• Tye Sheridan plays opposite Sean Penn in "Black Flies" by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire where they play a duo of New York paramedics.
  • He delivers an intense performance that has strong assets to impress the jury.
  • He had already come to Cannes in 2012 for "Mud" by Jeff Nichols.

Tye Sheridan has grown up since Jeff Nichols' Mud for which he came to Cannes in 2012. He was then 15 years old and now 26 when he comes to present Black Flies by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire at the Cannes Film Festival. He plays a paramedic who teams up with Sean Penn in this intense film, a nightmarish headlong flight through the streets of New York.

"We have been preparing this film since 2018 and we have sought to make the viewer's experience as realistic and immersive as possible," he told 20 Minutes. The actor is so invested in front of his older partner that we would see him win an acting award by styling his elder at the pole.

"I don't think about it," admits this charming young man who has also been seen in Paul Schrader's The Card Counter, Bryan Singer's X-Men Apocalypse, Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One. I think I am already very lucky to have had such great experiences at such a young age. Luck certainly, but also unfailing determination and a lot of work to be credible in his roles.

To prepare for Black Flies, he's been touring with New York City paramedics for weeks since 2018. "I learned a lot of medical procedures for my role," he jokes. I'm not saying I could save a wounded person, but I'll know how to try. »

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Tye Sheridan has, of course, matured since he was 15 years old. He readily admits that. "I'm not sure the years have made my job as an actor any easier," he says. What I gained in technique, I lost in carelessness. When you're a teenager, you do things naturally, without asking questions. It is only later that we understand things. »

This is the case for the way he appreciates his presence in Cannes. "As a teenager, you don't realize anything," he recalls. We take everything as if it were a little self-evident. I remember most of all the applause at the end of the sitting. I never had so many people gathered in a movie theater. »

Tye Sheridan is now a hardened professional, co-producer of Black Flies. He will be seen next year in Justin Kurzel's The Order about a group of white supremacists facing Jude Law. "I am now aware of the unique opportunity that an invitation to the Festival de Cannes represents," he admits. We bet that he did not miss that of impressing the jury.

  • Cannes Film Festival
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  • Sean Penn
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