January 16, 2005 30:53
A Wonderful 30 minute documentary-interview with Vanessa. Excellent!
THE ICON OF THE WEEK
We are, now, gonna welcome Vanessa Paradis, who will be in the theaters on Wednesday with “Mon Ange”, a beautiful movie. She has come a long way since “Joe Le Taxi”. After being booed, she, today, is loved by everyone! Before watching her interview, which was recorded, that interview is not live, she came to the studio to record it in December because she is, right now, in the US with her family, here is her portrayal by Olivier Trives:
Claudie Ossard (producer): She makes people dream!
Mouss Diouf (one of Vanessa’s oldest friend and French TV actor): She’s an icon. Everyone knows her!
Franck Langolff: She is inhabited by a flame.
Bruno Cras (journalist): She is a star even though she doesn’t like that word!
C.O.: She started really young and she took her public by the hand, and …I think that they observe her and her life, even her encounter with her lover. And…It’s ideal!
The off screen voice: Vanessa Paradis or the story of a fairy tale. Seven movies, four albums, for a career that the whole France knows the beginning of, by heart!
A clip of Vanessa as a child, singing Emilie Jolie on the TV show “L’Ecole Des Fans” is shown.
OSV: Vanessa is then seven years old, she will have to wait another seven years to be able to put her voice on the song that would make her the Lolita of “la chanson francaise” (French Music)!
F.L.: She didn’t try to imitate one artist or another because she had no knowledge of all that! She expressed herself like a little bird. And the little bird sang! She could barely dance. We surrounded her to make it look pretty. We put saxophones and fake black guys! She was a little birdy.
OSV: And the little birdy sold more than one million singles. An enormous success, which would also become a real hell! Some scream that she is a product of marketing! In 1987, in the media or in the street, hating on Vanessa Paradis is very fashionable!
M.D.: She really suffered! She lived it very badly because she is a very very ultra sensitive girl.
A clip of an interview of Vanessa, recorded in 1995, is shown:
Vanessa: If I have been able to take revenge for all the things that have been said about me, it wasn’t by climbing on a table and screaming: “You have said this or that! Look what I’m gonna do to you now!” It was simply by taking pleasure, in living my life, in my work, and by being happy too, to be recognized by my peers.
OSV: And the recognition Vanessa Paradis obtains it first in the movies in 1989. She makes “Noce Blanche”. A movie that was difficult to make for the young actress. But, the result is praised by everyone. Vanessa Paradis will receive a Cesar for that movie at the age of eighteen. The same year, she also wins a “Victoire de la Musique” (a French Music Award). In 1990 Vanessa has cried a lot!
A clip of Vanessa receiving her Cesar, crying, and her Victoire de la Musique, crying, is shown.
OSV: The Victoires de la Musique are also an opportunity for an homage to Serge Gainsbourg, who has just signed every song on Vanessa Paradis second album.
F.L: I think that Serge fell in love (he laughs). I think that he fell in love with her, which is normal, and suits his public image! When I say in love…He loved that adventure. Voila. So, he gave the best of himself. He took refuge in a hotel, he wrote for her.
OSV: And Vanessa knows how to pick her entourage. After the legendary Gainsbourg, there will be the American Pygmalion, Lenny Kravitz, for an album in English. In movies too, Vanessa grows up, with Jean Becker and also Patrice Leconte, who directs her in “La Fille Sur Le Pont” in 1999. Lately, it is Serge Frydman, “Mon Ange”s director, who fell under the spell of Vanessa, the tightrope walker!
Serge Frydman: She is fearless! She tries things. She’s like someone who walks on a wire and can fall at any moment. She does it without any safety net!
OSV: An acrobat in the glamour too, she seduced the advertisement and the fashion worlds. In 1989 she is a bird of paradise for an Haute Couture brand’s perfume, of which she also is the muse today! And, when a feminine magazine celebrates its fifty years, they call her name! Yet, the star, Vanessa Paradis, has also had some flops in the theaters. Her albums never reach records! But, Vanessa is an icon, and that, you can’t improvise it!
Tina Kieffer (Marie Claire’s editor): To be such a fashion icon, you have to have had succeeded in many areas! It’s not only about having style and the right handbag! And what’s interesting with Vanessa Paradis is that she’s never had a huge hit, with the exception of “Joe Le Taxi”, which was huge! But, she’s always been a success because she was esteemed. She is somebody that is rare and when she does something she does it well.
