As you may already know that next Thursday (May 26th) is Astrid’s 25th birthday so I thought it would be a great idea for us fans to put together some birthday messages for her.

Since I start this project a bit late so I decided to give you guys few more days to submit your messages. So the deadline for all submissions is June 2nd, 2011

You could leave the message for Astrid in this post or submit to admin@astrid-bf.com and please put Astrid Berges-Frisbey Birthday Project in the subject.

EDIT: I’ve gathered up all the messages I’ve received so far and put them into the Birthday Project page.

I’ve added the photos of the photocall and premiere in Madrid to the gallery. Enjoy!

Born in Barcelona to a Catalan father and French-American mother, rising star Astrid Berges-Frisbey makes her English-language debut as mermaid Syreena in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and spoke to IGN while on the film’s London set.

IGN: When you get the call that you’re cast in a Pirates film, after the initial excitement, is there a moment when you think, ‘how am I going to play a mermaid’?
Astrid Berges-Frisbey: Yes! (laughs) I thought, well what is the mermaid about? We’ve never seen any mermaid in the other Pirates movies, so you don’t have an idea. I told my little sister – she’s six-years-old – I’m going to play a mermaid, and she said wow. And I realized, seeing my little sister, how dreamy it is for children.

IGN: But the mermaids here aren’t like the child-friendly ones in, say, Disney’s The Little Mermaid…
Berges-Frisbey: The mermaids in this movie are really interesting. They’re not common mermaids, they’re not really human, they move more like a fish. They’re more animals, something else in between, and it’s what is really interesting for an actress to work on. They can be really dangerous and really strong. And they’re pretty girls and perfect girls but they’re not always good girls is what I can say.

IGN: Can you talk about the costume?
Berges-Frisbey: Part of it is CGI, and it depends on whether or not I’m in the water or not. So it changes all the time in all the scenes. Sometimes I’m completely a woman. And [in the water] I will have a tail and because this part is CGI, most of the time I’m wearing [motion capture] dots, they use the new technology. So it’s like I have a new special costume.

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IGN: Is it your first time working with motion capture?
Berges-Frisbey: Yes. You can’t really imagine before you’ve done something like that because it’s the same form of acting but everything changed. And they’re using new technology as close as they can to respect my acting all the time.

IGN: How do you prepare for a role like this beforehand? Lots of swimming?
Berges-Frisbey: A bit of swimming, and a bit of work to hold my breath.

IGN: So how long can you hold your breath?
Berges-Frisbey: I don’t know really, but I remember when I was in kind of a box full of water, everybody came to me [and asked] ‘How do you hold your breath all this time? You’re really a fish!’ [laughs] Some of them were holding their breath in front of the monitor, [saying] ‘I can do it as long as she does it!’

IGN: What else can you tell us about your character?
Berges-Frisbey: She has a lot of time with a group of pirates because at certain times they need her. And she has a special relationship with [the character of the missionary] Phillip in the movie. She is sometimes more human than a real human. And she’s really strong too in her mind.

IGN: You mention you speak two languages, French and Spanish?
Berges-Frisbey: I speak three – French, Spanish and Catalan, because I’m half-Spanish and half-French. And I’m learning English.

IGN: Growing up in France, you’ve experienced Paris but how is it working in Hollywood, an English-speaking environment?
Berges-Frisbey: Well it’s where I really learned to speak English mostly. It was like a challenge to be comfortable with the crew completely. And in Hawaii, it’s impressive how much people work on a movie like that. There is a really big action scene with the mermaids and I’m part of it, of course. And sometimes when I was in it for hours and hours, I forgot that it’s all fake. It really looks like it’s real. You really feel like a little girl. Discovering all these things, is magic.

IGN: What did you think of the first three Pirates movies when you watched them?
Berges-Frisbey: I think I was 16 when the first came out and of course, you have to enjoy it. It’s a perfect, entertaining movie with really detailed characters. And what I like in this coming one, is we find again the precision of the characters. Everybody was really excited about the script.

IGN: So is shooting a Pirates film as much fun as it looks?
Berges-Frisbey: I remember one day, when I had been filming in Hawaii for maybe a week, and I saw Geoffrey [Rush] and Johnny [Depp], and Kevin McNally too. And I think I’ve never seen two or three actors all having such fun before, it’s unbelievable how much they love their respective parts, and how much they like to act. And for a young actress like me, it’s like a dream. I want to have this much fun after years and years of my career.

