Spotted in the street, she is the best actress in Cannes 2025: who is Nadia Melliti, the revelation of the youngest?

When we meet her in Cannes, this Friday, May 16, we are a few hours before her official presentation. But a feeling does not leave us since the middle of the morning and our release of the press screening of the little one: Nadia Melliti has everything to be a beautiful price of female interpretation, if the third feature film directed by Hafsia Herzi did not pick up the Grail.

Eight days later, in the aftermath of the Queer Palm won by the film, it was the name of the actress who resonates during the closing ceremony, and she succeeds the actresses of Emilia Perez, in Wonders Dizdar (Les Herbes Dry), Zar Amir Ebrahimi (the nights of Mashhad) or Renate Reinsve (Julie (in 12 chapters)) that she had never made a cinema before. Or when this youngest becomes a great flamboyant first, which will be released in our rooms on October 1.

“It's a chance and an opportunity”she told us when we meet her. “And I have already done a lot of interviews just before, so I apprehend less this that I am conducting with you.” Perfect therefore.

Allociné: How was the casting? How did Hafsia choose you to be the heroine of her new film?

Nadia melliti :: I was spotted by Audrey Gini, who is the casting director. We met in Châtelet, a place where I walk quite often because I like to go to the quays of the town hall, Pont-Neuf. It is a place that I like and, that day, Audrey appeals to me. At the start, I think she is a tourist and I say to myself: “Is my English up to date?” (laughs) And then, finally, we discuss and she tells me about this beautiful character and the issues of the film, in a very fluid way elsewhere.

So I said to myself: “Come on, why not?” I am quite curious in life, so I told myself that these new learnings could be super interesting and that it was worth trying. But I thought it was a joke at the start: I didn't think it was really serious. Finally it was and I am very happy to have had the opportunity to bring this beautiful character back to Cannes, and especially with Hafsia Herzi, who is a very great director, and to play with Ji-Min Park too, who is a superb actress. So very proud, very honored.

Hafsia Herzi :: I started the cast during writing the script. I had already written three versions, and I quickly asked the production to start the cast as soon as possible, because I knew it was going to be a complicated character to find and that he had to take the time to look for him. So we did a year of casting and, Nadia, I saw her in pictures. It was the casting director who approached her in the street and I immediately had something, very quickly want to meet her. So she passed tests, then I met her and I quickly knew. Very quickly, I knew. I met other people, but each time she was coming back. When we met for the first time and I saw her from the back, I said to myself: “No, but it's her!”

I find myself a little in Hafsia Herzi, so she is really a director towards whom I have a lot of admiration and respect

Nadia Melliti: Originally, I followed a course of Staps (sciences and techniques of physical and sports activities), in the sports field. I had never made a cinema before, nor a theater, so it's a real first time. And it was my curiosity that led me to apply. I did not even know Hafsia's films but I did research after having met her and I was a little interested in her filmography and his career, which is a very nice journey elsewhere. I find myself a little in her too, so she is really a director towards whom I have a lot of admiration and respect.

Hafsia Herzi: Once I found Nadia, I of course adapted the script to her personality. I love to do it according to the people I choose. This is why, often, I ask if they have a passion, if they like sport, what they do … When I met her, she told me that she was doing a little football so I asked her to send me videos, and there I saw that she was doing very well. I found it too beautiful so I told myself that I had to integrate it into the film. Live [de Fatima Daas]she does not do football, but I like to inspire me from people who will play the characters, readjust, rewrite.

How did you work together to keep this natural and spontaneity that you had seen at Nadia on screen?

Nadia Melliti: Everything was very natural since I was enormously surrounded on this shoot, and in a very benevolent and hyper tolerant way as to the fact that I had no experience. Things were simple from this point of view and, you know, we have conversed a lot with Hafsia and Fatima. We immediately had this complicity, this fluidity which made it was not a problem, and I felt very quickly at ease.

Hafsia Herzi: It was a lot of work, rehearsals. I really make rehearsals, a bit like in the theater, and during these rehearsals, we discuss, we will eat, we live. We get to know each other to all feel comfortable and with confidence. And then it was done naturally. But anyway, she really has an intelligence of play. An intelligence of play and understanding. So it was very easy. We had the chance to be able to repeat well, so everything was square, organized. Then, it is according to each socket that we make small readjustments, that we try things on site. But I really had the character in mind, his emotions, his feelings. Everything was precise.

And the result therefore earned her young actress a very beautiful female interpretation prize. And this (small) last does not exclude, in the future, to follow in the footsteps of her director by passing herself behind the camera, even if he is too early to say it according to her. What is certain is that his triumph and the spotlight offered by the Cannes Film Festival have everything to open the doors of a nice career. Actress already, and perhaps a filmmaker afterwards.

Interview by Maximilien Pierrette in Cannes on May 16, 2025