Would the mise en abyme bring him luck? As in "Les Amandiers", by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, the Franco-Finnish actress plays an actress in her debut in "Mon Crime", an ode to sisterhood in Paris in the 1930s, signed by François Ozon.
Passionate lover in "Only the Beasts" by Dominik Moll, benevolent babysitter at Monia Chokri, disturbing wife in the series "Possessions": Nadia Tereszkiewicz juggles with feminine identities, managing to flourish in disparate universes.
"Cinema allows me to push the cursors: I can tell parts of femininity that we all have and that we have not explored," she told AFP recently, on the sidelines of the French film festival in Rome.
In a prolific year 2023, she will be on the bill of "The Last Queen" on April 19, before "Rosalie", in selection at Cannes (Un certain regard) and "The Red Island" by Robin Campillo.
By playing the sensitive alter ego of Valeria Bruni Tedeschi in the Amandiers theater school in the late 1980s, the young actress won the César for best female hope in February.
"I hallucinated to be in front of all this job that told me bravo. It gives me a little confidence and courage to continue" in a sector "so random", she admits. "But at the same time, it's a responsibility."
"In a book"
Of Polish origin, this curious polyglot - Finnish is her mother tongue, she masters English and Italian and has taken Arabic and Hebrew classes - has "discovered a late but intense European cinephilia" and dreams of filming in Italy or the Nordic countries.
"I grew up with a curiosity about foreigners. Films cross borders," she says, adding that she returns to Finland every summer.
Actress Nadia Tereszkiewicz wins the César for Most Promising Actress for the film "Les Amandiers", in Paris on February 24, 2023 © BERTRAND GUAY / AFP/Archives
Yet it could have shone on other boards, those of half-points and arabesques. But after 14 years of dance-studies, she gave up her ballet school in Canada, "stuck with the classical" and eager to learn.
Passionate about literature - she summoned Maupassant, Tolstoy, and Alice Munro - the student entered the literary preparatory class theater option, and saw 200 plays in two years, where the taste for words meets that of the stage.
This granddaughter of a poet, who was taught - she narrowly missed Normale Sup "because of Latin" - but did not sit for long, then slipped into the silhouettes of a dancer on sets, as odd jobs.
In the shadows, she observed behind the scenes, ended up joining the free class of Cours Florent and obtained her first role in "Sauvages" by Denis Berry, released in 2019.
"There, on set, I understood that I loved to play. I felt an immense happiness, the impression that everything came together, that time stopped. I felt like I was in a book," says Nadia, with a fair complexion enhanced by piercing blue eyes.
Chopin and Pink Floyd
From her past as a ballerina, she has kept musical Proust madeleines, which intertwine Chopin and Tchaikovsky with Bjork and Pink Floyd. But above all an instinctive relationship "to others, to space, to the body".
"She has a presence, something that prints the film," boasts the actor Fabrice Luchini, who gave her speech advice on the set of "My crime", pencil in the mouth in support.
Actress Nadia Tereszkiewicz at the Cannes Film Festival, May 22, 2022 © PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA / AFP/Archives
The film with a prestigious cast has exceeded one million admissions, offering him a first major tour in the four corners of France.
It is difficult not to see in the fate of her character, a mischievous actress assaulted by a producer but ready to do anything to emancipate herself, a resonance with today's issues.
"I am proud to be part of a generation where things are changing, where speech is free. There are more and more female directors, production managers, producers, actresses with strong roles," she said.
© 2023 AFP