Eye Haïdara Reveals Intense Training Paranoia for ‘Mata’ Role!

In the espionage film “Mata,” director Rachel Lang takes us deep into the world of French intelligence. The movie follows Mata, played by Eye Haïdara, an action service agent urgently repatriated to France after a mission goes awry in Niger. She then makes every attempt to locate her teammate Antoine, who is still in Niger, portrayed by Raphaël Personnaz.

The cast is rounded out by Joséphine Japy, Franck Morand, Hakim Jemili, Mélanie Laurent, and Chloé Jouannet, who all contribute to this high-stakes thriller currently showing in theaters.

Intense Training

To authentically portray this world and adequately prepare her actors, Rachel Lang, who has been a reservist in the French Army for 20 years, chose a radical approach: a real-life covert training course modeled after intelligence service methods.

For three days and nights, the actors were subjected to scenarios crafted with specialized instructors, closely mirroring DGSE operations. The experience was foundational, serving as a gateway into the film and their roles, as the director explained to us:

“Eye Haïdara, Joséphine Japy, Raphaël Personnaz, Franck Morand were all there. I participated too because it was time to create a team. For three days and nights, we underwent exercises that I can’t say much about, but that really allowed the actors to feel what this profession is like and the adrenaline connected to these missions.

It was crucial for them to organically experience the profession. By the time they got to the set, my job was done: they were real secret agents. Nothing felt ‘acted’.”

By the time they got to the set, my job was done.

Lang also emphasized the impact of this immersion on the film’s authenticity: “The challenge with this kind of profession is that people have preconceptions. Here, they had undergone experiences that made them live it from the inside, in their own way.”

Eye Haïdara as a Genuine Secret Agent

Deprived of phones, money, and identity documents, the actors underwent intense training that left a profound impression, as confirmed by Eye Haïdara during our show Grand Ecran: “Initially, I didn’t quite see what Rachel was aiming for when she proposed it. But then there was this course. For three days, I had no phone, no money, no ID, and I was on a mission.

After three days, it really leaves a mark on you. The missions you’re given put you under a type of pressure you’re unfamiliar with. You’re in real life, in Paris, in places you know, but in a posture that’s not your own. And when you act, there’s ‘Action’, then ‘Cut’. Not here. At one point, you’re asked to do something, and you think: ‘Are you serious?’

I left this course with a feeling of paranoia that stayed with me for several months.

We could receive a message at 1 or 2 AM saying: ‘Meet in 20 minutes’. When you come out of there, you have something ingrained in your body. I left this course with a feeling of paranoia that stayed with me for several months.”

And it’s precisely this tension that Rachel Lang was seeking: “That place these agents have in their bodies, in their everyday lives, that’s what she wanted us to touch. And it was very effective.”

This extreme training pays off on screen. “Mata” emerges as a film where secrecy, compartmentalization, solitude, and uncertainty are not just narrative devices, but an almost physical reality.

Far from American blockbusters and their heroic figures, Rachel Lang delivers a film rooted in reality, focusing on internal tension. Here, there are no spectacular over-the-top actions: intelligence is portrayed in its most opaque, fragmented, and profoundly lonely aspects.

“Mata” is currently in theaters.

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