Marie-Pierre Castel: Interview from the 70's [Eng + Fr]
This is an article/interview with Marie-Pierre Castel apparently published in the 70s in a French magazine. Here Marie-Pierre is referred to by using one of her pseudonymes—Marie-Pierre Tricot.
The article features multiple quotes of the actress in which she shares a few amusing anecdotes from the filming process as well as other details related to her and her sister Catherine’s cinematographic career.
Let’s thank Marcel Burel—the member of the Facebook group Jean Rollin Society who shared the scans of the original article in French. I’m including them on this page, as well as my translation to English that I made to help a broader audience learn more about twin sisters Castel—a memorable twin couple from the French 70's exploitation films.
Now, let’s get down to business.
The article features multiple quotes of the actress in which she shares a few amusing anecdotes from the filming process as well as other details related to her and her sister Catherine’s cinematographic career.
Let’s thank Marcel Burel—the member of the Facebook group Jean Rollin Society who shared the scans of the original article in French. I’m including them on this page, as well as my translation to English that I made to help a broader audience learn more about twin sisters Castel—a memorable twin couple from the French 70's exploitation films.
Now, let’s get down to business.
Scans of the Original Interview in French
Translation to English
So Young and Already a Vampire!
If you like dark films, you will appreciate the irony of fate that made of Marie-Pierre Tricot one of the queens of horror.
Oh my God, what’s happened to her? A young girl is stretched out at the bottom of a huge staircase, her long blonde hair is scattered over the shoulders [the author makes a mistake here: she is describing a scene from The Nude Vampire, where Marie-Pierre and Catherine Castel had dark hair]. And, like a large blooming poppy, a red puddle is blossoming around her…
—She passed out, quick!
The inert body is lifted by strong arms, a few drops of cordial slipped between the white lips of the young girl.
—But how could she hurt herself? Everything was so carefully planned!
Scared, the crew of the film Vampires [apparently, here the author is talking about the film The Nude Vampire] left the setting. The searchlights are turned off, and the director, Jean Rollin, is anxiously bending over the young girl…
—Well, yes, that was me, the heroine of this sad adventure. I wasn’t injured, but a much more horrible thing happened to me.
And Marie-Pierre Tricot, 22 years old, adds laughingly:
—My role implied that in this scene I’m walking down this gigantic staircase, then rolling down to its bottom in a magnificent fall. To make this scene more realistic, the director had previewed to stretch me out in a beautiful puddle of blood. For this purpose, I was holding between my teeth a small capsule of theatrical “blood”, so to speak, a mixture of hemoglobin and, ugh! nail polish… Enthralled by the heat of the action, I accidentally swallowed, while rolling down, part of this horrible mixture. So horrible that I fainted from disgust.
For Marie-Pierre, this sad misadventure is nothing but a ransom for the glory: in the French cinema, she holds the impressive title of a ‘horror queen’: she plays, in fact, with a lot of brio, the vampires, the witches, the monsters of science-fiction, and other “typical” characters.
This title is even more impressive, since Marie-Pierre does not absolutely owe it to her physical appearance. Her blondness is that of a young ingenuous girl, and her size seems to devote her forever to the role of Alice in Wonderland.
She is petite, even very petite—1.56 m. [5.12ft]—and thin like a wire. Her big blue eyes reflect much rather the innocence of a newborn than the machiavellianism of a bloodthirsty vampire or a seasoned witch.
—I believe in the opposite, that my physical appearance is an asset, affirms Marie-Pierre; as the viewers are surprised to see such a not classical “evil woman”; I must change them, pleasantly, I hope, the tall and slender witches, with the eyes of ember and the dark hair of Gorgone.
Marie-Pierre doesn’t have, in fact, the classic “beauty” of horror queens. She doesn’t have anything from Raquel Welsh, in One Million Years B.C., from Ursula Andress, in She or from the beautiful English Barbara Steele, who, in The Pit and the Pendulum, explodes on the screen with her 1.72 m. [5.64 ft], her dark hair, and her green eyes of a feline.
Her type of a woman places her among the antipodes of the vamps of the pre-war horror films such as Elsa Lanchester who was the Bride of Frankenstein and Kathleen Burke, the panther woman from Island of Lost Souls. No, her own kind is the one of a small kitten who we like to hear purring near a fireplace.
