — it was one
scene, shot for 12 hours, and
we improvised a lot of it. I was
driving the scene quite a lot.
That’s always hard, when you’re the person
responsible for getting it going.
- N.Y. Magazine: How much of the ilm was
improvised?
C.F.: Improvised is a general term for what we
did. We were doing takes tied to dialogue and
takes where Damien would be like, “Do what-
ever you want!” It was more of an exercise, I
think. But before shooting, we did two weeks
of pure improvisation. Me and Ryan and the
kids were a family, all of a sudden, in a cabin.
We were like, “Hi! Hello. We’re a family.”
- N.Y. Magazine: Were you living together in
the cabin?
helpful beneicial, useful / random unknown.
- trusting inclined to have faith in other people / to
interfere to intervene / funeral ceremony for burying/
cremating a dead person / to put, put, put sb through
the wringer to make sb sufer a diicult and unpleasant
experience / in a sense to a certain extent / to shoot,
shot, shot to ilm / to drive, drove, driven to lead, to
guide the movement of sth. - take ilming of a scene / to be tied to here, to be based
on / all of a sudden suddenly, unexpectedly / cabin
chalet, small wooden hut/house.
5. lovely wonderful / premise principle, idea / amazing
fantastic / to get, got, got shattered to be destroyed.
6. to be overwhelmed by to ind a situation emotionally
diicult to deal with / fame celebrity / The Crown British
biographical TV series about Queen Elizabeth II (which
stars Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth) / poster girl
emblematic igure / front cover front page of a
newspaper/magazine / up until before / unscathed
untouched / conining limiting one’s freedom /
straitjacket garment used to restrain the arms of a
mentally ill patient / to give, gave, given it to to tell sb
sth clearly and directly / NASA = National Aeronautics
and Space Administration / backbone vertebral
column, spine, here, courage, strength / steel type of very
strong metal made of iron and carbon.
7. to stress out to be subject to extreme stress /
to relate to identify / that’s such dog s**t (v u l g .) that’s
such rubbish, it’s so untrue / to struggle to have a diicult
time / to give, gave, given sb a cuddle to hold sb in one’s
arms, to hug sb.When space becomes
political
The movie First Man has caused a
surprising controversy for not showing
the speciic moment when Neil
Armstrong planted the U.S. lag on the
moon on the irst landing. Many
American personalities and politicians
reacted to this omission. “This is total
lunacy,” tweeted the U.S. Republican
senator Marco Rubio. For Donald Trump,
“it’s almost like they’re embarrassed at
the achievement coming from America.”
Even Buzz Aldrin, Armstrong’s Apollo 11
crewmate, joined the outcry by tweeting
two pictures of himself standing on the
moon next to the stars and stripes,
annotated with hashtags including
#proudtobeanAmerican...lag piece of cloth with a symbol/design
representing a country/region / landing
touchdown, arrival on the ground / lunacy
madness / achievement accomplishment, feat /
crewmate teammate, here, astronaut / outcry
protest, expression of anger / stars and stripes
lag of the United States (consisting of 50 white
stars on a blue background and 13 red and white
horizontal stripes).SUPPLÉMENT VIDÉO
Découvrez la bande-annonce du film First Man
et testez votre compréhension sur
http://www.vocable.fr/videos-anglaisAméliorez votre prononciation en écoutant tous les articles sur le supplément audio de lecture“Janet didn’t
ask to be the
poster girl for
American
wives .”
(Neil A. Armstrong/AP/SIPA)