This will be Stewart’s third trip to the South of France, where she is adored by fans and the press. She first went to Cannes with 2012’s “On the Road” and returned with “Clouds of Sils Maria” two years later. She recalls attending the César Awards, not fully knowing what they were. “It’s a really f—ing big deal,” she says. Unlike the Oscars, there were no time limits for acceptance speeches, so the show dragged on for more than four hours. It was also all in French, a language Stewart doesn’t speak.
She’d been warned by her co-star, Juliette Binoche, that she’d never be called up to the stage — but she became the first American actress to take the prize. She had made a contingency plan for a speech. “If I won, then I’d go up there and say, ‘Sorry, I don’t speak French’ in French and thank Olivier and Juliette, which I think I did. Maybe?” The awards didn’t end until after 1 a.m., because of all the long-winded thank-yous. “I got to a f—ing dinner at 3 in the morning,” she says. “I was falling asleep.”