Stacy Martin: Nymphomaniac actress on nudity in films, Lars von Trier and being set on Hollywood

'I don’t believe in gratuitous nudity or sexuality in a way that is discriminating to women, or even men'

Actress Stacy Martin attends a photocall for 'Taj Mahal' during the 72nd Venice Film Festival (Getty)

If there’s one actress who seemed all over the Venice Film Festival this year, it was Stacy Martin. The young French/English performer, who made her stunning debut two years ago in Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, came to the Lido with two films, The Childhood of a Leader and Taj Mahal, and a lead role at Women’s Tales, a program of female-driven films and events sponsored by Miu Miu, the fashion giant that stole a march on its rivals by securing the 24 year-old as the face of its first fragrance, due this month.

Factor in her role in British director Ben Wheatley’s ensemble satire High-Rise, which has just premiered in Toronto, and it’s evident that Martin is no von Trier flash in the pan. She smiles at the mention of the Danish director’s name; she owes him everything.

“He gave me my first job,” she says. “He gave me faith in myself to actually do what I thought was a hobby. He also made it possible for me to do the kind of work, as an actress, I wanted to do and believed in.”

Already, Martin’s CV is a classy affair. She appeared in Matteo Garrone’s deliciously dark fantasy Tale of Tales, which premiered in Cannes this year, appearing opposite Vincent Cassel. Meanwhile, The Childhood of a Leader has just collected two prizes in Venice, including Lion of the Future for for its actor-turned-director Brady Corbet. “I’m much more director-orientated than I thought I would be,” she admits, looking every bit the European ingenue.

Nymphomaniac clip

On a terrace overlooking Venice, in a blouse and lilac Miu Miu skirt, with her long brown hair in a pony-tail, Martin chatters nervously. “I babble a lot,” she apologises, though she’s being modest. She’s confident and eloquent, particularly on cinema, telling me she’d love to work with the “inspirational” Isabelle Huppert and British auteurs like Lynne Ramsay and Peter Strickland. “She’s incredibly well-read on film,” notes Taj Mahal director Nicolas Saada. “You don’t often talk about Werner Herzog and [Michael] Haneke on the first meeting with an actress.”

It doubtless helps when your debut was a baptism of fire like Nymphomaniac. Despite the copious sex scenes, it didn’t faze her; nudity, she says, is something she’ll do “for the right reasons” if it came up again. “I don’t believe in gratuitous nudity. Or sexuality in a way that is discriminating to women, or even men!” she adds. “My body is my body, and if it’s part of the story and it’s justified… you have to honour what’s written. But never do it if it’s pointless – and a lot of it is – so you have to be very careful.”

There’s also an emotional boldness to her performances – which doubtless also stems from her debut for von Trier, in which she played the younger version of the sexually liberated character of the title. In Taj Mahal, she holds together the film in which she plays Louise, a young girl trapped in the Mumbai hotel subjected to the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror attacks in 2008. If the film fails to sustain early tension, Martin can’t be faulted for a hugely challenging turn, playing a real-life character, that sees her largely acting alone.

“One of the reasons I wanted to do this was because she’s on her own, and she’s so young and she’s so unequipped to face such a situation,” she explains. There were other reasons – that it wasn’t a role requiring her to be “the girlfriend” or endure a teenage growing-pains crisis. “Also it’s a female lead and we all know there’s just not enough of them. And she’s not naked… which, I know, coming from me sounds a bit weird, but a lot of the time you read scripts and they sort of miss the point.”

The Paris-born Martin moved to Japan with her parents when she was seven, spending six years there before returning to France, which helped her tap into Louise’s isolated character. “Just being young in a country you don’t know… that’s something I’ve done quite consistently in my life. I used to move quite a lot. Just not knowing what you want to do is a big thing for young people… and that was a big part of my life. Just wondering what’s going to become of you.”

She looks lost in thought for a second. “Does it end? Do you stop wondering?”

