Ahead of the world premiere of “The Man I Love” in competition at Cannes, Rami Malek joined his director and co-writer Ira Sachs for a Kering Women in Motion Talk in which the Oscar winner fought through shock and awe that he’s even showing a movie at the esteemed film festival.
“I never get used to these moments,” Malek told Variety’s Angelique Jackson. “Cannes is not something I ever, ever expected. The fact we’re here right now is something I’m trying to savor. It feels a bit surreal.”
Directed by Sachs, who co-wrote the script with frequent collaborator Mauricio Zacharias, “The Man I Love” is set in New York City during the late 1980s as theater artist, Jimmy (Malek), confronts his mortality following an AIDS diagnosis. Starring alongside Malek in the film are Tom Sturridge, Rebecca Hall and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
Malek credited Sachs for bringing out “a performance in me that I don’t think I would give in another situation,” adding: “Ira is an actor’s director, among all the other things he can do. We believed in each other.”
“The canon of his work speaks for itself,” he continued about his director. “What a unique artist that we can all cherish. These are timeless films that Ira has put into the world. They will live on and we’ll go back to them for feelings that certain aspects of cinema don’t give us. There’s great intimacy and empathy.”
