Marion Cotillard in 'The Morning Show.' Apple TV+ Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text [This story contains spoilers from episode four, season four of The Morning Show, "Love the Questions."] Going into the fourth season of The Morning Show, not much was known about the role Marion Cotillard had signed on to play for her first TV series. The Oscar-winning French actress was playing a character who only had a name - Celine Dumont - and a brief description ("a savvy operator from a storied European family"). Now four episodes into the Apple TV+ series' fourth season, viewers have met the show's new woman in power. Related Stories TV 'The Buccaneers' Renewed for Third Season at Apple TV+ TV Apple TV+ Extends Peanuts Deal Through 2030 "I wanted to be part of a show that is so smart, that is questioning a lot of things I'm interested in: power, media, politics and feminism, obviously," Cotillard says of joining the cast of the media drama led by executive producers Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, who co-star as ambitious anchors Alex Levy (now an executive) and Bradley Jackson, respectively. The latest episode, "Love the Questions," also pairs Cotillard on screen with Billy Crudup, as the actor who plays ousted CEO Cory Ellison makes his way back to the media company at the center of the series, which recently merged with its largest competitor. In their scenes, Cory and Celine muse about the timely perils of AI and if he's in love (last week's episode finally got Cory and Bradley together after three seasons of will-they-won't-they drama) - and they bond over Cory dropping the bomb on Celine that CEO Stella Bak (Greta Lee) is having an affair with her husband (Aaron Pierre). "Being part of this really makes you question yourself deeper, and I think we need this. We need entertainment that questions ourselves," says Cotillard, who expands on her Morning Show role below. *** Your showrunner, Charlotte Stoudt, said she so excited when they found out you were a fan of the show that she immediately went, "How can we sweeten the pot" to get you to play new season four character Celine Dumont. So, how did they sweeten the pot and get you to say yes? Oh, well, I have to say it was easy. I was a big fan of the show. I had watched the two first seasons in three days, and then the third season I was a regular audience member waiting each week to see what was coming. I wanted to be part of a show that is so smart, that is questioning a lot of things I'm interested in: power, media, politics and feminism, obviously. Was Celine Dumont, the newly introduced and ambitious board president at NBN, a fully formed character by the time they presented her to you? It was a character description. They sent me three episodes. I had never done TV shows before, so I really didn't know how it worked, and I found out quickly that those three episodes would be my only material I would get for a while, and that I wouldn't have the whole story before I started shooting. So it was a different experience. I'm used to having the whole story and knowing where the character is going and where the story ends. But I didn't know where she would go, so I was kind of anxious because it really put me out of my comfort zone but excited at the same time. We had the first table reading and Billy Crudup, whom I worked with twice, came to me. He knows how I work; he knows what kind of animal of an actor I am. We have a similar process of preparation and of searching the authenticity through the arc of emotion that a character will go through. He came to me and was like, "This is for your first TV series." I was like, "Yeah." He's like, "OK, trust them 100 percent. They know where you will go. You will not know. Like, ever. Not until shooting the last episode." I was like, "Oh, wow." And he said, "Just be a happy puppet. You can trust these people. They're so smart, amazing and sometimes they will ask you things that don't really fit your idea or imagination about the character, but they know better than you because they have all the information." So I actually found it very exciting. It's like life. You never know what's going to happen next, even if you plan. I started to really enjoy that process very early on thinking, "Let's jump into the unknown," which is something that I love to do. And the fact that you know you can trust the people you work with, and that the trust is even more real because you have to trust the whole process and mechanism? It was something that was easy to do. It actually got me very excited. Marion Cotillard with Billy Crudup in The Morning Show season four, episode four, "Love the Questions." Apple TV+ We will eventually get insight into Celine's vulnerabilities, but in these first episodes, she comes in exuding power, from everything she