Sophie’s Choice

In film maker Eric Rohmer’s current release, “Boyfriends and Girlfriends,” 23-year-old Sophie Renoir portrays a brazen, modern young woman. Her character, Lea, is seemingly pragmatic about relationships, in sharp contrast to her emotional friend played by Emmanuelle Chaulet.

“I’m not like that myself. I don’t lie all the time--only once a day,” she laughs. “I’m more romantic, less aggressive than Lea.”

The daughter of noted French cinematographer Claude Renoir, she is the fourth generation of the clan in the arts. Her great-grandfather Auguste was a titan of Impressionism, and Jean, her great uncle, directed such film classics as “The Grand Illusion” and “The Rules of the Game.”

“It’s nice to be a Renoir, better than being a Landru (France’s real-life Bluebeard). But I know most of my famous relatives only through family stories. My connection with them is remote. I don’t paint. In fact, I’m very, very bad at it--I’m living proof that talent is not inherited.”

At 14, Sophie did a cameo in a French film and caught the acting bug. However, her parents were not supportive and tried to discourage her in rather novel fashion. They enrolled her at the Tracy Roberts acting school in Los Angeles.

“Americans have a reputation as very hard workers. My parents thought I’d see how competitive acting was and give up. Wrong! The opposite thing happened.”

In 1981, Rohmer saw her photo in an actor’s directory and cast her in his film “Le Beau Mariage.”

“I worked maybe a week,” she recalls. “But afterwards he’d call and take me and friends to the movies or a cafe and talk. He has a fascination with young people that you can see in all his films. I think he’s 63, but I say about him that youth has no age.”

Eventually, Rohmer told her that he “had an idea for a movie.” For the next 18 months, he listened, asked questions and “Boyfriends and Girlfriends” evolved. Renoir says some of her lines and comments wound up in the script, but often in the mouths of other characters.

Currently preparing for a Moliere play in Paris, she says she’s looking forward to more film work, possibly even in the United States.