OSV: And Vanessa Paradis cultivates her rarity! It took her seven years to come out with her last album and it was already four years ago. An album named Bliss, in English. Need to say that since 1998 there has only been happiness between Vanessa and the man of her life Johnny Depp. An happiness for which she kept her distance from the show business! Actually, if there was a little flaw to find to Vanessa, it would be:
M.D.: She’s an hermit, when she’s in her familial cocoon, her love cocoon, well, there you have it, she won’t move!
OSV: And that is maybe why, Vanessa and Johnny already constitute a mythical couple.
B.C.: They are a mythical couple and what’s extraordinary is that it is without trying to make people talk about them, and by living a quiet life in the south of France and in the US, and by trying to have the career that, they want. And apparently, nowadays, Vanessa Paradis wants to hold on to her career in the movies. They are famous and that’s what it is to be a star! It’s to succeed in making people think about them without having to make the media talk about them often!
Marc-Olivier Fogiel: And getting out of her cocoon, ladies and gentlemen, Vanessa Paradis, on France 3! She takes a bow! Good evening Vanessa. Thank you for being with us tonight! “Mon Ange” is coming out next week, a Serge Frydman movie. Good evening Vanessa! You are gonna make Guy Carlier cry. He is used to be mean to our guest but tonight he is intimidated to receive you!
Guy Carlier: I know now, how it feels when a star comes in! Now, I’ll be able to say that I know. Thank you Marc-Olivier, it’s like a Christmas present!
M.O.F.: The last time this happened it was with Bernadette Chirac (the French first lady)! So it’s Bernadette or Vanessa! (They all laugh). Thank you for being here Vanessa.
G.C.: An angel has entered the studio!
Vanessa: Oh! Thank you.
M.O.F.: An angel… Vanessa Paradis! As we saw it in the documentary, four albums, seven movies. So, really, a resume that’s not very long? Even though it is really amazing! But how do you explain that “angel” status? The public screaming: “Vanessa! Vanessa!” How do you explain it?
V.: I have no ideas. I don’t know…It may be because I pose for Karl Lagarfeld for Chanel or that I put on beautiful gowns and beautiful hairdos!
M.O.F.: The fact that you stay absent also, the fact that you’re not always in the public eye. It helps creating an aura about you?
V.: To be missed certainly helps! I think that it’s the same thing in life.
M.O.F.: But you don’t miss us at all, right? When you’re in your cocoon with your family, as your friend Mouss Diouf said it. You don’t miss the media, the public and all that? You’re fine without?
V.: Yes. (She laughs).
M.O.F.: But people are gonna hate you for saying that!?
V.: No. The public, no. Because… I’ve never been bulimic of my job. Of adventure, yes. Maybe, it is because I started so young? I’ve worked a lot in the first ten years of my career! It wouldn’t stop! And, when you don’t see an actor or a singer on screen, it doesn’t mean that they’re not working! Moreover, there are things that I don’t do in front of cameras. Also, it’s not really my thing to give interviews if I don’t have any work to talk about! On TV, I would like to speak only of my work. And, as you said, I don’t work very often! (They all laugh). I only come on TV in those moments so it’s not often.
M.O.F.: But, when we see you in a documentary like this one, that tells the story of your career, we can see that people were nasty with you, in the beginning? And we didn’t even tell everything about your love stories with all of your exes! You were all over the place!
V.: Hem, with all of them?! They weren’t that many! (They all laugh).
M.O.F.: I may have exaggerated in the way I said it! I meant with famous people. With some of them you were on the covers of a lot of magazines! We can all remember that song of Florent Pagny “Feuilles Qui Roulent …”(a song that he wrote about the tabloid). You are tired of that period and voila…You’ve lived in the media light in a very big way, for a very long time! So now, when you’re with your lover and your children, you don’t want that anymore?
V.: Yes. I think that’s what it is! And maybe it’s very easy to say that I’m not running after a career or success, because it was offered to me, in the very beginning! So today, in comparison with someone who has struggled for years and who wants to be successful…Because success, for an artist, is the freedom to choose to do what we want! So, I am the spoiled child. I’ve been offered those things.
