AnOther caught up with the Call My Agent! star at the Dior 2025 cruise show, which took place in Scotland last week
Camille Cottin is our favourite antihero – first when she starred in Connasse (literally translated as ‘asshole’), a hidden-camera comedy in which she plays a self-involved Parisian trolling pedestrians, shop-owners and passers-by. In one episode, she climbs the fence of Buckingham Palace to try and meet Prince Harry. Outside of France, she is best known as Andrea Martel, the ruthless but endearing film-biz fixer in Call My Agent!, and as Hélène in Killing Eve, an assassin trainer who engages in a dangerous, flirtatious cat-and-mouse game with Villanelle (Jodie Comer).
Cottin has taken the scenic route to acting fame, becoming a bona fide French sex symbol in her mid-30s with her lacerating humour and easy confidence. She tells me her secret to feeling powerful is simply “love”, a quip that’s so French it hurts. It makes sense that Cottin is a Dior beauty and style ambassador, emanating the understated sexiness of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s vision for the design house.
When we speak at the Dior 2025 cruise show, she is effusive about Chiuri’s work: “I’ve been a friend of the house for the past three years now, and I’ve been wearing these incredible creations by Maria Grazia which have all marked important and emotional moments in my career.” Taking place in Scotland for the first time since 1955, the show paid tribute to the Scottish spirit with a modern twist – tartan everywhere, but dramatically modified with playful, billowing silhouettes and sharp, dramatic angles.
At the show, Cottin opts for a summer pleated denim dress from the Spring/Summer 2024 collection, fittingly paired with statement platform leather boots. “I loved the tartan ensemble with the corsets and the high socks and leather boots,” she says. “I loved the inspiration of the show – a mix of punk and Mary Stuart.” Cottin describes her own style as “punk chic” with a “boyish silhouette” and an emphasis on simplicity. Having lived in London as a teenager in the 90s, Cottin has always spoken ebulliently about her time in the city and the freedom it offered her. Indeed, when Cottin reels off a list of her style icons, they are the understated girls from this side of the channel: Charlotte Rampling, Jane Birkin and Kate Moss.
Recently, Cottin has been busy with the day job, with a queenly role in Bruno Dumont’s sci-fi satire The Empire and another four films to follow soon after: Julie Navarro’s Just a Couple of Days, Simon Moutaïrou’s Ni chaînes ni maîtres, Pierre Schoeller’s Rembrandt and Stefan Liberski’s De l’art ou du Machond. Last month, she was Master of Ceremonies at Cannes, opening and closing the prestigious ceremony. (She wasn’t part of Greta Gerwig’s judging panel, but shares the Grand Prix-winning All We Imagine As Light by Payal Kapadia as a fave, along with Mohammad Raoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig and British director Andrea Arnold’s Bird.
Despite having worked with many French icons on Call My Agent! – which saw her play rep to real-life acting royalty including Isabelle Huppert and Juliette Binoche – Cottin still gets starstruck. “I was completely under the charm of Meryl Streep at the ceremony, who said to me, ‘Break a leg, Camille,’ before I stepped on stage,” she shares of her Cannes experience. “It felt as if I was under the protection of an angel! I almost wasn’t scared any more.”
