Inside Bonjour Tristesse Star Lily McInerny’s Big Night at TIFF

When I meet with Lily McInerny the day of the world premiere of Bonjour Tristesse—a modern adaptation of the 1954 novel by Françoise Sagan—she’s leaning against a table at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto, where she’s landed for her first appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival. In minimal makeup, a slouchy sweatshirt, and simple straight jeans, she mirrors the youthful look of her Tristesse character, Cécile. A teenager spending the summer on the French Riviera with her father, Raymond (Claes Bang), Cécile’s interactions with Raymond’s lovers (Nailia Harzoune and Chloë Sevigny) teach Cécile as much about womanhood as they do about “being seen.” (And, really, how dissimilar are the two?) McInerny herself is 25, old enough to have felt, even recently, that she was a “a little bit of a late bloomer” amongst her peer group of actresses. But after having captured attention and acclaim with her role in 2022’s Palm Trees and Power Lines, she was selected for writer-director Durga Chew-Bose’s Tristesse modernization. Cécile anchors the film, her jealousy, appetite, guilt, and playfulness the hinge upon which Maximilian Pittner’s sumptuous cinematography turns.

McInerny—who’d known Chew-Bose personally since she was a child—read Sagan’s book after snagging the role, but she waited to watch the 1958 version of the film until after she’d finished shooting. Directed by Otto Preminger, the ’58 feature stars Jean Seberg as Cécile, and “I didn’t want the Jean Seberg interpretation of Cecile to influence [me],” McInerny says. “I wanted to stay faithful to the script that Durga had written.”

But when she learned Chew-Bose’s adaptation would premiere at TIFF this year, McInerny knew she wanted to pay homage to Seberg. Drawing upon her relationship with fashion house Celine, McInerny sent creative director Hedi Slimane a reference photo of Seberg’s black gown from a casino scene in the 1958 film. She hoped Slimane might draw inspiration from it, but she had no firm expectations. “I didn’t hear back [from him] for a few weeks, and I sort of put it out of my mind and accepted it as a pipe dream,” McInerny tells me. “He [then] came back with, like, one of the most beautiful sketches I’ve ever seen. It was the perfect modernization.”

Last night on the red carpet, McInerny finally debuted the Celine design: a suave full-length gown with crisscrossing straps, a ballooning skirt, and a matching pair of kitten heels. Serious but stunning, it evokes McInerny’s own approach to acting, a vocation she speaks of with genuine reverence. “The practice of acting is sometimes in direct opposition with the entertainment industry,” she tells me, “because I find the actual creative exercise of becoming a character and communicating your innermost thoughts requires a complete lack of self-consciousness, a complete lack of censorship, and a complete acceptance of yourself, flaws and all. Whereas the industry demands a lot of artifice, a lot of censorship, a lot of putting your best foot forward and packaging yourself.”

She continues, “[Acting] almost took on this therapeutic role in my life, where, at a time in my adolescence when I wasn’t really given permission in my personal life to express certain feelings and thoughts, there was a place where I could do that—where not only was it accepted, but it was celebrated. I think that’s really beautiful and transformative.”

As Cécile experiences her own transformation in Bonjour Tristesse, a key moment arrives when she tries on a gown, one that makes her see herself in a new, vulnerable, but powerful light. Below, McInerny shares a diary of her own experience getting ready for the big night at TIFF—and slipping into a gown with the same intentions.