ZOEY DEUTCH GETS BREATHLESS

The chameleon of a performer details her physical and emotional transformation into Jean Seberg for 'Nouvelle Vague,' Richard Linklater's exploration of the French New Wave era

- BY MARK OLSEN

MYUNG J. CHUN Los Angeles Times

WHEN MAKING a movie about the behind-the-scenes saga of one of the most transformative and influential films of all time, one might not expect it all to hinge on a haircut. And yet for the team behind “Nouvelle Vague,” about the production of Jean-Luc Godard’s radically freewheeling 1960 feature debut, “Breathless,” it kind of did. As the film's director, Richard Linklater, puts it, “All the roads led up to the haircut moment.”

Linklater, himself a generationally influential filmmaker for movies such as “Slacker,” “Before Sunrise” and “Boyhood,” first worked with actor Zoey Deutch on the 2016 baseball comedy “Everybody Wants Some!!” It was then that he first mentioned to her the idea of playing Jean Seberg, the American star who took on the female lead in Godard’s Paris-set film about a doomed low-level gangster on the run from the police. (Having premiered earlier this year at Cannes, “Nouvelle Vague” will touch down at festivals in both Toronto and New York before coming to theaters Oct. 31, then on Netflix on Nov. 14.)

Seberg’s haircut in the original film, a super-short, blond pixie cut, rewrote fashion trends around the world and encapsulated a spirit of youthful, diffident insouciance. Working with colorist Tracey Cunningham and stylist Bridget Brager in Los Angeles, Deutch recreated the look. During a recent interview at Netflix’s offices on Sunset Boulevard with a straight-on view of the Hollywood sign, Deutch says she had no fear about the transformation.

“It was so much harder for everybody else around me,” says Deutch, 30, her hair currently at a sleek shoulder length and dyed a rich dark brown. “I found that people, women and men, were like, ‘How do you feel? Are you OK? This is so crazy. What's it like?’ It was the focal point of every discussion. It was like a cool social experiment.”

For Linklater, it was worth the wait.