Olivier Martinez: A breakout year behind him, checking in on Le Paris/Malibu hunk

In Adrian Lyne's Unfaithful, Olivier Martinez took Diane Lane to new heights of passion, and Richard Gere to the depths of a homicidal fury. While Martinez has been working on the other side of the Atlantic for over a decade, the 36-year-old began his American acting career with a bit part in Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls (2000), and will soon be seen opposite Heien Mirren and Anne Bancroft in Showtime's remake of The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. Martinez divides his time between his native Paris and Malibu, California, where he lives with his girlfriend of several years, Mira Sorvino, and his Rhodeslan ridgeback. We caught up with him in Paris.

HENRY CABOT BECK: How is Paris today?

OLIVIER MARTINEZ: The weather is a little bit rainy.

HCB: I like it when it rains in Paris.

OM: Yeah. The light is beautiful. It's gray-blue. I like Paris. My problem is I don't like Parisians.

HCB: What's wrong with Parisians?

OM: They are jerks.

HCB: You also live in Los Angeles. Are Paris jerks different than Los Angeles jerks?

OM: [laughs] In Los Angeles people are much nicer. In Paris they are very mean. They have a complex of superiority.

HCB: A what?

OM: A complex of superiority.

HCB: Oh, a superiority complex!

OM: [laughs] Yeah, and it's the opposite in L.A. But don't write that please, I don't want to make enemies in Paris.

HCB: Why not? You were once a boxer; you can say whatever you want.

OM: Yeah--why not? [laughs] You are right!

HCB: So you've been in Los Angeles for about three years now?

OM: Yes. But I don't spend more than two or three months in Los Angeles in one shot because I miss my family, my country. You know, I started to live in Los Angeles at 33 years old, so I need time to adapt to a world that is quite different from the world I come from. Coming to Los Angeles was a kind of cultural shock for me, and I felt like I was living in a ghost town in a way. We are always in a car in Los Angeles-it's very strange.

HCB: You live in Malibu, right?

OM: Yeah. I love the ocean. I was born in the city, and I never really saw too much nature before, so it's like living in an imaginary world. in Los Angeles you feel unreal. I think it's about the rhythm of the city. It's about the sun; I think it's about a lot of things. It's the Malibu effect. [laughs] in Los Angeles I have all the cliches of the movie star: the big car, the nice house, the swimming pool in front of the ocean. I'm living a cliche, and that's very, very strange.

HCB: Tell me more about this Malibu effect.

OM: Well, it's the air and the architecture, the distance between one point and another, and the fact that you can't really walk in Los Angeles. It's weird, because I like to walk. When I'm thinking about stuff, most of the time it's when I'm walking in the street. Now that I don't walk anymore, I don't think. [laughs] Paris and Rome and Madrid--even in London where it's raining all the time--you have always something to do, even if you are alone, just by walking in the street. But I am in the beginning of my relationship with Los Angeles, and it's more difficult to find the right way to use my time because it's very different from where I used to be. I really feel like a pygmy in a way.

HCB: Olivier, I would recommend that you not spend too much time anyplace that makes you feel like a pygmy.

OM: You mean in Los Angeles or anywhere?

HCB: Anywhere.

OM: Yeah. That's true. Life is tough for pygmies these days. [both laugh] But you know, I really feel smaller, physically, in L.A.. When I eat somewhere, I get double or triple [sized] portions. When you ask for French fries in Los Angeles they give you three portions! I wish they would serve less. More is not obviously better.

HCB: You might feed them to your dog.

OM: Come on! Are you kidding? My dog doesn't eat French fries! [laughs] She's a Malibu dog and she eats healthy food from the Malibu dog food market! They have green food, red food, blue food. I used to think that dog food was just dog food, but no, now I understood that food for dogs depends on the age, the breed, the mood. I learn a lot in Los Angeles. [laughs]

HCB: Have you learned about fame? Are people treating you differently since you made Unfaithful?

OM: Yeah, of course. It is part of the game. I love it when people are nice. I don't care if they are hypocrites or what--as long as they're nice and smile when they see me, I'm happy. it puts me in a good mood. When people recognize you, generally it's a good sign if you're an actor. [laughs] And it's made my meetings with people from the industry much easier because Unfaithful is a movie that the industry here in Los Angeles, and the audience, saw. My professional life is much better since this film came out. I'm very happy to be an actor, mostly because I'm very lazy. If not for acting I would probably be doing nothing--at least nothing interesting.

Henry Cabot Beck is a frequent Interview contributor.

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