Probably, only two French women of the small “format” had managed to establish themselves before her in the world of horror: Danny Carel, in The Hands of Orlac and Mill of the Stone Women, and, around the war, Simone Simon, who had managed to lend with success her young and fresh face—as round as the one of Marie-Pierre—to the feline from Cat People by Jacques Tourneur…
The physical appearance of Marie-Pierre is not, however, misleading: in real life it’s a young and wise girl who doesn’t smell neither ashes nor sulfur; she likes to watch the television—especially westerns—and to take care of her interior between the reading of two scenarios.
—She passed out, quick!
The inert body is lifted by strong arms, a few drops of cordial slipped between the white lips of the young girl.
—But how could she hurt herself? Everything was so carefully planned!
Scared, the crew of the film Vampires [apparently, here the author is talking about the film The Nude Vampire] left the setting. The searchlights are turned off, and the director, Jean Rollin, is anxiously bending over the young girl…
—Well, yes, that was me, the heroine of this sad adventure. I wasn’t injured, but a much more horrible thing happened to me.
And Marie-Pierre Tricot, 22 years old, adds laughingly:
—My role implied that in this scene I’m walking down this gigantic staircase, then rolling down to its bottom in a magnificent fall. To make this scene more realistic, the director had previewed to stretch me out in a beautiful puddle of blood. For this purpose, I was holding between my teeth a small capsule of theatrical “blood”, so to speak, a mixture of hemoglobin and, ugh! nail polish… Enthralled by the heat of the action, I accidentally swallowed, while rolling down, part of this horrible mixture. So horrible that I fainted from disgust.
[Apparently, the scene being discussed. But looks like after the accident, they gave up on the idea with blood.]
For Marie-Pierre, this sad misadventure is nothing but a ransom for the glory: in the French cinema, she holds the impressive title of a ‘horror queen’: she plays, in fact, with a lot of brio, the vampires, the witches, the monsters of science-fiction, and other “typical” characters.
This title is even more impressive, since Marie-Pierre does not absolutely owe it to her physical appearance. Her blondness is that of a young ingenuous girl, and her size seems to devote her forever to the role of Alice in Wonderland.
She is petite, even very petite—1.56 m. [5.12ft]—and thin like a wire. Her big blue eyes reflect much rather the innocence of a newborn than the machiavellianism of a bloodthirsty vampire or a seasoned witch.
—I believe in the opposite, that my physical appearance is an asset, affirms Marie-Pierre; as the viewers are surprised to see such a not classical “evil woman”; I must change them, pleasantly, I hope, the tall and slender witches, with the eyes of ember and the dark hair of Gorgone.
Marie-Pierre doesn’t have, in fact, the classic “beauty” of horror queens. She doesn’t have anything from Raquel Welsh, in One Million Years B.C., from Ursula Andress, in She or from the beautiful English Barbara Steele, who, in The Pit and the Pendulum, explodes on the screen with her 1.72 m. [5.64 ft], her dark hair, and her green eyes of a feline.
Her type of a woman places her among the antipodes of the vamps of the pre-war horror films such as Elsa Lanchester who was the Bride of Frankenstein and Kathleen Burke, the panther woman from Island of Lost Souls. No, her own kind is the one of a small kitten who we like to hear purring near a fireplace.
Probably, only two French women of the small “format” had managed to establish themselves before her in the world of horror: Danny Carel, in The Hands of Orlac and Mill of the Stone Women, and, around the war, Simone Simon, who had managed to lend with success her young and fresh face—as round as the one of Marie-Pierre—to the feline from Cat People by Jacques Tourneur…
The physical appearance of Marie-Pierre is not, however, misleading: in real life it’s a young and wise girl who doesn’t smell neither ashes nor sulfur; she likes to watch the television—especially westerns—and to take care of her interior between the reading of two scenarios.
Speaking of Jean Rollin's vampire films, I created these humorous
T-shirt designs with the Castel twins. Download them for free (as well as my 50 other b-movie shirt prints) and order a shirt from any print-on-demand service you like.
