Duflot’s wary relationship with Max comes to a head during a tennis match between the two, which becomes more like a war than a friendly game. “The tennis match scene came about because Ridley is a great lover of the sport,” Crowe says. “He was bemoaning to me over a glass of red wine that we didn't have any battle sequences in the movie. That got me thinking. And we had the whole sequence set up by the tennis court, and a sequence playing tennis in flashback. And so I made the suggestion that perhaps we find a way of getting these two men to do battle on the clay court.”
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (“Mon homme,” “Les gens normaux n’ont rien d’exceptionnel”) plays Nathalie Auzet, the local notaire handling the legal papers on Max’s behalf; veteran European character actor Jacques Herlin (Visconti’s “The Stranger,” Fellini’s “Juliet of the Spirits”) plays the irascible Papa Duflot; and French comic actress Isabelle Candelier (“André le magnifique,” “Versailles rive Gauche”) plays the vigneron’s wife and chateau’s caretaker, Mme. Duflot. (Scott calls Candelier “the French Lucille Ball.”)
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