M.O.F.: You’ve said: “I am extremely lucky! I have never struggled, even though I don’t deserve it more than anyone else. I am not greatly talented! Really, I’m extremely lucky!” Do you really think that? That you don’t have that little extra bit of soul, like you know who said (he’s referring to some lyrics from Michel Berger)?
V.: I don’t know. I’m not saying that I don’t have any talent at all. You can’t do this job without talent or work. But really, with all the people I have worked with! I was lucky enough to make an album with Serge Gainsbourg, when I was only seventeen!
M.O.F.: He was in love. (Laughs).
V.: No! No. In love…I know Franck Langolff! What he meant to say was that we had a beautiful adventure. There was nothing ambiguous, at all!
M.O.F.: When you look back to where you‘ve come from, you said that you’ve avoided disaster? You’ve come a long way!
V.: Well. I mean, when I look back…There was so much happiness. It was a life very rich in experiences.
M.O.F.: Yes, but there was still people spitting at you in the streets?
V.: Yes. That was awful. But at the same time… “Joe Le Taxi”, at fourteen years old! I traveled throughout the world. At fourteen, I had already seen the whole wide world! Which is something that I love to do, traveling. I had so much, so evidently the price to pay was high too!
M.O.F.: And the Midem? You were booed, whistled at for four minutes straight! You still sang your song to the end!
V.: Yes.
M.O.F.: Wasn’t there moments when you said to yourself: “but f##k you!”
V.: Hem…
M.O.F.: Yes! (They laugh). Let it out. Frankly?
V.: Well, this happened to me at an age when I couldn’t understand! At that age you’re not even finished, you don’t know who you are, who you will become! So, when you’re attacked and you have to defend yourself in front of an entire country! It was absolutely ridiculous! But, I also had some responsibilities in all this. I didn’t express myself properly at the time, I was aggressive.
M.O.F.: You used to wear things that were revealing?
V.: Yes. I was fourteen, I dreamt of only one thing and that was to be Beatrice Dalle (a very sensual French actress)! I wanted to be a woman!
M.O.F.: But, you weren’t aware of the fact that you were a tease? As you said it then: “a girl who teases old gentlemen, that’s pretty much what I could read in the eyes of women!” You really weren’t aware of that? I mean people were calling you “whore” at the time?
V.: Oh! Yes! Among other things! But, no. At that time, I wanted to be a woman. And, when you wear skin-tight clothes like that, you think that men are looking at you from head to toe, when really they’re just looking at your ass! You don’t think about that. Just the fact to be looked at, and not to be looked at as a child, that’s what you wish for, when you want to cut corners. And, I became totally paranoid! I always walked with my head down, looking at my shoes. And, I kept on going to school. It was really awful!
M.O.F. reading the drawing: “I had the same dentist than Beatrice Dalle!”(They laugh). That’s a beautiful compliment! That’s part of your charm and Beatrice Dalle’s!
V.: Well, maybe that’s where my luck comes from. I have “les dents du bonheur” (a French saying tells that having a gap in between your front teeth brings you luck! We call that “happiness teeth”.) and, I always hear that: “but why doesn’t she fix her teeth?”(They laugh).
M.O.F.: The epiphany was Brisseau’s movie?
V.: Yes. That’s true.
M.O.F.: So really, there was A before and An after, that movie?
G.C.: Why didn’t you like that movie?
V.: No, I didn’t say that I didn’t like it. It was making it that…Claude Brisseau is a very peculiar character and he really isn’t very nice. And, making that movie was, really, very difficult. It was at that same time, when people were really nasty with me! It was difficult, but that movie has changed everything for me, in the way people used to see me! It’s at that moment that things started to turn around.
M.O.F.: It was written: “a star is born” in The Figaro and Telerama (French magazines), the same ones who used to boo you and found you crappy! And, about the critics, you said at the time: “I feel like there is something fake in all that, this sudden, exaggerated recognition, that passage without any transition from “the hated kid” to “the child star”! The critics, who had dragged me in the mud, were praising me to the skies!”
V.: Yes! They were spineless! (They all laugh).
G.C.: That’s surprising!
V.: Surprising, no. I must have given them something that they liked more. Something that made them believe that I wasn’t just a puppet!
