Why do french women ruin their hair by pretending to be bl*nd?

Léa Seydoux broke down in tears during the press conference for Blue Is the Warmest Colour at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. What seemed like a celebration hid months of emotional exhaustion, on-set tensions, and an exhausting filming process that pushed both her and co-star Adèle Exarchopoulos to their limits.

Seydoux and Exarchopoulos revealed that the intimate scenes, especially one lasting around 10 minutes, were extremely difficult to shoot. According to them, the director demanded countless takes over several days, with highly specific and uncomfortable choreography. Léa even said: “We had to do things that no one had ever asked us to do before, and there was no room to say no.”

The film won the Palme d’Or — but the cost behind the scenes was steep.