Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a heart-shattering love story. Set in coastal Brittany in the 18th century, the film tracks the slow-burning romance between a portraitist, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), and the woman she has been commissioned to paint, Héloïse (Adèle Haenel). The film dispels the myth of the one-dimensional relationship between artist and muse, making Marianne and Héloïse reciprocal collaborators—their cumulative love and art entangled.

But Portrait of a Lady on Fire takes on new dimension upon discovering that it was born from a creative and former romantic relationship as complex as the one depicted onscreen—one between Sciamma and Haenel. The director and the actor met while collaborating on 2007’s Water Lilies—a coming-of-age film set in the world of synchronized swimming. After filming, Sciamma and Haenel became romantically involved—and when Haenel won the supporting-actress César in 2014, for her role in Katell Quillévéré’s Suzanne, she ended her speech by declaring her love for Sciamma onstage.

“And above all, I wanted to thank…I wanted to thank Céline…because…because I love her, voilà,” Haenel said, trembly with emotion, in a coming-out that was largely missed by press. Speaking last year to Mediapart, Haenel said, “We had a long and beautiful love affair together.” The actor said that their relationship helped her recover from a traumatic experience she had with The Devils director Christophe Ruggia’s as a teenager, where she said the filmmaker sexually harassed her. (Last month, Ruggia was charged by Paris prosecutors with “sexual assaults on a 15-year-old minor by a person having authority.” Ruggia has denied the accusations, but asked for Haenel’s forgiveness if there had been errors in his conduct toward her.)

“When I talk about people who saved my life, I begin with her,” said Haenel in the same interview. “The relationship I had with Céline was contrary to everything that had happened to me before in life. She was someone who listened to me, she took [care] of what I said, who listened to my anger, and together, mobile, we faced life, we rose up.”

Sciamma has said that Portrait of a Lady’s romance—and the artistic dialogues and collaboration it inspires—mirrored, in certain ways, in their own romance.

“Just as the characters in the film discover each other in a painting studio, so Adèle and I met on a film set,” the director said last year. “We talked a lot about cinema [during our relationship] and we grew enormously intellectually. I also wanted to show that in the film: the lasting, emancipating effect that such a romantic encounter can have on your life.”

Speaking to Vanity Fair about the relationship, Sciamma said, “We’ve been making films for 10 years.” And even though the romantic element of their relationship has ended, “Our conversation around cinema has never stopped. We were always paying a lot of attention to the work of one another, but also making some choices together. Everything I did, Adèle had a part in it in a way, and a lot of the choices she made also I was a part. It never stopped being collaborative. And I really wanted to work with her again…because I think she’s the most amazing actor.”

With Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Sciamma said that she was able to open the conversations she and Haenel had about art, love, and gaze up to the film’s mostly female collaborators, including costar Noémie Merlant and cinematographer Claire Mathon (and ultimately, to audiences). But even though there was a full crew on set, there were moments during filming—when Sciamma was essentially filming a portrait of someone painting a portrait of someone she had once loved—that felt like “a Russian doll situation.”

“Even the dynamic of the sets was really [interesting], because we were in the workshop with the painter who was looking at Adèle, and I was looking at the painter looking at Adèle. And the DP was looking…we were basically Russian dolling. That was really fun, actually, to be playing with these layers,” admitted Sicamma, acknowledging that the public nature of her and Haenel’s relationship gives the film interesting dimension. “The film has no secrets, you know? We were of course aware of the layers, always.”

As for the question of whether conflicts arise when working with an ex, especially on such an intimate project, Sciamma was firm: “That was the most peaceful, my most serene shooting experience, I must say. Really calm, focused. I was never anxious.”

“Working with somebody you know that well isn’t just about, ‘You wrote that character that’s perfect for her…’ It’s a matter of trust and it means that you’re going to take the risk—and the risk wasn’t working together. The film was a risk for me—it was departing from my comfort zone. As an actor, I think she was willing to try new stuff,” Sciamma said. “Everything we know about each other enabled us to discover new things about ourselves on that project.”

Asked whether she and Haenel will continue working together into old age, like Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, Sciamma cracked, “I hope we will age without CGI”—a reference to The Irishman.

“I don’t know,” she said, more seriously. She’s unsure of how many more films she will even make. “I really try to figure out each film as a kind of manifesto for something. And of course, I would love working with Adèle again—maybe we’ll write something together that she will direct? There’s a lot of possibilities. But you know what? When you have that kind of trust, you don’t have to dream…you can go through your present without worrying.”

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