Karin Viard, Mother and Accomplice: Confessions and Humour on the Red Carpet of the 2025 César Awards

She's navigated through the decades without ever losing that unfiltered tone, that straight-talking charm we all love about her. Karin Viard was back on the red carpet of the César Awards on February 28, 2025, and she didn't walk the steps of the Olympia alone. By her side, a quiet but noticeable presence: her eldest daughter, Marguerite, 26, in a slit black dress with her hair loose, matching her mother like a nod to their renewed closeness.

A mother-daughter relationship that has weathered storms

What strikes you when you look at the two women today is how obvious it is: they're having fun together. Yet, not so long ago, Karin Viard described their relationship as “a relational nightmare”. Yes, you read that right. That was in February 2024, on a TV show. The actress, who had just finished shooting Madame de Sévigné, opened up without holding back: “It was many extremely difficult, very toxic years. And I contributed to it without realizing it, not knowing what to do, trying my best with good intentions.”

What's wild is that it was actually while receiving the script for Isabelle Brocard's film ten years ago that she fully recognized the mirror being held up between the 17th-century marquise and her own life. “I told myself: this is my story”, she recalled. Ten years later, the war is over. Peace, for her, has the gentle feel of a long-awaited reconciliation.

“When you're celebrating your daughter's 25th birthday and you're the only one dancing”

If you still have any doubts, just take a look at Karin Viard's Instagram account. In November 2024, she was celebrating her younger daughter Simone's 25th birthday. And what do you see? A mother in a black Courrèges dress, literally alone on the dance floor, shaking it like a teenager. The killer caption: “When you're celebrating your daughter's 25th birthday and you're the only one dancing.” Alex Lutz himself reacted with a laughing emoji.

This ability to laugh at herself, to share her little moments of loneliness with devastating humour — that might just be the Viard trademark. A mother who was never afraid to talk about sex with her daughters (“Nothing is off-limits”), who raised them to be “free and independent women”, and who now has to “paddle hard just to see them.”

• Marguerite (born 1998): trained in makeup at D-Mai Paris school, she worked behind the brush for her mother on the set of Les Apparences.
• Simone (born 2000): a graduate of the École supérieure d'art et de design de Reims, she made her first film appearances in Polisse and Le Bal des actrices.

The “2D Cardboard Mask”: when Karin Viard doesn't take herself too seriously

And then there's this funny image making the rounds online: the famous “2D Cardboard Mask of Karin Viard”. No one's quite sure who started this joke, but the actress, far from being offended, seems to have embraced this silly spoof of her own face. Because that's also Karin Viard: an actress who can go from intimate drama (The Little Tickles, César Award 2019) to full-on self-mockery in a snap. That ridiculous mask is a bit of a symbol of a woman who refuses to get a big head, even after three César wins and thirteen nominations.

Today, happily in love with Manuel Herrero (married in June 2022), Karin Viard seems to have found that delicate balance between being a doting mother and a free woman. And if she continues to share such raw confessions about her “long, violent years,” it might be to remind us of a simple truth: you don't raise children without scars, but you can always laugh about it later. Alone on a dance floor, or under the spotlight of the Césars.