.jpg "Lips of Blood T-Shirt (1975 Film by Jean Rollin)")
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%20T-Shirt.jpg)
The young girl started her cinematographic career with the young director Jean Rollin—who, at thirty years old, became, on the other side of the camera, another glorious figure in the genre of horror.
—My first film, The Nude Vampires [the interview contains an error—the film is called The Nude Vampire—in singular form], was an odd experience, comments Marie-Pierre. I had an impression, during the whole shooting, that I was playing in front of a mirror. And she adds laughingly:
—I didn’t have, however, any visions, but my role was, in some sense, a replica of the one of… my twin sister who resembles me in a surprising fashion…
What misunderstandings we had during the shooting of the film! We would really make all our film setting comrades mad, unwillingly; the poor makeup artist, especially, would tear his hair out out of despair, because as soon as he would think that he had finished with one of us, he would see another one coming absolutely clear of all makeup. At the beginning, he thought that we played a bad trick and got rid of his chef d'oeuvre under a faucet.
—My sister doesn’t do cinema these days anymore. This is, without doubt, for better, in the sense that apart from ‘The two orphelines’ or ‘The two headed woman’ there are not many roles for us [It seems that here Marie-Pierre is talking not about particular films or roles they really had played previously, but about types of roles suiting twins in general. Or maybe I don’t know her filmography well enough].
—My first film, The Nude Vampires [the interview contains an error—the film is called The Nude Vampire—in singular form], was an odd experience, comments Marie-Pierre. I had an impression, during the whole shooting, that I was playing in front of a mirror. And she adds laughingly:
—I didn’t have, however, any visions, but my role was, in some sense, a replica of the one of… my twin sister who resembles me in a surprising fashion…
What misunderstandings we had during the shooting of the film! We would really make all our film setting comrades mad, unwillingly; the poor makeup artist, especially, would tear his hair out out of despair, because as soon as he would think that he had finished with one of us, he would see another one coming absolutely clear of all makeup. At the beginning, he thought that we played a bad trick and got rid of his chef d'oeuvre under a faucet.
—My sister doesn’t do cinema these days anymore. This is, without doubt, for better, in the sense that apart from ‘The two orphelines’ or ‘The two headed woman’ there are not many roles for us [It seems that here Marie-Pierre is talking not about particular films or roles they really had played previously, but about types of roles suiting twins in general. Or maybe I don’t know her filmography well enough].
Fear is her profession
Marie-Pierre is far from being traumatised by the nightmarish roles that she incarnates on the screen.
—On the contrary, I believe that I like it a lot, she affirms. Because even if the film itself is terrifying for the viewer, the shooting is nothing but a huge comedy full of contingencies, incidents, and extraordinary adventures.
The latest role of Marie-Pierre, the one of a servant-witch in the pay of vampires, was particularly spiced up with contingencies.
—The main scenes were shot in a small village, a few kilometers from Paris, says the young girl, and even though we were trying to be as discreet as possible, we quickly became considered real monsters by the population. Which provoked gags worth the ones of Marx Brothers.
We needed, for example, to shoot certain scenes in the small cemetery of the village: we had chosen to shoot them at night, not only for the ambience, but also not to rouse the villagers. But, my faith, we quickly learned the hard way that they must’ve all been insomniacs!
We were shooting a scene in between two tombs—it was maybe midnight—when we saw, through the grates of the cemetery, small lights twinkling and a dozen bulging eyes watching us. I must say that my heart stopped beating, that’s how I was scared. I really believed that phantoms and ghosts came out of their graves at the twelve strikes of midnight.
Well, no! Those were nobody else but the people of the village who, instead of staying with their noses glued to their television sets, came to see what was happening, being attracted by the light of the searchlights. Imagine their astonishment when seeing us, in our glimmering costumes, with bloody lips, and greenish circles under our eyes—effects of the makeup, in short—frolicking like ghosts under the moonlight.
But, and Marie-Pierre acknowledges this, there are sometimes painful moments. In certain scenes it’s required to play acrobats, strongwomen, serpent-women…
—I’m prone to dizziness, says the young girl, and I almost fainted when climbing a miniscule ladder to reach the wall-walk of an old fort where we were shooting a scene. And two minutes later, I had to grab at arm's length—with my 1.56 m. [5.12ft] and my 45 kg [99.2 lbs]—a gigantic candelabrum of five branches. And how many colds I’ve got when shooting outside, in the wind or rain, dressed only in a veil that, my faith, hardly warmed me!
