Does your lifestyle allow you to read as much as you would like to?

Not really. It is easy to walk around with a book on the sets and enjoy it between takes but I haven’t got into that habit. When I do have free time, reading is like taking a break and not an activity. Having said that, my work does involve reading narratives and plots, before, during and even after shooting. I have a special relationship with scripts. I attach so much importance to the words used to describe the characters and the stories.

Is there a book that’s helped you in life?

The collection of letters Decolonial Daughter: Letters from a Black Woman to her European Son, by Lesley-Ann Brown.

What is the most liberating book you have read? (feeling of joy, lightness, emancipation, etc.)?

I don’t know if it’s the most liberating, but a recent reading of Naïl Ver-Ndoye and Grégoire Fauconnier’s book Noir: Entre peinture et histoire opened a door for me. Focusing on three hundred works of pictorial art, this book interprets a part of Black history through the representation of Blacks in European painting from the 14th to the 20th century. With each commentary on a work of art, this book helped me better understand the history of Black people through analyses supported by bibliographical and cinematographic references, providing ever more resources. It really piqued my curiosity. It’s like an anthology tracing the representation of Black people and the way they’ve been viewed over the centuries. I was quite overwhelmed by it, both in terms of the representation of the Black body in paintings and the immensity of Black history and the people to whom I belong, as well as the invisibilization and stereotyping of the Black body in art. It also really made me want to go into museums, to find myself in the works and it introduced me to authors dealing with the history of Black people. It’s made me think deeper about questions of representation, which are essential when you’re involved in the production of images, whatever they may be.

What is the most challenging book you’ve ever read? (for any reason: a personal echo, a book that is difficult or realistic, a book about war or a violent book…)

Beloved by Toni Morrison, based on the true story of a young slave who commits infanticide to save her child from suffering the same condition, only to be haunted by her act. I found this story both spellbinding and disarming as Toni Morrison depicts the violent and inhuman reality experienced by black slaves in the USA. With its distinctive narrative style and raw, tragic plot, I was literally on the edge of my seat.

"It’s not the form of the novel that attracts me so much as the way that books deal with representation, giving me new ways of thinking about subjects that affect me."

Which book heroine would you most like to be?

As a child, I was enchanted by Peau d’Âne, but today it’s Claudette Colvin, whose commitment I discovered in Tania de Montaigne’s graphic novel Colored: The Unsung Life of Claudette Colvin.

What is the best place to read?

I don't really have an ideal place. I like to read alone, in the morning or late at night. My relationship with books is not linked to a place but to a time.

Are you more romance novel or adventure novel?

One doesn’t counteract the other. But lately, it’s not the form of the novel that attracts me so much as the way that books deal with representation, giving me new ways of thinking about subjects that affect me.

Do you prefer long novels or short stories?

I like both. This summer I enjoyed reading a story that stayed with me for several weeks.

Which book would you like to see adapted to film?

Look at the Lights, My Love by Annie Ernaux.

A book you always offer as a gift.

The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas, a children’s book about the most primitive emotions. I love the idea that a children's book can speak for all our lives.