Audrey Tautou before "Chanel"

Saturday, 05 September 2009 00:40

Audrey Tautou started her career as the heroine of many a quirky French romance film before being snatched up by Ron Howard for the Blockbuster hit The Da Vinci Code. This month she returns to her roots, portraying the famed enigmatic designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, in Coco Before Chanel, a move celebrated by fans of Audrey’s earlier work, such as the indie favorite Amelie.

Audrey telephoned from Paris to talk about her return to the independent film market, tapping into her feminine charms and immersing herself in sensual fantasies to get into character as man bait. Also up for discussion was the convergence of sex, money and sugar daddies, and those “dress-for-success” fashions she flaunts as Coco Chanel in her latest film. But as far as those rumors about some monkey business going down between movies, she insists it's all just hearsay.

In your latest movie you play Coco Chanel, a remarkable woman who revolutionized fashion forever, providing women with a more masculine edge and freedom of movement in clothes. Yet Coco was also condemned for her trysts with her Nazi-spy lover in occupied France. So what got you excited about playing this contradictory woman?

I'm just interested in discovering things about her because she was an amazing, strong French woman, who was very talented, rude and tough, and had this amazing life. One thing that never bothered me was making her seem appealing as a person.

But this is not a huge biopic about her. It’s a film about her early life - all her experiences that lead us to see and understand who she will become. But yes, she was a woman full of contradictions and she told all these lies about her past later in her life, and that made me a little crazy.

What do you feel you have in common with her?

I’m cooking that in my mind right now. Coco didn't plan to become a great designer, just as I didn't plan to become an actress. I had no clue that fame would land on me.

I was like everybody else, just trying to move forward with doubts, questions and uncertainties. As a child I actually wanted to study monkeys. But I changed my mind when I was a teenager, and I suddenly found partying more interesting.

Coco was obsessed with fashion. What do clothes, like the ones you wear in the movie, mean to you?

Well, clothes are very important to me because clothing allows us to be charming and sexy. What we wear is the shell of who we are.

In your last movie, Priceless, you played a sexpot scouting around for rich, old guys to seduce and clean out, and your character is pretty much up to the same thing in Coco Before Chanel. What turns you on about playing women like that?

That was a chance for me to play someone I hadn't played before. It was strange and fascinating for me to be a very seductive, sexy person, who likes to use her charms to manipulate guys.

It was nice to discover my femininity. I enjoy playing this kind of woman, and being sexy and having those sorts of fantasies—to seduce and allow yourself to be seduced. But otherwise, it's just my job.

Do you think you've tended to play bitches lately?

No way. It was interesting for me to realize that I could play these kinds of women. But they're really less bitchy than the guys who want them.

OK. What are your thoughts about relationships like that?

Well, I think this is all about rich men and poor women, and how these women want to live in that luxury universe. From my point of view, that's like modern sexual slavery. Some guy is paying for their company, even though the women are more interested in their bank accounts.

So in other words, you see the interaction of sex, money and love as a class issue?

Yes, in a way. Money changes everything in these relationships, and you can see that these older, ugly guys who can have these beautiful women. But to do so, they must be very rich.

Coco Before Chanel is directed by a woman, Anne Fontaine, but do you think women, as they're generally portrayed in movies, are a reflection of the sexist fantasies of male directors?

I never think about it. And in fact, I don't really care about it.

I hear that one of your favorite poets is Baudelaire. Why is he special to you?

His writing is so sensitive and clever, and wonderful. I don't know, it's poetry, pure poetry. It's impossible not to love him.

Do you think you'll ever get into writing yourself?

I have never thought to write anything, except lists of what I have to do.

You've achieved such a huge amount of success in so little time, and you've already been in a big Hollywood production, The Da Vinci Code. So how do you feel about your life journey so far?

Well, I feel like I'm 60. Joking! No, I think many things happened to me very quickly. So I was lucky to experience all this. I feel that I could stop right now and be very happy with the career I've had.

Is there any difference for you, between doing a film like this and being in a big Hollywood movie?

Being in a Hollywood movie is like a holiday for me, but I don't have any ambitions to make a career there.

Is it true that you once got a job working with monkeys in Indonesia?

No, I didn't work with monkeys. I went to Indonesia to see them.

What are you into on your down time?

I don't go out much, but when I do, I like to dance when I'm drunk and have a good time. I'm not a very serious person.