If it’s a question she’s still asking herself, Martin hasn’t let it stifle her. When she was 18, she left Paris for London, where she now lives with musician boyfriend Daniel Blumberg. “At that age, I was very clear on leaving where I came from,” she says. “I didn’t really think of what I was doing – not in a careless or crazy way. I moved to London, I started studying, without really thinking, ‘I’m going to study to do this job’… I was very of the moment. I was like: ‘Ooh, yeah, I’ll go to London,’ and I went.”

The daughter of hairstylist Rene and English mother Anne, Martin funded acting classes with modelling work, studying the Meisner technique at The Actors’ Temple in London, and enrolled in a media and cultural studies course at the London College of Communication. Emerging from this fevered period to such an impressive early career, even she can’t quite comprehend how rapidly she’s risen. “I’ve worked with amazing directors, which is such a great surprise for me,” she says. She points to Brady Corbet. “He’s extremely ambitious and talented.” And there’s no doubt of that, judging by The Childhood of a Leader, a very singular vision of a 1939 short story by Jean-Paul Sartre that traces the tortured upbringing of a young boy raised in 1918 by his German mother (Bérénice Bejo) and strict American father (Liam Cunningham), a diplomat instrumental in First World War peace negotiations. While most of the attention is on the fact that Robert Pattinson co-stars in a small role, Martin is significant as Ada, the boy’s tutor.

Stacy Martin attends a premiere for 'Taj Mahal' (Getty)

Childhood was the only movie in Venice shot on 35mm film – with most now captured digitally, this “is extremely rare for a first-time director”, notes Martin. The actress was bowled over working with Corbet. Like her, his own CV includes films with Haneke (Funny Games) and von Trier (Melancholia). “It was one of those ‘eureka!’ moments,” she says, “where you feel like, ‘great, there’s new voices still being believed in.’”

Unlike Corbet, who has turned down a lot of Hollywood offers, Martin refuses to discount the American mainstream. “I have an American agent, who is very aware of how I want to work. Obviously it would be great to work over there. I don’t think you should just confine yourself to independent or art-house cinema. Ultimately my job is an actress. And there’s a much bigger crossover between the two, where you see directors bridging the gap. Even with Ben Wheatley, his cast, his production was much bigger…”

Indeed, with a roll-call including Tom Hiddleston, Sienna Miller and Elisabeth Moss, Wheatley’s adaptation of JG Ballard’s 1975 novel High Rise is one of the most anticipated British films of the year. Martin plays Fay, a cashier working at a supermarket belonging to the ultra-luxurious Modernist (and microcosmic) setting at the story’s core, a building that increasingly descends into anarchy.

“It sort of reflects society in a way that the poorer classes are at the bottom and the higher you go, the richer you are,” she says.

In the midst of all this is her work for Miu Miu, which began with a modelling campaign. “I thought it would be a one-time experience,” she says. Then the company asked her to represent its forthcoming fragrance. “It was quite incredible to see a brand backing and supporting someone who isn’t really in the mainstream arena,” she says. “They did it with Lupita [Nyong’o], they did it with Elizabeth Olsen.” Does she feel like she’s carrying a brand? “Oh god!” she cries. “That’s a big word. I don’t feel like it’s a responsibility.”

This dip into commercial activity aside, you won’t find Martin promoting anything other than her movies – not even herself. Wary of over-exposure perhaps, she doesn’t boast a presence on social media.

“I just don’t see how it helps me. I’m not ready to take on another big thing you have to sustain. I want my work to matter. I want the actual films or projects that I do to speak for themselves.”

For all her courageous early work, Martin isn’t impervious to fear, from the everyday (“I’m terrified of heights”) to the irrational (food poisoning “because I love food”) to the understandable (unemployment).

“I’ve been so lucky and I’ve met people that have really worked in the way that I respect,” she says, trying to explain the latter. “So if I’m not working it will probably also go in line with the fact that these people aren’t doing films anymore! So that’s quite scary.”

You suspect that, somehow, she’ll survive.

‘High-Rise’ screens at the BFI London Film Festival on October 9 and 11, and goes on general release in 2016. ‘Taj Mahal’ and ‘The Childhood of a Leader’ will also be released next year