THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY STAR TRANSFORMS

French actor Mathieu Almaric makes an astonishing physical and emotional transformation in the role.

French actor Mathieu Almaric gives an astounding performance as Jean Dominique Bauby in The Diving Bell and The Butterfly portraying the true story of the French Elle editor who had the world at his feet until a life changing stroke left him paralyzed.

The only thing left functioning was his brain but through the love and constant guidance of his therapists he wrote his memoirs by blinking just one eye. Like a butterfly from a caterpillar Mathieu transformed his physical appearance for the role.

“I had a dental prosthetic that would push down on one side and I needed it to hurt so I could concentrate on something. And just a bit of blood on the lens in the eye and as this eye was very quickly sewed. In fact if you have one eye closed you can really open one very, very widely the other one and you don’t need to blink. I discovered that also.”

Mathieu says Jean-Do and his will to live had a profound and changing effect on him.

“You think of something, ‘I want to move my foot,’ and you look at your foot and you can move your foot. So I do some exercise every day, one minute just not to forget that the brain is amazing. It’s just amazing. It goes so quickly and there’s so many layers and we never have time to think in fact.”

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly also stars Emmanuelle Seigner as his ex wife and Max Von Sydow as his father. Interesting fact, Jean-Do as a young boy is played by Emmanuelle and Roman Polanski’s son Elvis.