‘Rust and Bone’: Matthias Schoenaerts on his dream director

Matthias Schoenaerts broke through with art house audiences with the Belgian film “Bullhead,” nominated earlier this year for an Academy Award for foreign-language film, playing a man still haunted by the traumas of his childhood. In the new “Rust and Bone,” he again turns in a muscular, physical performance, but this time as a man more actively working to move forward with his life. Costarring with Marion Cotillard, Schoenaerts has garnered acclaim for his work in the film, including comparisons to Marlon Brando and Michael Fassbender.

“Rust and Bone” is directed by Jacques Audiard, the French filmmaker who has himself been compared to Martin Scorsese and Jean-Pierre Melville for the ways in which his films explore the struggles of modern masculinity. The role in “Rust and Bone” looks to launch Schoenaerts just as earlier Audiard films have boosted the profiles of such actors as Romain Duris and Tahar Rahim.

In this clip from the Envelope Screening Series, Schoenaerts talks about working with Audiard, whom he refers to as “the director I dreamed of working with.”

Also:

Matthias Shoenaerts on ambiguity, likeability in ‘Rust And Bone’

Matthias Schoenaerts discusses “Rust And Bone’s” seamless effects

AFI FEST 2012: “Rust And Bone” aims outside the arthouse

Signs of life for foreign-language films in the U.S.

Follow Mark Olsen on Twitter: @IndieFocus