Chicago Strip Clubs: Accent on experience for Cotillard as Dillinger’s girl

Mann’s onscreen worlds are ruled by men, yet Cotillard asserts that “in each of his movies there’s a very strong female character. That’s one of the things I love about his movies. I love Collateral. Jada Pinkett Smith has a real part to play, even if it’s small. She really has something to defend. Gong Li in Miami Vice — such an interesting role.”
The research relating to Frechette, she says, took her down some unexpected paths. “Michael feeds you the information that will bring out of you the emotion he wants,” she says. She met with convicts’ wives. She met with strippers. “I thought, ‘Why am I meeting with strippers?’ (In Las Vegas, no less.) I wasn’t sure why, since Billie Frechette was not a stripper. But Michael told me he wanted me to meet them because they know who has the money. Women in that profession know it’s not always the obvious guy with the good suit buying bottles and bottles of champagne.” In real life and in Mann’s film, Dillinger moved in fast and claimed Frechette; Cotillard believes the seduction was mutual, and that it really was love.

See the full article from “Houston Chronicle”