Anne Brochet

Opposite Gérard Depardieu in Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), Anne Brochet does not compete for volume. Her Roxane has enough composure to stand beside him without looking as though she needs a larger speech. We warmed to her because that composure gives us some relief from the film's occasionally tiring emotional insistence. Jean-Paul Rappeneau keeps this verse-speaking romance moving, and Brochet finds her place within it without trying to make every exchange belong to her.

Roxane was the breakthrough, after early screen work including Claude Chabrol's Masques (1987). Brochet followed it with Madeleine, the daughter and musical partner in Alain Corneau's Tous les matins du monde (1991). The association with period drama and literary adaptation is understandable: her precision suits characters whose feelings need not be displayed at every opportunity. But those early romantic parts also threatened to confine her. From the mid-1990s she deliberately sought contemporary roles rather than accepting more variations on the gentle heroine.

That turn includes Jean in Patrice Leconte's Intimate Strangers (2004); later came Solange Josse in Le Hérisson (2009). Supporting and ensemble roles suit her emotional precision, which does not depend on overt display. We would not assume that contemporary clothes automatically give an actor more to play. The interest is in seeing her apply that precision beyond the romantic roles with which she first became associated.

Cyrano de Bergerac also shows the limits of what she can repair. Vincent Perez's Christian is less interesting than the man helping him, an imbalance the film never entirely overcomes. Brochet's composure does not solve that problem, but it keeps Roxane from being overwhelmed by Depardieu's more expansive acting. We would start there for Brochet, allowing for the film's habit of pressing its emotions upon us, then follow her into a contemporary part.