Controversial ‘Lover’ Gives Jane March an Acting Initiation

“The first time I saw the film complete, I sat in the screening room and cried,” says Jane March of her acting debut in “The Lover,” the Jean-Jacques Annaud film about a young French girl’s romance with a wealthy Chinese man in colonial Vietnam. “It was the end of my adventure, the end of my first escapade in life.”

It all began for two years ago when Annaud saw the part-time model’s picture in an English teen magazine. Though she had never so much as taken a drama lesson, March was cast in the leading role of the $30-million movie. Looking back, the 19-year-old actress says that her innocence proved to be an asset.

“I had never done a movie in my life. I had never acted before. I was going to be with a French-speaking film crew in a Vietnamese-speaking country with Russian extras,” says the slight, 5-foot-2-inch actress. “But I didn’t know any different. I just went straight into the deep end. It just seemed normal that we would be working a hell of a lot in a very tough country.”

Rumors of the film’s erotic content stirred controversy in March’s native England and got the attention the country’s tabloid press.

“You really find out who your friends are and who you can trust. That definitely toughens you,” she says about allegations that she had a drinking problem. “With every interview you feel like you lose a piece of yourself, and with every bad review you become just that little bit more bitter. It is horrible in a way.”

The success of the film also has given March the enviable position of choosing her next script. The only difficulty has been finding one she likes.

“I know that I’m a bit of a snob now, because ‘The Lover’ put me up here and I just don’t want to accept anything less than that,” she says with an air of her newfound self-confidence. “I don’t see why I should.”