Madame Irene knows best

As soon as I read Madame Melville I loved the play. Then I met the writer and director Richard Nelson and then I met Macaulay Culkin and thought we made a very good combination, so I was attracted by the whole project.

Richard has written a wonderful play about what inspires you in life and what you remember has inspired you in the past. It is set in Paris, 1966, and I play Claudie, a literature teacher who is very passionate about her subject, and has a great sense of being with her students, going twice a week with them to watch New Wave films. She happens to stay with one of her 15-year-old students (played by Macaulay, or Mac as I call him) after one of the films. They start discussing art and painting and all this leads to a kind of seduction because art doesn't leave you indifferent. Art moves you in profound ways in which you can be suddenly unsettled. So these two start to have a journey together which is not a love affair, but a love moment.

I think the play develops rather like a New Wave film in the sense that there is no big event, no big actions, but suddenly it starts to be eventful because you realise these moments count. Mac is wonderful, perfectly cast for this part. He has to play a 15-year-old boy, but also a man of 50 who each time he thinks of this moment becomes again the man at 15. Of course, in real life appearing in blockbusters like Home Alone, Mac has this history where he had to deal with so many things so young, which is very good for the part. But what I like about his acting is that he is never trying to do something, he is very genuine in what he does and very tuned in.