M.O.F.: It was then that everything started, with Gainsbourg as we said earlier, and then with Lenny Kravitz and the moment when, tired of the pressure, you just left for the US! At that moment…
V.: Yes, well that’s a pretty thing to write in the magazines: “She leaves everything!” But simply, it was a lot of different things. I certainly had the urge to live somewhere else! Again, to travel, I adore that!
M.O.F.: But were you running away from something?
V.: No…I already had been to New York and that city fascinated me! I wanted to speak English, really speak English, and to live somewhere else! I found myself walking in the streets alone, buying my groceries, doing anything! Basic things! And, American people have the quality of being very open minded and not very often grumpy and to, when they pass somebody they don’t know in the street, go: “hi! Hello!” It makes life easier! I was walking in the streets and nobody was looking at me, and people weren’t spitting at me! They weren’t pulling on my hair, pointing their finger at me, there were no whispering! And, there you go. But, most of all, I had in mind to make an album in English, with Lenny Kravitz. So, I wanted to prepare myself for that, and to be able to understand what people were telling me, and to speak English!
M.O.F.: And, I was amazed! Because, I absolutely loved the album that you made with Lenny Kravitz! I saw you on stage at the time. I thought that it really resembled you! But, reading the interviews that you gave after that, you have said: “Ultimately, the album that resembles me the most is Bliss because it’s the one for which I wrote lyrics! But, then, they made me do something that wasn’t like me at all!”
V.: Oh! No, nobody made me do anything.
M.O.F.: They proposed you something that wasn’t like you but you did it without really thinking about it!
V.: No! No. What do you mean without thinking about it! No. I picked the songs, I chose Lenny Kravitz and I absolutely loved the songs that he proposed me! No, simply, it was the way that he wanted me to sing that wasn’t very natural for me.
G.C.: It was too melodic?
V.: No, simply… I don’t know how to explain it! …You just can’t improvise yourself to be a Marvin Gaye or a Billie Holliday! You can sing their songs but in your own style! And, he wanted me to sing in the way that he sings songs.
M.O.F.: And you did it for love?
V.: No…
M.O.F.: To defy?
V.: No, I did it because it suited perfectly the style of those songs.
M.O.F.: Earlier, you said that New York was great because people there didn’t bother you. And, hop! You go and become an item with The American star, Johnny Depp! You leave for the US and you fall in love with the most famous, and one of the best looking ones! You put yourself in the same can of worms, Vanessa?
V.: Yes, well I didn’t choose it. It just happened to me!
M.O.F.: How? Tell us about it! When you say that it just happened to you, it sounds like it was him and it couldn’t have been anybody else!
V.: Well, yes. That’s what it is, the love of your life, isn’t it?
M.O.F.: I don’t know! How did it happen for you? You knew it was gonna be him? You met him and just by shaking his hand, you were shivering?
V. laughing: Well, yes! That’s how it happened!
M.O.F.: That’s what happened?
V.: Yes. Voila!
G.C: Of course, that’s what it is, the love of your life!
M.O.F. talking to G.C.: Really! And for you it happened like that too? The shivering part too?
G.C.: Yes, like that. When I met the love of my life, it was just like that!
M.O.F. talking to V.: And you knew that he was the right one?
V.: Yes. You don’t ask yourself any questions! You’re taking a chance, to get hurt, but really, it feels so natural, so obvious. And you become totally insouciant and, I don’t know, you just go for it!
M.O.F.: And you did go for it. Besides, over there they call you “the woman who tamed Johnny Depp!”(Vanessa laughs). Was it difficult? (They all laugh).Holala! It seems like it wasn’t easy?
V.: No! That’s not what I mean! It’s just that, he’s absolutely not tamed. He doesn’t need to be. He’s the most amazing person! Absolutely not the bad boy of Hollywood! He is the greatest gentleman that I have ever met in my life! He is the fairest boy, the most brilliant and the most intelligent… (They laugh).
M.O.F.: Well, you love him, there’s no doubt about it!
V.: No, but it’s true!
M.O.F.: The father of your two children.
V.: It’s someone that’s, besides all of the qualities and the talent that everyone knows he has, he’s such a good person. And, he is so fair, to the people he loves of course, but also to others! He’s a genuine good person.
