Marion Cotillard on Joining The Morning Show and the Power, Pressure and Art of Restraint Within her Character

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When Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard steps into a new role, she does it with both precision and abandon. In The Morning Show Season 4, she joins the acclaimed Apple TV+ drama as Celine, a poised yet turbulent power player navigating the sharp edges of the media world.

For Cotillard making her television debut and joining a show she already admired was both thrilling and disorienting. “It was really new for me to jump in without knowing where my character would end up,” she says. “When I do a film, I have the full script. Here, I started with four episodes and had no idea where Seline’s choices would lead. It was exciting, but also a little terrifying.”

That sense of unpredictability, however, fueled her performance. “I felt like a child stepping into a world I’d admired for so long,” she recalls. “Just being in those newsroom sets, across from Corey Ellison, it was surreal.”

To build Celine, Cotillard immersed herself in research about powerful families and the women within them. Drawing inspiration from French journalists Raphaëlle Bacqué and Vanessa Schneider’s work Successions, she explored how daughters in elite dynasties often have to fight harder for legitimacy.

“What struck me,” Cotillard explains, “was how women in those families had to claim their place in a world where men are seen as the natural successors. A son’s position feels automatic. A daughter’s has to be earned.”

That tension, athe constant need to prove oneself, became a cornerstone of Celine’s identity. “She’s in charge, but she’s also rebellious,” Cotillard says. “She wants to go her own way, yet she’s tied to expectations that aren’t entirely hers. That contradiction is where her complexity lies.”

Cotillard’s scenes opposite Billy Crudup, who plays the enigmatic Corey Ellison, sparkle with intellectual tension and unspoken chemistry. “They’re very similar,” she says of the characters. “Both have something to prove, both are powerful but a little twisted. They have to fit into a world they don’t really belong to.”

Having known Crudup for years, Cotillard found their on-screen connection effortless. “We’ve worked together before, and we share a sensibility,” she says. “He’s a hard worker, he prepares deeply, and there’s something instinctive between us as if we’re the same kind of animal.”

On screen, Seline radiates calm control, yet Cotillard ensures we sense the storm beneath. “It’s like a duck on water,” she laughs. “You see the stillness above, but underneath, the legs are paddling like crazy.”

Cotillard drew on real-life encounters with powerful women to embody that duality. “There’s this ease that hides turmoil,” she says. “They project strength and grace because they have to. But the tension, knowing you could lose everything in a minute is always there.”

That balance of poise and fragility is most visible in episode four, when Celine learns of her husband’s infidelity. Cotillard played the moment with quiet restraint. “We tried different versions,” she recalls. “In the end, I loved that even when she’s emotional, she uses it. Everything that happens to her, pain, shock—she turns it into forward motion.”

Despite her fluency in English, Cotillard admits the fast-paced, dialogue-heavy scripts were a challenge. “Super stressful!” she laughs. “Even in French, I have to learn my lines, digest them, forget them, and learn them again. But in English, at that speed? It was intense.”

Working with her longtime dialect coach of nearly two decades, Cotillard found discipline and humor in the process. “I’d be gardening while repeating my lines over and over,” she says. “And then, of course, they’d change a line at the last minute!”

Still, the effort paid off. Her portrayal of Celine, measured, magnetic, and layered adds a new dimension to The Morning Show’s exploration of power and truth.

“I love characters who hide their turmoil well,” Cotillard reflects. “When everything could blow up at any second that’s when they’re the most fascinating to play.”

Watch the full conversation below:

Q&A on the Apple TV+ series The Morning Show with actor Marion Cotillard. Moderated by Mara Webster, In Creative Company.