Since 2001, Cannes Film Festival has provided two young actors every year with the Trophée Chopard, recognizing achievements during the earliest stages of their career. This year, the Trophée Chopard was awarded to Jack Lowden and Sheila Atim.
“Winning the Chopard Trophée is really special because I love anything that is trying to encourage and enable and celebrate people who are trying to forge careers and trying to find themselves and shape themselves within an industry,” Atim told Variety during a sit-down interview with Lowden.
“Winning the Chopard Trophée is a little bit surreal,” Lowden said. “It’s mad. To be here at Cannes and being handed something shiny, it’s kind of mad.”
The two actors, who are both in their early 30s, were interviewed by Variety at the Cannes Film Festival after receiving the award. In a discussion with senior film writer Matt Donnelly, the two talked about when they decided they wanted to be actors, favorite directors they’ve worked with and meeting Julia Roberts during the festival.
Atim recently appeared in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” as Sara, a master of mystic arts. During the interview, she explained the bizarre experience of filming for a top-secret Marvel project during the pandemic.
“At first when I started auditioning it was just Untitled Marvel Project,” Atim said. “And there are a lot of projects that use like alias names as well at the moment. And then only once you get further in the process or if you get a re-call or whatever, do they start to seed you little bits of information. I mean, I found out my character name when I went for my costume fitting. Everyone was like, ‘You’re playing Sara right?’ I was like, ‘I guess? Maybe, sure. We’ll go with that. Why not?’ Yeah, it’s like a whole different world. In a way that’s kind of exciting sometimes, a bit difficult, because you also wanna do your best and you’re not quite sure what you’re grappling with. But it worked out.”
During the interview, the two were asked about the films that have played huge roles in their lives. While Atim pointed to “Big,” Lowden discussed the classic kids sports film franchise “The Mighty Ducks.”
“It doesn’t get talked about enough, ‘Mighty Ducks,’ but I wanted at one point to then become an ice hockey player,” Lowden said. “And failed miserably. But me and my brother got Rollerblades in a tiny little room in our house and it felt like an arena and we would go about there watching the Mighty Ducks films and we just reenact the Triple D … I think my brother and I went for a trial in Edinburgh, an ice rink and it didn’t work out. I think the guy took one look at us, he knew the passion was there and the sense of drama but the skill was severely lacking. So yeah. Almost became a skater.”
The Cannes Film Festival took place from May 17 to May 28. Watch the full video above.