M.O.F.: We imagine you as the Femme Fatale, Vanessa Paradis! But when we read your interviews, when you speak of your love life, not at all! You say: “My greatest happiness nowadays is to take care of my man. I want him to feel comfortable, I like for him to have a good meal when he comes home, I like to run him a good bath, for him to have all the buttons to his shirt, I like knowing how to care of him when his sick!”(They laugh).
V.: Well, it’s crazy how they get you to speak! Actually, I must be a puppet, to talk like that!
M.O.F.: But that’s not how it is?
V.: Oh! Yes. I’m probably going to disappoint some people by saying that, but, our life as nothing to do with some upscale Hollywood party! That’s really not our thing!
M.O.F.: Your life style today, what is it?
V.: Well. It’s something that’s absolutely ordinary, but marvelous and very simple. People who are on TV are just people, not better or worst than anyone else!
M.O.F.: You are aware of the fact that you have been absorbed by your love life, your cocoon, as your friend Mouss Diouf said it? A lot of people we’ve talked to, to prepare this show, have told us the same thing: “Vanessa! Yes, we love her, but she’s gone, she left us, she left to live her own life! We know that she still loves us just as much, but we don’t see her anymore!”
V.: That’s true. I still love them. And, I often think about the friends of mine that I don’t see at all, or not as often as I used to. But, I don’t know...Having children changes everything, it’s the only thing that matters, they are what matters and… days are to short! So, you run everywhere, you do your job, but after that,…your children… how could I say that? Each second of their life is not gonna repeat itself the next day so…
M.O.F.: It’s your priority?
V.: Yes.
M.O.F.: On your tour… How long ago was that, your tour?
V.: It was in 2001.
M.O.F.: In 2001, three years ago, some of the people who were working with you were frustrated, because they were saying: “We give her everything, our best, and then she flees, as soon as it’s over, to see Johnny Depp and her children!”
V.: But, when you say people, which people are you talking about?
M.O.F.: Well, people on tour with you, people around you.
V.: No. And I didn’t even tour France in an helicopter! I was in a bus, I was living in the bus. I was, where the technicians prepared for the show, lived, ate! We were eating together. We spent part of the day together. Now, it’s true that when the concert is over, it’s between eleven and midnight! So, I go to bed! And, voila! I go to bed because the next day I have to be at my best on stage! So, no, I didn’t segregate myself from everyone at all! To the contrary, we were all together. I don’t know you told you that?
M.O.F.: Today, you’re here to talk about a movie titled “Mon Ange”. And this time, for the first time, it is you, who are The experienced actress of the movie, next to a young actor, who is brilliant! He’s name is Vincent Rottiers. Habitually you are next to a Gerard Depardieu, an Alain Delon, a Jean-Paul Belmondo, a Jean-Pierre Marielle, a Jeanne Moreau, a Daniel Auteuil! This time, it’s the first time that you are the main star of the movie! Do you think that it’s a turning point in your career?
V.: A turning point? Well, what’s a turning point is that it’s my first “grown woman” role!
M.O.F.: It’s a sublime road movie!
V.: Yes, it is.
M.O.F.: It’s the story between that young boy, Vincent, who in the movie is called Billy, and you, who are called Colette. Let’s watch the preview, shall we? You’ll tell us about it afterwards?
V.: Yes.
M.O.F.: And really, it resembles you because Colette is obsessed with having children! And for you, it’s not an obsession, but it was your fulfillment?
V.: Yes.
M.O.F..: Let’s watch the preview!
A clip of the preview is shown.
M.O.F.: It comes out on Wednesday! “Mon Ange”. Don’t miss it! Serge Frydman’s first movie. The flight of two people looking for love! You and him. A story between the two. It begins in a very motherly way and it ends…well, you’ll know, when go see the movie on Wednesday! You, who must be receiving, I don’t know how many scenarios each week, or each month! What makes you sign up for a movie?
V.: Wanting to share that adventure! It’s the story, which does everything! And, it’s also the director, who is going to give the tune and the pace to that story! Generally, it’s always with some strong, intense, extreme stories! And, each time, I want for it to be very different, from the last one. And finally, wanting to put on that new character’s costume!
