For the past few months, news outlets, tabloids and Twitter feeds have been aflutter with a sexy, political, French melodrama—this time not involving any Sarkozys or Strauss-Kahns. Ever since Blue Is the Warmest Color, the riveting lesbian coming-of-age saga, nabbed the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in May, the actresses who play the film’s two onscreen lovers, Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos, have been embroiled in a crossfire with the movie’s director, Abdellatif Kechiche, that has upstaged it’s now notoriously steamy sex scenes (namely one clocking nearly seven minutes). Seydoux, the 28-year-old cult actress and current face of Prada Candy, and newcomer—ingénue Exarchopoulos, age 19, have blasted Kechiche’s tyrannical and traumatizing working methods, sentiments fortified by several of the crewmembers. Kechiche, in turn, has unleashed barbs regarding Seydoux‘s privileged upbringing as part of the Pathé and Gaumont film dynasties and has claimed that he no longer wants Blue to come out. Nevertheless, it arrives Stateside this fall.

Blue is based on the graphic novel Le Bleu Est Une Couleur Chaude by Julie Maroh, and its main character is a 15-year-old disquieted beauty, exquisitely rendered by Exarchopoulos, who has an erotic awakening upon crossing paths with Emma (played by Seydoux in the film), a confident, cobalt-haired college student studying art. Their lust at first sight evolves and unravels throughout a highly nuanced three hours, punctuated not only by ample girl-on-girl action but by a violent confrontation involving a literal bitch slap.

Along with Jane Campion, Seydoux and Exarchopoulos are the only women to have ever received the prestigious festival award, an honor they shared in a three-way win with Kechiche, who has reputation for socio-political cinema. As it turns out, the film debuted just as gay-marriage legislation passed in France, though its leading ladies say they are less concerned with activism than they are with acting.

Having tangoed with Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris), and in blockbusters (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and Robin Hood), Seydoux’s steady encroach on Hollywood continues apace with Wes Anderson’s upcoming The Grand Budapest Hôtel. She also has two French films on the horizon, starring opposite Vincent Cassel in a remake of Beauty and the Beast, and in Saint Laurent as late designer Yves’s longtime friend and muse Loulou de la Falaise. Exarchopoulos, meanwhile, is teaming up with Sara Forestier, another veteran Kechiche discovery, now making her directorial debut. Exarchopoulos will play a stutterer. But with her controversy-soaked breakout film now hitting theaters, she speaks freely on its pressure points—and her Blue co-star Seydoux doesn’t mince words either.

-via interviewmagazine.com