Ep 36: Charlotte Gainsbourg

Loud and Quiet Presents Midnight Chats.

Welcome to the Loud and Quiet Interview podcast. Thank you for downloading this episode. This week, my guest is the actor and singer Charlotte Gainsburg, the daughter, of course, of Serge Gainsburg and Jane Berkin. Now. Charlotte made her very first album when she was just sixteen years old with her father. It took her another twenty years to follow it up when she finally made five point fifty five

I'm not sure. I think it might be the first one.

That's good. That's good because I know that you're a fan of firsts.

Yes, first thing, Yes, yes I am, I am, but I tend to pretend that it's always you know first time because I forget everything. Do you so a podcast? Maybe I've done one before, but I've forgot so it is my first.

Okay, everything's your first. Yeah, I completely agree with you on first time things.

There's a sort of a there's a magic of not making too much of an effort and the fact that things are maybe accidental on a first time, that you can be lucky on a first time less on a second. So it's something of I'm a bit superstitious about those first moments.

Yeah, you only get beginner's luck once, don't you Exactly? You're only given that once. Has there ever been anything you've done and it's been so good on the first time that you've kind of resisted doing it again. Because I do this with gigs. If I go and see a band or if I see someone and it's almost perfect in my mind at least, I'm really reluctant to ever go and see them again. And I've done it once.

Yes, I guess I'm I'm like that all the time, but Also, I think that's why I tend to my childhood is something that I want to remember as perfect, and it wasn't. But because they were, it was made of a lot of first times. There's something that I've put on a pedestal, but things that I don't want to do a second time. Well, I guess that this idea of a second album was something that was very difficult for me and that I pushed and for twenty years.

Was the guys from Air who you collaborate with on what became five fifty five exactly, and they kind of they got to a point in there where they said, look, we've got to stop talking about this and we've just got to go and do it.

Yeah, because I was, I was so nervous. It could have taken me a few more years of discussions and you know, trying to plan things out. And the lyrics were always a big problem. Because I didn't know at that point, I didn't know I was going to be able to sing in English. So lyrics in French were such a such a big deal and such a problem that, yeah, I needed to to figure things out. And they were the ones who said, just let's try, even if it doesn't work, but just let's try.

Stop talking. Well, why did you find that lyrics in French were particularly such a big deal?

Really because of my father, because I was brought up with his lyrics and his poetry and his genius, and I didn't realize he was a genius when I was a child. But he died when I was nineteen, and I think I was in full understanding of who he was. And it was impossible for me to imagine going back to music without him, first of all, but then this possibility of going back with musicians that I admired, Yes, that was possible. But lyrics in French would have to

I was.

I was scared. I was scared of being a failure, of being of not you know, not not liking what, not liking it enough. He was It was too hard to to compare myself to him. I didn't want any comparison, so so that's why the English was a good solution for me. And then, of course admiring Jervis Cocker meant that I could, you know, I could it. It started to be another dream, and then Beck was again escaping from the French, but also admiring his way of writing.

Can you remember that at the moment when you did realize kind of who your parents were and that your your dad was this superstar? Can you and that he was a genius? Can you remember that moment?

No, well, I guess when he died, because before I had him more to myself. Of course, he was very well known and I knew all his work, his songs, but not as if I was listening to my father. I was already listening to an artist, and same thing for my mother. I was listening to her voice and being attracted to her as an artist, but it was so familiar that I couldn't I didn't analyze who they were. I didn't try and understand what a big deal they were.

I think people, I think it's I mean, it is impossible to kind of overstate how much your father is still adored in France. I mean, he is just so love.

But when he was alive, he wasn't. He was loved towards the the his last years. Of course, he had a lot of success, but he went through so many years of not struggling because he was it was okay. He had a lot of successes through other female artists, but it was never his success. Also, he was he was attacked quite often because he was such a provocov getter. He was used to being banged on, and you know.

So.

Was he okay with that?

Oh?

