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L’Espresso – no. 1, year 56 – 7/JAN/2010

Restart 2010
Artists / Charlotte Gainsbourg

I’M DAUGHTER OF EXCESS

Relationship with father.
Mother’s advices.
Childhood in the shade of scandal.
The desire of normality and the love for the husband and the kids.

Conversation with Charlotte Gainsbourg
by Benjamin Locoge
photos by Dominique Issermann

Daughter of two trasgressive and genial personages, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, Charlotte Gainsbourg is every bit as good as her parents. Clever, courageous, she’s got that kind of ambiguity that intrigue, makes public curious and makes her seductive. The actress and singer born in London – 1971, in the core of a scandal for her interpretation in “Antichrist” movie by Lars von Trier, is back with a new record.
At last, after many movies, you are beck to music with the album “IRM”.
«With no hurry. After the album with Air I waited for a long time before thinking about the next one. My record label asked me who I wanted to collaborate with. I’ve already met Beck a couple of times (Beck Hansen, american rock musician) and it was clear that my collaboration had to be with him. I wanted to do something different».

Did you know which music genre to follow?
«No I didn’t. Beck asked me how I’d have liked to begin. For this reason in the record we pass from blues to pop music to rock songs full of percussions. And, because the recording sessions took place in several times, they portraits the moods I felt in this period».

How was the album recording comparing to the previous one?
«I know studios all along. When I was a child I used to follow my parents when they were recording. And I’ve had to bear up to return there. This time has been different, we have been at Beck’s in United States. It has been a face-to-face dialogue, more intimate. I’ve been shy, as usual, but whitout the weight of the past. I really liked working with him. I’m wondering about some events to sing live but I don’t know what I would be able to do. I’d like to feel confident, I have to find a way to do this in a calm way».

Why don’t you talk about it with your mother?
«Actually, the main encouragement in this direction comes from her. She convinced me that this is a must do experience and it would be a pity not doing it. But I fear to face the public».

Two years ago you suffered cerebral haemorrhage and your life was in danger. How do you feel?
«After the accident I couldn’t work for six months. I was immobilized. I couldn’t leave Paris, I was unstable. I had to find a project to immerse in, to refresh my ideas. More than Beck, Lars von Trier helped me. I felt terror-stricken. I managed to run away from myself and from my preoccupations and to put them in the service of him. When I was younger I beleft death couldn’t touch me, I beleft in nothing. But when I’ve been so near to pass away I suddendly understood how much I was frightened. And as soon as I rallied, I committed myself hard on it».

Your children appear in the record…
«Yes, by chance. Ben, the boy, was playing with the drum set and he didn’t know he was recorded. Beck fixed his rythm on the title and all of us found it good. My daughter had fun with the studio intercom by groaning monster voices…perfect ones».

Are they conscious about what you are doing?
«Ben is twelve, so yes he is. Alice instead is only five, so she is too young and she doesn’t care about yet. Ben is curious, he is starting to really love music. But I try not to annoy them with reports about what I’m doing. I realize that it could be boring…from my own experience».

How old were you when you realized what your parents were doing?
«I have vague memory about my youthness before my 12 years. I have been recognized right off for what I was doing, not only regarding my parents».

Did your classmates know who you was?
«Sure. Since I was a child I built an armour around myself, and I don’t repent. On my request I changed school every year, so I didn’t work up any attachment. I was quite detatched, always passing by».

Are you applying the same strategy with your kids?
«Oh no! They guide me, I follow and I listen to them. When I was a child my parents exposed me much, I don’t want to imitate them, times have changed. And I dont’t have their character, I early felt a need to protect myself. For a long time I was silent about personal matter. When my love life with Yvan (Attal, her husband) began and when my children arrived I refused to talk about. It took time, today I easier tell about myself but it seems to me that I can’t pass certain limits».

What happened after your parents’ divorce?
«We live hard times under paparazzis’ lenses. My mother closed the door to any kind of intrusion. This teached me how was the life with media and I learned that protecting myself was the best thing I could do».

Till your first movie with Yvan, “My wife is an actress”…
«We really have fun shooting that movie. It teached me to relax, to understand that I was mistaking in painting all black. Life with Yvan is way lighter and easier, we could laugh about ourselves».

When will we see another movie with you together?
«We hope to start shooting this year».

Have you watched Joann Sfar’s movie “Serge Gainsbourg, vie héroïque”, dedicated to your father?
«Not yet. I red the script but I don’t wont to know too much. It’s Sfar’s movie, I can’t intervene. I watch this fact with detachment because it’s a so intimate matter. Sfar didn’t know my father, and it’s better so».

Are you popular?
«By the street people look at me but don’t come towards me. Abroad is nice, I’m totally unknown. When I go back in France they look at me but they mainly talk about my parents».

Would you like to be recognized only for who you are?
«No, because I owe everything to my parents, I’m very proud to be their daughter. Sometimes the matter become boring when I realize that in ten interviews I talk mainly about them and not about me. Moreover, I have to live whit the absence of my father: he isn’t with me anymore and when I go back home after a long talk about him…it’s always painful. But I really respect the people’s desire to talk me about him.»

How is your relation with your brother Lulu?
«He lives in Boston and studies at Berkley, I rarely see him but I adore him. He’s my little brother even if I never passed a real life moment with him. We have the same father, it’s a really strong connection».

And what about yours sisters?
«I lived together with Kate. Our memories lives in the same house. I lived in harmness with Lou for all my youthness. I adore her, she was my dolly. I see her more rarely since I left from my mother. We met again when she became mother too».

You wanted to create a Gainsbourg museum in your father’s house, in rue de Verneuil.
«I stopped just in the moment when its creation would have started. Because, after all, I need that home to be mine, only mine».

Do you go there, sometimes?
«No I don’t, but I know it exists. I keep it…just like it has ever been. I like to preserve a part of my father intimate and secret, the rest is common knowledge. At the last moment I understood there was a limit not to be passed».

What makes you happy in your life?
«My children, Yvan, and when we are all together».