Manuela Osmont shot by Brian David
As precarious as it can be, young Hollywood sometimes gets it right and picks a winner. Actress Manuela Osmont is definitely that.
And it looks like Osmont might be trading places with Kristen Stewart, who just made history by winning a Cesar award for Clouds of Sils Maria and says she’s decided to stay in France to work.
To Variety, Stewart explained, “The reasons why people make films here in France are very different from the reasons why people make movies in Hollywood, and I prefer it here a little bit.”
Quite the opposite, Osmont, born in France, has completely fallen in love with the City of Angels and plans to stay. And we’re glad to have her, actually.
Raised between France, England, Colombia and the US, Osmont isn’t a newcomer to the international entertainment industry. She attended the Cours Florent Acting School in Paris, before traveling to Los Angeles to train at the Stella Adler Academy of Acting.
Her first film was Gnossienne, recently accepted as an Official Selection of the Cannes Short Film Corner. Manuela plays a newlywed who loses her unborn child. Despite her husband’s efforts to bring her back psychologically, she is unable to deal with the loss and takes her own life.
Osmont says, “The movie itself is really sad and delicate.”
Not exactly the kind of role most would like to take right out of the gate; but Manuela has never been one to shy away from a challenge.
Trained and performing on stage, she’s managed the tricky madness of Lady Macbeth and even played King Claudius in Hamlet. Truly, this is one actress who can not be intimidated.
“I’ve been on stage for most of my life,” explains Osmont. “I’ve done a ton of French and British plays ranging from Samuel Beckett to Shakespeare.”
“A ton” is not an overstatement, in fact. One look at her curriculum vitae for stage alone, and it begs the question: How old is this girl?
She seems wise beyond her years and her portfolio, again, far too prolific.
But one look at her and she screams beautiful youth. Then her social media pages, such as Vine, reminds you, yes, she is young Hollywood.
Yet how many of these rising stars can say their favorite role is playing the opposite sex in the Sergei Upgobkin play Slavs?
“I played a very old Bolshevik,” Manuela explains. “I had to wear men’s clothing, with a silver wig, old age make-up. And he was blind, so I wore a white contact lens.”
Not only must actors transform physically, the stage is also one place she can not hide a lack of knowledge. Osmont is a professional who does her research every time.
“I had to learn about the entire political and historical context in Soviet Russia before the fall of the USSR in 1991,” Manuela recalls.
Her other film work has included Mariana Can, in which she plays a prostitute, who becomes a novelist’s muse. Shot in the California desert, where it gets as low as 35-40 degrees at night, Osmont, of course scantily clad throughout the film, said the mostly-night shoot was extremely difficult.
“But overall it was a fantastic experience,” Osmont rebounds. “I loved working on Barbra because she is so unapologetic and a what you see is what you get type of gal.”
Acting in Vice-Versa by Italian director Mario Mazzarella, Manuela again tested her boundaries with this story of a man and woman who find out they are both being unfaithful to one another—with the same woman.
But it wasn’t that subject material that tested Manuela. Rather, it was that the film is a comedy. Also, the director is known for working very quickly and only allowing a few takes.
“I discovered it’s actually very hard to keep a serious face while saying and doing ridiculous things,” admits Osmont.
It’s hard to envision Osmont doing many “ridiculous things” in her career, however.
Her plan does include staying away from horror altogether—because she says it freaks her out even though it is fake—and she also has an interesting take on beauty.
“I don’t want to put myself in a box. And even though there are some incredibly talented and beautiful actresses, I think there is still that stereotype that pretty girls can’t act. I personally find it completely unsatisfactory and even quite boring to play the ‘eye candy’ in a movie, and I try to stay as far away from those roles as possible,” the young actress attests.
Given she fluently speaks English, French, and Spanish and is also “very good” at Italian and German, “although I’m not perfectly fluent yet,” Manuela says her linguistic expertise and athletic agility have given her the capacity to embody a variety of characters.
In addition to playing tennis and golf a lot, she also rode for the French Dressage Team. Riders work their entire lives to make it that far, but Maneula chose to pursue acting instead of horseback riding.
Oftentimes, all roads lead back to one.
In an upcoming role in the film Untamed, directed by Keline Kanoui from Switzerland, Maneula plays a young orphan whose father was a drug dealer. The girl’s mother got killed during a DEA raid on their home when she was four-years old.
The girl has a horse that can not be tamed and will be killed for his meat, unless she is able to train him in one week.
Manuela’s horse riding skills are obviously perfect for this role. She says, too, she knows exactly what it’s like to take care of rare horses, as well as the “rigor and strive for perfection required in every competition barn.”
Although she won’t ride or do the stunts for the film, Maneula’s comfort in the stable will obviously translate well onto the big screen.
She adds, “And I’ve also had my fair share of crazy stallions!”
Her father is French and mother is Colombian, so Manuela gets called for roles from European, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and sometimes even Indian parts. Already this year, Osmont has three films in development. So it’s likely you will see her on many screens all across the globe.
But if you happen to live in LA, you might just see her heading out with friends for a night in Hollywood, “the best place on earth.”