Vanessa Paradis: "As I started very young, it feels like I belong to the people"

It probably took a steely temperament and as much optimistic candor to face, from the age of 14 (Joe le taxi, 1987), a ground swell that carried her to the summits where she remained installed, without too many upheavals, until today. Adored pop idol, always interesting actress, Vanessa Paradis has resisted everything with uncommon vigor and discretion. It would be wrong to believe her confined to a luxurious routine: she has never feared sidesteps or metamorphoses. This is what leads her today to the shores of an unprecedented experience: the theatre.

She made her stage debut at the Théâtre Édouard-VII, in Paris, in Maman, a piece written to measure for her by her husband, Samuel Benchetrit, who imagined her as a hypersensitive woman immersed in a poetic-absurd universe that goes reveal its beauties and its flaws. Facing her, Éric Elmosnino, Félix Moati and Gabor Rassov. We met her when rehearsals started. Lovely in her gypset dress, in a joyful mood, Mademoiselle Paradis prepares a spritz for you, laughs, gets excited, gets carried away. She is delighted with this new adventure, and her joy is infectious. Interview.

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In video, Vanessa Paradis at the Deauville American Film Festival

Miss Figaro. - How was the desire for this piece born?Vanessa Paradis. - A desire for Samuel (Benchetrit, Editor's note), who wanted to write a play for me. The theatre, I had already been offered it in the past, there was even a play that I almost did, but it wasn't the right time. I have stage fright, of course, but the desire is stronger than the fear. I really like the piece. The writing is beautiful, and I also like the idea of ​​the visual breakdown: it could be a movie. And then, I love the story, the themes evoked there, resilience, love, and the final revelation, all bathed in an atmosphere where poetry mixes with the absurd and humor. It's funny and poignant at the same time.

You get stage fright and, at the same time, the stage is your kingdom… I love the stage, I love theatres, I know them well because I sing there more often than in giant arenas. I like the idea of ​​the rendezvous evening after evening, the ritual, the dressing room, the troupe and the raising of the curtain. And the relationship with the public, I know it well too. In music, it is intense, it is sometimes extreme. Nothing happens without the audience: we put on the show with them and for them. It's very physical. In the theatre, I still don't really know how it works. I will be facing a masked room and quieter than that of a concert...

Do you have a theater voice? You can imagine that I have a small voice, because I am a small, petite woman, but that is not the case. I can speak very loudly. Afterwards, there are unknowns: the particular acoustics of a theatre, the range of the voice when playing with your back to the stage, for example. These are things I will learn. But I'm not that worried. When you sing, you're a bit of an athlete: it's very physical to sing. And body language, I learned it. It is a true revealer of emotions.

Do you like theatre? I love it, even if I haven't been there that much. I will especially applaud my friends and girlfriends, like Léa Drucker or Florence Thomassin. I also saw Trintignant, and it was wonderful. In general, I love live performance. It is magic. And I love drama in all its forms. Even when I'm sitting at a Chanel show, I'm on board. The music that starts, the girls that arrive, it has an effect on me: I have chills.

"What I fear are the unexpected"

Do you feel in danger on stage? We are more than in the cinema. In live performance, there is no cheating. We see you moving, running, running out of breath. It's real, it's life, it's right now, it's now. What I dread the most are the unexpected. A cold, for example. It may seem ridiculous, but a cold in the middle of a musical tour is a nightmare. It happened to me, it's exhausting after the fact, but at the time we often end up forgetting the pain and the hindrances. The stage is truly a place that transcends.

You are known to be very discreet. Do you dread the exposure involved in acting? As I started very young, it feels like I belong to people, so I had to protect myself more than others. But it's all a bit cliché. The stripping is continuous, even in acts that seem the most banal, a photo shoot, for example, where you can give something deeply intimate, sometimes without knowing it. Since I was 14, this has been the story of my life, in front of people...

If I say "mom", what comes to mind? Love. Comfort. My mom, being a mom: the basics. Being a mom is my favorite thing in the world. To be with them, to be with my children. They are exceptional.

Is it strange to watch your daughter, Lily-Rose Depp, rise to fame as a model and actress? No, maybe it was weird at first because, like me, she started young. First, we wonder in which direction it will go. But very quickly I was reassured: she is talented, solid, sunny, and she works a lot. The secret is work. Talent, luck, yes, of course, but hard work wins out. We make mistakes, we start over, we drool over it, but in the end it's so rewarding to build something… My parents raised me that way.

In the play, it is about, among other things, violence against women… It is essential that this subject be addressed. There is not even a need to consult the statistics: it is all the time and since the dawn of time. Fortunately, today, the floor is free.

The MeToo debate stirred the world. Have you been confronted with delicate situations, you who started so young? I was lucky: I always managed to dodge... When you start very young like me, there are a lot of things you don't know and that you can consider normal when you don't have necessary landmarks. There may be borderline things I saw that I didn't want to remember. I led a very free artistic and personal life, I traveled a lot and, inevitably, I met unsavory characters. In my first film, Noce blanche, I had nude scenes, I was 16, it was complicated. I dodged.

But you have also come across a few pygmalions or good geniuses, from Gainsbourg to Biolay… People often ask me why I have attracted so many good graces. I have no response. You should ask those men I inspired, they say. The only answer I can give is that I wanted to, and that the desire to do, to progress, to experiment, to get out of my comfort zone was my most precious ally. .

And then, it's not just people who chose me: I chose a lot of them too. Gainsbourg, for example. When I was told that he wanted to work with me, I came to meet him. For my second album, we went to see him to fish for a text. We had twelve! It was unheard of. In music, I am very proactive. I love the idea of ​​the muse, I love that word. He overused himself, some think that a muse is a woman object, whereas, for me, a muse is a person in charge, a person who inspires because she acts.

In the cinema, it is less true. It happened to me to send letters to directors, it doesn't work at all. People are very flattered, it makes them happy, but it leads to nothing. Being proactive in the world of cinema means initiating a project, buying the rights to a book, canvassing producers. And that, I never took the time to do. I remain dependent on the desire of others, and it is sometimes hard.

Would you like to tour more? Yes of course. I love the first films (she has just shot The Call of Duty, by Hugo Thomas, Editor's note), and I am ready to do all the tests that could be asked of me. There are a lot of roles that I don't even have access to. It's true that in France it's not so common to be a singer and an actress. There is Camélia Jordana, who does both things and whom I really like. But in general, things are rather compartmentalised…

"Mom", written and directed by Samuel Benchetrit, from September 14 to December 30, at the Théâtre Édouard-VII, in Paris (theatreedouard7.com). And also in the film "This music does not play for anyone", by Samuel Benchetrit, released on September 29.

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