Léa Seydoux remembers the “very nice” voice message that Gaspard Ulliel sent her shortly before his death

Léa Seydoux was originally set to star alongside Gaspard Ulliel in Bertrand Bonello’s bold sci-fi love story “The Beast.” But the popular French César Award winner died in January 2022 at the age of 37 after a skiing accident while the film was still in pre-production and was posthumously replaced by George MacKay.

Seydoux previously starred alongside Ulliel, who is revered for roles in films such as Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “A Very Long Engagement” and Bonello’s own “Saint Laurent,” in Xavier Dolan’s 2016 Cannes winner “It’s Only the End of the World.” Seydoux, who recently spoke to IndieWire about her multiple roles in “The Beast” as a woman who faces a devastating, impossible romance spanning centuries, didn’t get a chance to speak to Ulliel about “The Beast” before filming, but he left her a WhatsApp voice message praising her performance in Bruno Dumont’s media satire “France,” a box office hit in France in 2021.

More from IndieWire

“The last message I got from him, the last time I heard his voice, was after ‘France,’ this film I made with Bruno Dumont,” said Seydoux. “He just left me a message on my WhatsApp, an audio message, telling me how much he liked the film. He said, ‘I’m not saying this because we’re going to work together. I just wanted to tell you that I was very impressed.’ It was a very, very nice message.”

Seydoux continued, “Even I thought he was too nice. That was the last thing we shared. And then I got a call from my agent, and he said, ‘Gaspard had this skiing accident and I think he’s in a coma.’ He said, ‘I think it’s very, very serious.'”

Seydoux attended Ulliel’s funeral at the Church of Saint-Eustache in Paris in January 2022, shortly after the actor died in a skiing accident in the Alps.

Bonello previously told IndieWire that George MacKay, the British actor who also plays three roles in “The Beast,” was the last person he met to take on Ulliel’s role, as Bonello decided to make the film anyway. In “The Beast,” the role MacKay landed includes playing a turn-of-the-century romantic, a toxic 2014 incel living in Los Angeles, and a man whose feelings are erased in a dystopian 2044.

“The first decision was not to replace him with a French actor,” said Bonello. “I didn’t want a comparison because that would have been impossible for me and the actor. I wanted to switch to an American or British actor, so I started this classic casting process and met a lot of people for three or four months. The last person I met was George. I went to London. We met and did a few tests and after two or three minutes it was clear that he was well suited (for the role). It’s true that he didn’t speak a word of French, but I was always told that British actors are great and the most difficult actors. That’s true because it’s not phonetic; he really acts. We gave him coaches, but he really acts, he doesn’t repeat.”

Sideshow and Janus Films’ “The Beast” hits select theaters on April 5.

The Best of IndieWire

Subscribe to Indiewire’s newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.