I remember particularly one scene shot in the middle of the night. It was awfully cold, and I had put on tights, so that I wouldn’t shiver. Well, it was required that I would take them off, under the pretext that there were wrinkles at the knees—like if they were invaded by cellulite!
One thing particularly fascinates Marie-Pierre—the makeup.
—Maybe because I used to work in “the beauty industry”, she says laughingly; as I took off in life as a barber. I always love, like in those days, to change the style, and even why not mention, to scare myself! In everyday life I use little makeup—my natural colors satisfy me—but on the screen I catch up with myself!
One of my best makeups was without doubt the one from The Nude Vampires [The Nude Vampire], where my sister and me, interpret mutants, the beings from the future. We were almost characters of science fiction, and our makeup was very modern, very matching our “extraterrestrial” costumes: immense eyes, very black, bloody mouth, etc. All together was very impressive.
Our body makeup was a miracle of invention, but not very cozy, believe me! We had the bodies covered by armature mixed with plaster to give the impression of relief. It was the most painful to tear them out afterwards. My skin was as red as a crawfish, and I needed a whole day to recover. Our costume designer had also designed very impressive “sets” for us: shackles of iron, metal spikes covering the breast, helmets of extraterrestrials, etc.
The costumes of the next films of Marie-Pierre will be much more reasonable.
—Without doubt, pleated skirts and small khaki sweaters, she specifies laughingly; because I’m playing the role of a young girl who escaped from a reformatory, and who meets, along the way, a gang of bloodthirsty vampires. But this time I’m staying virtuous and fiercely resist the advances of these vampire gentlemen.
Marie-Pierre doesn’t think about staying eternally “tagged”:
—Alright, this amuses me, to be called “the little Draculette” or “the babe Frankenstein”, or even “the little monster”, but I would like, nevertheless, to go out one day of these roles that I know by heart. A western, for example, or even a great epopee would tempt me a lot...
She would be ravishing, in fact, this Miss Horror, with her little round face framed by a large capeline, the shining eyes in the heat of the action, whether with good cowboys or a valorous “d’Artagnan”. Maybe she will even trade with pleasure her accessories such as a coffin, a sharpened stake, or a clove of garlic—the panoply of the perfect vampire—for a peace pipe, a feather of an Indian, and a few pretty totems.
—On the contrary, I believe that I like it a lot, she affirms. Because even if the film itself is terrifying for the viewer, the shooting is nothing but a huge comedy full of contingencies, incidents, and extraordinary adventures.
The latest role of Marie-Pierre, the one of a servant-witch in the pay of vampires, was particularly spiced up with contingencies.
—The main scenes were shot in a small village, a few kilometers from Paris, says the young girl, and even though we were trying to be as discreet as possible, we quickly became considered real monsters by the population. Which provoked gags worth the ones of Marx Brothers.
We needed, for example, to shoot certain scenes in the small cemetery of the village: we had chosen to shoot them at night, not only for the ambience, but also not to rouse the villagers. But, my faith, we quickly learned the hard way that they must’ve all been insomniacs!
We were shooting a scene in between two tombs—it was maybe midnight—when we saw, through the grates of the cemetery, small lights twinkling and a dozen bulging eyes watching us. I must say that my heart stopped beating, that’s how I was scared. I really believed that phantoms and ghosts came out of their graves at the twelve strikes of midnight.
Well, no! Those were nobody else but the people of the village who, instead of staying with their noses glued to their television sets, came to see what was happening, being attracted by the light of the searchlights. Imagine their astonishment when seeing us, in our glimmering costumes, with bloody lips, and greenish circles under our eyes—effects of the makeup, in short—frolicking like ghosts under the moonlight.
