“Movies are fairy tales.” “Not all of them.”
If you’ve seen a “behind-the-scenes” clip about the making of a film or television show, it likely includes footage of the fun moments on the set, the cast and creators detailing their positive experiences collaborating, and a quick look at all of the underappreciated jobs, such as lighting, sound, and editing, that are critical in putting together that glossy final product. It would make sense that such a peek behind the lens would highlight the more fast-moving and upbeat elements of filmmaking, but as the limited series Irma Vep so effectively demonstrates, there’s a much less glamorous side of Hollywood.
The HBO limited series Irma Vep is a beautifully crafted, meta series about the filming of the remake of the 1915 silent French film series Les Vampires. To make things even more complicated, it’s created and directed by Olivier Assayas, the man who wrote and directed the 1996 film also titled Irma Vep, that, just like the current limited series, is about an actress who heads to France to star in a remake of the 1915 silent film series. In the HBO show, Oscar winning actress Alicia Vikander plays Mira Harberg, a young but jaded movie star whose career is simultaneously on the rise and on the brink of collapse. In an effort to shake up her image and career trajectory, she agrees to fly to France and star as Irma Vep in the remake of Les Vampires.
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Irma Vep provides us with subtle (and not-so-subtle) reminders that Hollywood is first and foremost a business where people with varying levels of experience, schedules, and wildly different creative processes must work together. Mira's constantly being told about (and physically brought to) where she's needed, often with no real recollection of agreeing to any of it in the first place. It’s not because Mira’s flighty or irresponsible, it’s because so much of her schedule is reliant on many moving parts that are often out of her control. Of course, having an assistant, a driver, and being afforded the most luxurious methods of transportation is certainly nothing to complain about. But for Mira, that charm has dulled and now contributes to her feeling more like a cog in the Hollywood machine than like an irreplaceable artist.
Rather than focus on the frills and fanciness that come with fame and movie making, Irma Vep isn't afraid to lean into its at times incredibly mundane and taxing reality. Though the end result might be exciting, a significant amount of Mira's acting life is waiting, whether it be for her call time, the director to fix a shot, or better lighting, as well as trudging through press junkets to promote movies she isn’t particularly proud of (or at least doesn’t feel matches the art she wishes to be associated with).
The opening scene of the series features a well rested and put together Mira emerging from a top-tier plane. She’s more interested in what’s on her phone than she is interacting with the many people escorting her from A to B, which includes her low-key assistant (and at times, therapist) Regina (Devon Ross), one of the few healthy relationships in Mira’s disjointed life. The first thing Mira says as soon as an attendant closes her car door sums up part of what Irma Vep successfully explores: creative fatigue. “Oh, wow, thank God this is our last stop. I am so sick of discussing Doomsday and why Nausicaa sliced her superhero husband’s throat and cut off his testicles,” Mira moans, to which Regina deadpans, “It’s the strongest scene in the film.”
The project Mira refers to is the most recent blockbuster she’s promoting, one of the many additional jobs that comes with being a lead in a big movie. After she arrives at her hotel, her assistant and French PR representative (Valérie Bonneton) walks her through her itinerary of contractual obligations she must satisfy while in town, which includes a Vogue photoshoot that’ll make her revisit her dreaded Doomsday spacesuit, interviews across networks with millions of viewers, and then a brief break before the premiere, where she’ll introduce the movie on stage. Mira’s then alerted that the director Herman (Byron Bowers) will be there with his new wife, Laurie (Adria Arjona), the latter of whom is Mira’s ex-assistant and manipulative ex-lover. Considering Herman bailed on the European premieres to work on his next big project, Mira figured it was safe to assume that the Paris premiere was also not on Herman’s priority list.
Mira’s struggling to juggle the personalities and relationships she has with other creatives, as well as her worrying about how her personal life seeping into her carefully-curated public persona might affect her work, are other ways Irma Vep expertly addresses the undesirable facets of filmmaking. She understandably fumbles while fielding out-of-left-field questions from reporters about Doomsday’s underlying connection to gender equality and populism, and is baffled when someone reminds her of something she allegedly said in an interview about “the unraveling of democracy in Hungary.” Then at the premiere, she faces Laurie, the “other woman” whose recent affair with Mira not only led to a major Hollywood scandal, but also distorted the public’s perception of her.
Perhaps the most inevitable, albeit frustrating, occurrences in production that Irma Vep tackles are creative differences and competing creative processes among the cast and crew. Mira signed on to play Irma Vep in The Vampires before meeting René Vidal (Vincent Macaigne), the eccentric and fragile French director who’s not used to working with A-list action stars. Their first in-person meeting is riddled with distractions, like Carla (Nora Hamzawi) the frazzled production assistant who’s usually alerting René of a last minute location change, weather issue, or problem with an extra. It’s clear that Mira and René operate and approach their work very differently. Mira’s the type of artist that likes to have everything laid out, whereas René moves with the flow of the moment. When Mira tries to get a read on him and how well the shoot is going, she’s met with an answer that’s both blunt and cryptic. “Mira, I have some bad news for you. I’m never happy. I tried happiness but, uh, it’s just not for me.” Mira follows that odd response up with something hopefully more straightforward. “Is everything going according to plan?” to which René answers confidently, “There is no plan. I hate when there is a plan. My job is to screw the plan.”
Mira barely has a chance to think about her character let alone memorize her lines. She has to sit through costume fittings of a silver velvet catsuit that she has little-to-no say in, make small talk with an executive behind a very time-consuming perfume campaign, cooperate with unfiltered and inconsiderate scene partners whose egos take up more room on set than the story itself, and be reminded by her demanding agent Zelda (Carrie Brownstein) that taking a role in another sequel is far more financially lucrative than a niche French project. Mira might be fighting off paparazzi and enjoying the many amenities she’s afforded for simply being in entertainment, but she’s also fighting that “unfocused and lonely” feeling that comes with fame. By lingering in the sometimes boring, always unpredictable nature of filmmaking, Irma Vep effectively and effortlessly shows the less glamorous side of “lights, camera, action.”
Emily Bernard is a NJ based Senior Feature Writer & Associate Training Editor for Collider. Tig Notaro and Cheryl Hines referenced an article of hers on their podcast, "Tig & Cheryl: True Story." Hearing them talk about it was an out-of-body experience of which Emily is still recovering. She's also placed in several film festivals, including the Nashville Film Festival and Houston Comedy Film Festival for Best Comedy Feature Screenplay. She hopes that one day a fancy producer person will be interested in her work. Some of Emily's favorite shows include Succession, Severance, Hacks, Barry, Stranger Things, and anything Kristen Wiig does, really. She's not totally sure how she feels about this whole "writing in the third person" thing, but it sounds more professional, so she's going to stick with it.
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