In the charming role of “Dix pour cent,” the eccentric Antoinette in “Antoinette dans les Cévennes,” and the courageous Julie in “À plein temps,” Laure Calamy has built a career on playing unforgettable female characters. Her new film, “C’est quoi l’amour?” by Fabien Gorgeart, takes her to Rome in the midst of a comedy about divorce and blended families. It’s a subject that clearly resonates with her.
Laure Calamy, a happily married stepmother
In the film, Laure Calamy plays Marguerite, the former wife of Fred (Vincent Macaigne), who must fly to Rome together to get their marriage annulled. Marguerite has moved on with Sofiane (Lyes Salem) and raises two daughters from her two marriages. A blended family in all its complexity and joy, as she described it on France Inter on Monday, April 27, 2026: “We see a family with its quarrels, its vitality. It’s not shown as something going wrong to ultimately say: the traditional model is better. This life equally represents the so-called traditional model.”
These resonances are not just fictional. As a stepmother in real life, Laure Calamy speaks of this bond with genuine tenderness: “My stepson has a fundamental place for me and I have one for him. And that, is very beautiful.” An unbreakable bond, proving that one can build their family, member by member, happily.
Laure Calamy has no biological children, and she proudly owns it
However, what Laure Calamy has not built is a biological motherhood, and she openly accepts it as she does with everything else. Since 2018, in an interview with Paris Match, she confessed: “I think I will never do it, but it’s ambiguous. I’m forced to ask myself the question because there’s this biological clock.” But beyond her personal choice, it is the social expectation that deeply annoys her. A feminist since childhood, the Parisian recalls feeling the injustice early on, “when I heard that in grammar the masculine prevailed over the feminine.”
A deeply political awareness that also influences her way of talking about motherhood: “There is a guilt-inducing gaze from society that says: ‘A complete woman is a woman who has a child.’ I want to talk about it so we leave people who have no particular desire alone.” And she drives the point home with her characteristic humor: “I think we do humanity a favor by not having children. There are too many people on this planet. So, stop bothering us!” A bold tone that rings true from a woman who has always rejected labels, including that of mandatory motherhood. And who proves, through her relationship with her stepson as well as through her roles, that love takes many forms.