 |
| Apparently, the graveyard scene in The Shiver of the Vampires / Le frisson des Vampires (1971) Marie-Pierre is talking about. |
But, and Marie-Pierre acknowledges this, there are sometimes painful moments. In certain scenes it’s required to play acrobats, strongwomen, serpent-women…
—I’m prone to dizziness, says the young girl, and I almost fainted when climbing a miniscule ladder to reach the wall-walk of an old fort where we were shooting a scene. And two minutes later, I had to grab at arm's length—with my 1.56 m. [5.12ft] and my 45 kg [99.2 lbs]—a gigantic candelabrum of five branches. And how many colds I’ve got when shooting outside, in the wind or rain, dressed only in a veil that, my faith, hardly warmed me!
 |
| Apparently, the candelabrum Marie-Pierre is talking about. Scene from The Shiver of the Vampires / Le frisson des vampires (1971) |
 |
| Probably, the wall-walk in The Shiver of the Vampires / Le frisson des vampires (1971) Marie-Pierre is talking about |
 |
| Poor sisters Castel wearing veils in a cold and windy night in Lips of Blood / Lèvres de Sang (1975) |
 |
| Castel twins in Lips of Blood / Lèvres de Sang (1975) |
I remember particularly one scene shot in the middle of the night. It was awfully cold, and I had put on tights, so that I wouldn’t shiver. Well, it was required that I would take them off, under the pretext that there were wrinkles at the knees—like if they were invaded by cellulite!
One thing particularly fascinates Marie-Pierre—the makeup.
—Maybe because I used to work in “the beauty industry”, she says laughingly; as I took off in life as a barber. I always love, like in those days, to change the style, and even why not mention, to scare myself! In everyday life I use little makeup—my natural colors satisfy me—but on the screen I catch up with myself!
One of my best makeups was without doubt the one from The Nude Vampires [The Nude Vampire], where my sister and me, interpret mutants, the beings from the future. We were almost characters of science fiction, and our makeup was very modern, very matching our “extraterrestrial” costumes: immense eyes, very black, bloody mouth, etc. All together was very impressive.
Our body makeup was a miracle of invention, but not very cozy, believe me! We had the bodies covered by armature mixed with plaster to give the impression of relief. It was the most painful to tear them out afterwards. My skin was as red as a crawfish, and I needed a whole day to recover. Our costume designer had also designed very impressive “sets” for us: shackles of iron, metal spikes covering the breast, helmets of extraterrestrials, etc.
 |
| State of the art costumes and makeup of Castel sisters in The Nude Vampire / La vampire nue (1970) |
The costumes of the next films of Marie-Pierre will be much more reasonable.
—Without doubt, pleated skirts and small khaki sweaters, she specifies laughingly; because I’m playing the role of a young girl who escaped from a reformatory, and who meets, along the way, a gang of bloodthirsty vampires. But this time I’m staying virtuous and fiercely resist the advances of these vampire gentlemen.
Marie-Pierre doesn’t think about staying eternally “tagged”:
—Alright, this amuses me, to be called “the little Draculette” or “the babe Frankenstein”, or even “the little monster”, but I would like, nevertheless, to go out one day of these roles that I know by heart. A western, for example, or even a great epopee would tempt me a lot...
She would be ravishing, in fact, this Miss Horror, with her little round face framed by a large capeline, the shining eyes in the heat of the action, whether with good cowboys or a valorous “d’Artagnan”. Maybe she will even trade with pleasure her accessories such as a coffin, a sharpened stake, or a clove of garlic—the panoply of the perfect vampire—for a peace pipe, a feather of an Indian, and a few pretty totems.
Sophie Majeur
Resources to Learn More About Castel Twins
Unfortunately, there is little information about them online, especially about what happened to them later. But here are the sources I know of where you can learn more about them:- Marie-Pierre Castel on Wikipedia
- Catherine Castel on Wikipedia (except for the fact that she directed a film in 2008—that was a different Catherine Castel, a woman with a similar name)
- Episode 1 of the documentary TV series Eurotika—Virgins and Vampires: The Films of Jean Rollin where Catherine says a few words about working with Jean Rollin.
- There is an interview with Catherine made in 2005 on the triple DVD of Lips of Blood released by Encore.
Special thanks to Nigel Parry and Christian Valor who reminded and informed me about the existence of Catherine's video interviews and provided me with the screenshots below.
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| Catherine Castel in 1999, during the interview for the TV documentary Eurotika |
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| Catherine Castel in 2005, during the interview for the DVD of Lips of Blood by Encore |
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