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I’ve added some gorgeous outtakes from Astrid’s Jalouse magazine and L’Officiel magazine shoot along with an unknown photoshoot to the gallery. Thanks to Ivonne for the Jalouse one.

I’ve added the photos of Astrid at the Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides premiere in Munich, she looks fabulous in Yves Saint Laurent suit and Jimmy Choo shoes.

Alasdair Wilkins —Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey uses her mermaid wiles in the new Pirates of the Caribbean movieWe recently talked to Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, who plays the main mermaid Syrena in the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. She told us about her mermaid history and what makes Syrena different from mermaids we’ve seen before.

Mermaids are the big supernatural additions to the latest entry in the Pirates franchise, as they pose a formidable challenge to the various humans trying to get their hands on the mythical Fountain of Youth. The mermaid Syrena becomes crucial to the pirate Blackbeard’s plans to gain eternal youth, which forces her into prolonged contact with humans for the first time – including with Sam Claflin’s hunky and virtuous missionary character Philip.

To prepare for her role, the Spanish-French actress researched the entire history of mermaid legends, going all the way back to Homer’s Odyssey up to such modern works as the Daryl Hannah movie Splash and Disney’s The Little Mermaid. She explained that, while mermaid legends were originally about sailors being seduced and killed by sea monsters, they have recently morphed into something a little more romantic, beginning with Hans Christan Andersen’s original “Little Mermaid” story.

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We asked her what were some of the more unexpected things about mermaids, and here’s what she revealed to us:

I learned that mermaids were originally women-birds, and it was a wrong translation that made them fish-women, which is interesting and funny, don’t you think? It’s so interesting, you can find myths about mermaids all over the world, all around the world. I recently got told that Japanese [legends say that] if you eat a mermaid you could get eternal life. I think that’s just amazing because of the story I’m a part of, because they need a mermaid’s tear for the fountain of youth.

Bergès-Frisbey said a big part of getting into character to play the mermaids came from the people in charge of the CGI, which create the huge fish tails the mermaids sport int he movie. She also said she got a lot of help from the script, which went into considerable detail about this particular conception of mermaids, and from director Rob Marshall, who helped guide her performance as Syrena. She explained that there are elements from almost every known mermaid legend in the movie, going right back to Homer’s Sirens.

And yet, as she explained to us, Syrena and her sisters represent something unlike anything we’ve seen before:

The mermaids in the movie don’t look like any other mermaids we have seen before on the screen. So to find the way they move and it’s kind of a range between a human and an animal. I think they’re more creature in the form of a woman than a woman with a fish tail. Sometimes they react like animals in self-defense and protection. And because the humans are so cruel — they use the mermaids — the mermaids react. They are magical creatures who are sometimes more human than the people who are properly human.

That said, most of the mermaids in this movie are indeed quite nasty towards humans, with Syrena representing the highly notable exception. She told us why the kindness of Philip helps change her, removing some of her hostility towards humans:

My mermaid is a bit different because she reacts differently. She meets a different person with a good heart. This is the first times she’s seen someone like Philip, and I think she takes the risk of taking away her layers of protection based on how Philip reacts. I think this is a marvelous symbol of a relation between two different species that could be a symbol of people from two different cultures, two opposite cultures, and they each find something in the other one and make them find out each person is not that far from [him or herself].

We asked her about what we don’t find out about mermaids in On Stranger Tides – whether these mermaids are young or ancient, where they come from, or the big question: could there ever be a merman? But Bergès-Frisbey said she likes to keep things like that mysterious:

I like all the mystery about the mermaids in the movie, like how magical they are, why they live in this place and why they appear. I think every sailor wishes to see a mermaid in his life, so there’s such a mystery around them. At the same time, they are nervous to cross a mermaid because it will definitely be the end of his life. And I like this mystery around them, like you don’t really know how young they are. I like all the mystery around that.

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I’ve added the photos of Astrid at the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and the Chopard Trophy Prize Giving Ceremony during the 64th Annual Cannes Film Festival.