Melvil Poupaud on Time To Leave

Melvil Poupaud represents an interesting development in the work of French auteur François Ozon, who to date has shown little interest in men in his films, 8 Women being just the most obvious example. Time To Leave changes all that, while giving the relatively unknown Poupaud the role of his career.

He plays Romain, a fashion photographer who decides to keep his terminal cancer secret from his friends and family, and die alone. It's a short, spare film, and a very moving one as the aloof Romain softens towards the end of his life.

"I cried when I read the script, and a few times when making the film," says the 33-year-old Parisian. "It's quite uncommon for a male character to have that effect. Audiences, men and women, seem to be responding to him in the same way as I did, which was very pleasing for François and me."

Poupaud felt a certain rapport with Romain, "because ever since I was a child, I've thought a lot about death. And I've always felt that the way we relate to death is a very private, personal affair.

"But the fact that Romain keeps this secret does make him rather egotistical. At the beginning of the film he is not a nice guy. He doesn't like his life, he doesn't like himself. We watch his journey as he reconnects with happier memories of his childhood and, as he begins to like himself again, he becomes more loveable."

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