Credit: Far Out / Sean Benesh / Joshua Hanks
Is nepotism always a bad thing?
For decades, the film industry has become increasingly populated with people whose parents have already made a name for themselves (or at least secured themselves good connections), to the point that it’s pretty unavoidable, no matter the scale of a project.
Even making an independent film on a small budget takes miles; few filmmakers have managed to create a successful movie without strong connections to people in the industry, which is a depressing yet truthful reality. An industry as competitive and money-fuelled as Hollywood is always going to give opportunities to those who are in closer proximity compared to those without any way of getting there, even if that means excluding those from marginalised and less privileged backgrounds.
So, in that sense, nepotism is unequivocally unfair, and yet, there are many genuinely talented nepo babies out there who only make the whole argument considerably more complicated. I mean, just look at Sofia Coppola, Laura Dern, Angelina Jolie, Nicolas Cage, and George Clooney, all nepo babies, but they’re all genuine stars in their own right, too. It’s often the case that the leg-up they’re given aids natural talent and creativity (although this is no doubt aided and nurtured by their upbringings, of course).
The film industry will never be devoid of nepo kids, then, which even extends to actors who have been directed by their own parents. Look at Anjelica Huston, who appeared in her father John Huston’s Prizzi’s Honor, which won her an Oscar, or Bryce Dallas Howard, who got a head start in Hollywood from appearing in various small roles in her father Ron Howard’s movies, like Apollo 13 and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
The first actor to appear in movies directed by both parents
Sometimes, though, it must just feel entirely natural to bring your children into your cinematic world, and for Mathieu Demy, appearing in both of his parents’ films was always going to be inevitable. Born to French filmmakers Agnès Varda and Jacques Demy in 1972, he’d make his first onscreen appearance when he was only a little kid, appearing in the end sequence of Varda’s musical abortion drama One Sings, the Other Doesn’t in 1977.
Varda and Demy were an iconic couple, working closely with one another while also establishing completely strong and independent identities as filmmakers in their own right. Demy would make his directorial debut with 1961’s Lola before making iconic French New Wave musicals like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort, while Varda’s feature debut dates back to 1955’s La Pointe Courte. She’d find significant success as the years went on, with Cléo from 5 to 7 becoming her defining masterwork.
The relationship between Varda and the people she included in her work, both fiction and documentary (although she often blurred the lines between the two), was very personal. Take La Bonheur, for example, which featured a real couple, Jean-Claude and Claire Drouot, and their actual children. La Pointe Courte featured many locals from the small town of Sète, where it was filmed, while the filming of Kung Fu Master and Jane B par Agnès V, saw Varda move in with Jane Birkin and her family to shoot for a year, with the young Demy (and Birkin’s daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg) appearing in the former.
Just two years before his father’s death in 1990, the teenager would make an appearance in one of Demy’s films, too. Alongside Yves Montand and Françoise Fabian, the 16-year-old Demy could be seen in Three Seats for the 26th, which would become his dad’s final film.
The younger Demy would go on to have a modest career in the industry, mainly working in his native France, where he notably starred in Céline Sciamma’s Tomboy. Technically, then, he has benefitted from nepotism, but his roles in Varda and Demy’s work, such as starring as the child of a single mother in Documenteur, hardly felt unnatural. As far as having director parents goes, Demy couldn’t have asked for anyone better.
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