Lea Seydoux says being a female actor in Hollywood is “harsh”: “You lose your freedom”

Léa Seydoux has said that being a female actor in Hollywood is “harsh”, while she finds that it is “easier” in Europe.

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The Dune: Part Two and No Time To Die star, who was born and raised in Paris, made the comments in a recent interview with Harper’s Bazaar UK about the differences working on each side of the Atlantic.

“The industry in America, I find it harsh on women,” she said. “It’s hard for women to age. I don’t want to be afraid not to be desirable or to lose my contract. In America it’s economic, and when it becomes a matter of making money you lose your freedom. I don’t feel comfortable with the fact that you have to tick all the boxes. Being a woman on screen is easier in Europe.”

Daniel Craig and Léa Seydoux in ‘No Time To Die’ (CREDIT: MGM)

“I have more freedom because I’m a European actress, which suits me,” she added. “I’m not trying to be popular, I’m just trying to enjoy myself. In America you have to conform. I don’t want to adapt myself to the system, I want the system to adapt to me!”

Seydoux, 38, first began acting in films in France in the 2000s, earning her biggest breakthrough with 2013’s Blue is the Warmest Colour, which won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

She has gone on to star in a number of high-profile American movies, including The Grand Budapest Hotel, Beauty and the Beast and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

Seydoux has previously reflected on her involvement in the Bond franchise by commenting that the spy is “totally a sexual object” and “maybe one of the only male characters to be sexualised”.

“I think that women, they love to see Bond, no? To see his body. No? Don’t you think? I love to see sexy men in bathing suits,” she said.

At the time, she also opened up about the issue of the sexualisation of female characters, and made the case that her Bond character Dr. Madeleine Swann is an exception to the trend.

“My character is not a stereotype. It’s not clichéd. She’s a real woman, and an interesting woman. That’s what we needed.

“We are not here to please Bond’s sexuality.”

Seydoux can currently be seen in cinemas playing Lady Margot Fenring, a friend of Christopher Walken’s Emperor Shaddam in Dune: Part Two.

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