M.O.F.: Does the fact that the movie is successful, or not, matters to you? Or, do you, as soon as it’s over, just go back to your “cocoon” and it doesn’t matter, because you don’t have to prove anything anymore? ... Or, is it important? This Wednesday, are you gonna call your producer on the phone and ask if there’s a lot of people in the theaters? Or, is it really the last of your worries?
V.: No. The future of the movie does not change anything for me! Because what matters the most, was making it, its adventure, what we have shared! Then of course, I prefer when it’s a success!
M.O.F.: But, you know that even if that movie isn’t a success, which we don’t wish for you because it really is a very different and unique movie, you’re still going to be proposed other ones? Because of your status, you won’t be penalized whether it’s a big hit or not?
V.: Actors are, usually, very protected from that! It’s, weirdly, rarely your fault in the movie industry! Whereas, in the music business, it’s quite the opposite! Even if you don’t write your own songs!
M.O.F.: You get criticized, even if you don’t write your own songs?
V.: Yes! The pressure and the responsibility are ten time more important! But, when your lucky enough to work with Serge Frydman and with Claudie Ossard, just for them, you quiver! Because, for them, it’s certainly more important than for me!
M.O.F.: Voila.That’s what it is? It’s more important for them than for you! Because, your urge is somewhere else, even if you wish for it to be successful?
V.: Yes, of course! I prefer for it to do good! It’s the same thing when I make an album and it doesn’t sale as much as the other ones!
G.C.: It’s what you share with those people? I imagine that this is the goal!
V.: Yes, of course, that’s the best part of it! But, even if the outcome is not great, it doesn’t take away anything from the adventure! I am more proud of my last album, which as sale less than the three other ones that I’ve made previously, than of the other ones! And, the next time, I’ll make it the same way! And, voila!
M.O.F.: And, when you look back, to the seven movies, do you tell yourself that you f**ked up, for some of them?
V.: Frankly, there are some that I like less than others! But, each time something fabulous happened, each time I met someone special. I’m always left with something positive!
M.O.F.: That’s what you looked for each time. Here, in this movie, Colette wants to be a mother, which you are twice, of Lilly Rose and Jack. You have said: “Before I became a mother, I had a lot of success in my professional life, but my private life was quite sad, melancholic. I thought that it was a waste to live so many things, so many amazing experiences, just for myself!” Today, that’s all that matters, right?
V.: That is the most important thing, but it’s not the only one that matters! It’s still very important for me to be able to make some music, or movies, or something else!
M.O.F.: You are a singer more than you are an actress nowadays?
V.: I don’t know!
M.O.F.: Well, think about it in public! Today, do you feel more like an actress or a singer?
V.: I don’t know. Concretely, I am making music, so I’m more of a singer! (Everybody laughs).
M.O.F.: Is there going to be another album?
V.: Yes. It’s not done. But yes. I write the songs very slowly but, it’s a little clearer than last year!
M.O.F.: The young actor, who plays magnificently in this movie, you say that “he is a gem, a pure diamond, that he’ll still be here in fifty years!”
V.: Yes! I am sure of it! I am sure of it because he is an incredible actor and a good person. So, with all that, only good things can happen for him!
M.O.F.: That’s what we wish him! And, to you only good things have happened, a star, in love, two beautiful children, heaven on earth?
V.: Yes.
M.O.F.: You said: “I would not have believed it. I would have said that it is impossible to give so much happiness to one person! I don’t know if I deserve it?”
V.: I don’t know who deserves so much!
M.O.F.: And when you say: “There are sometimes when, I tell myself that something that I care about very strongly is gonna be taken away from me.” It’s something that you’re obsessed with! You say: “I am so lucky that something really bad is ban to happen to me!”
V.: No. It’s not an obsession. It’s a thought that I have from time to time. No. If it was an obsession, it would spoil everything else for me!
M.O.F.: We urge you on to go see “Mon Ange”! It comes out on Wednesday! It’s Serge Frydman’s first movie! Thank you very much, Vanessa Paradis! We wish you a good trip back to your cocoon, with your man, your children, your evenings… spent running a bath! Thanks to you! Thank you Guy! We’ll meet again next week! Good evening, you’re watching France 3. In a few moments, the news. Thank you Vanessa!
English Transcript
