First Look: Mélanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus, The Real Lead Character In ‘Inglourious Basterds’

Yes, Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds,” is evidently set for the 2009 Cannes Film Festival according to official confirmation from Variety. Meanwhile, Vanity Fair has an interesting little photo spread with the cast in costume, it’s pretty good, but it doesn’t really show us much that we haven’t already seen in photos and the trailer (but Brad Pitt enthusiasts will post it regardless).

Much more interesting to us is the first real look at French actress Mélanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus. While the film is being sold and marketed to audiences as a Brad Pitt film, it’s Laurent’s character (who’s barely shown in the trailer) who is the true protagonist of the story.

The film begins with her character in in German-occupied France, where she witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazis. Shosanna (Laurent) narrowly escapes and flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema. All this kick-starts the film into motion, and let’s just say revenge is the central part of her storyline.

But much of her part in the film is spoken in French, shot in black and white and obviously, she’s not a well known name in North American, but she’s essentially the lead of the film and Tarantino has already said as much (“Shosanna was always a main character,” Tarantino said in a Feb, 2009 interview).

The other cool shot in the spread is a group shot of most of the lead cast, Christopher Waltz as Colonel Hans Landa, Omar Doom as P.F.C. Omar Ulmer, Daniel Brühl as Frederick Zoller, Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth as Sergeant Donny Donowitz, Diane Kruger as Bridget von Hammersmark, and Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine. Two things of note, Omar Doom’s character is not in the originally leaked script, so it’s possible Tarantino wrote in a part for his friend that he seems so fond of (he had a small role in “Death Proof”). “Inglourious Basterds” hits theaters this summer on August 21.