He was the Yes, he he loved. He loved the scandal, he loved yeah, the reaction, making noise, He loved the folk. So he was always on about being in on a cover of a magazine or talked about in newspapers, but at the same time very very vulnerable about what people would say. So it was a mixture of provocation and listening to the comments.

I mean that first record that you made with him, you were fifteen around that time, No, I was twelve twelve.

Well, my first album. I was sixteen, but that first song was called Lemon Incest and it was on one of his albums, So it was just just this one song that I didn't I didn't realize the scandal it was at the time. I understood what I sang. Of course, at twelve, I knew what also, I knew what what his provocations were about, and and I was fine with that.

Yeah, in terms of when you kind of were making that out the album in particular with your father, what what can you remember of that of that experience that first time.

I loved the experience of being directed by him because he had he was very much in command of whatever he wanted of you. So he was in the booth with you, gesturing and emphasizing and trying to get to get you where he wanted. Then when I listened to the record again, first of all, I didn't do any premiere at the time because I just I didn't want to, and he accepted that but it meant that I didn't do any TVs. Nothing. I hated. I hated that part of the job and I didn't feel that I had

Sure.

Yeah.

One thing that I think is quite kind of strangely rare in your instances having such famous parents and having your own career, your own career in music, and you've never kind of tried to like push against it or kind of reject that kind of that legacy that you

Been very proud, But I'm much more open to talking about them in other countries. In France now, I'm sort of more at peace with with people's curiosity, but for ages in France, I would just I didn't want to. It's as if I wanted to keep my own secrets, you know, of my private life of and my own my childhood was private. He was so well known and everybody knew everything about both of them. I didn't want to share anything. But today it's easier because I I

So sure, and when you say that you felt this pressure of just because of your father's lyrics and loving them so much and kind of respecting the genius of him and his words. As you've kind of gone on and made three albums since that kind of that pressure, is that only like an internal pressure that you've put on yourself. Have you found that people have projected on you as well? Or is it just your own kind of it's my criticism of yourself.

Yeh, yes, I tend to be hard on myself, but that's I think that's a good thing. I haven't heard criticism and hard things to hear and the comparisons that would that would crush me, I guess, but no, I haven't heard that it's my own judgment that I fear. And so for this app for this new album Yes, that that's different.

So I mean, this is the first record that you've contributed to the lyrics to Yes, And what was it that kind of was there a catalyst that basically made you think, right, I'm ready, now, I'm gonna I'm going to do this. I'm going to write these words myself because I know in the past you've really kind of you've tried it and it's just not happened for you. Why now? Why on this run?

I think I didn't care anymore. Okay, whether it was good enough or not good enough, it just came out that way. And I tried to write in English mostly and it came out in French, so I couldn't do much about that.

But it did take.

Many steps and a long long time, because the whole process was I did write since I was I don't know, fourteen, writing a diary, but so being being very in love with a style and words and having my own taste, but well, anyway, just for myself, and then working with Beck, I tried each time to come up with lyrics that would end up being just subjects or a word here and there, because I was too ashamed of whatever I

So does Beck speak French?

Bet doesn't speak French, but he's very He also was saying, why don't you He loves to hear French, so he tried to push me while we were working together. He really said, you should. You're making too much of a big deal of this writing thing. It's it's easy try.

But there.

It was so easy. He would he would come into we were working in his place, and he would come in, start a piece of music, start a beat, put a guitar, and then wander off with his little notepad and come back really seven minutes later with a whole song written with wonderful imagery and words and poetry. It was just incredible. So I, of course I didn't dare show him what I had come up with.

Yeah, there's quite a pressure, it is.

And then he would say, no, but try and write the crappiest song you could ever think of. That's the first thing. That's that that'll be your you know, your first step into lyric writing. And I guess it's a way of not caring. Yes, is it the first step?

Was it? Is it different working with because he's the he's the American you've worked with the one American and everyone else has been friends or Jarvis? Is it different working with somebody like like Beck? Is there like a different cultural thing?

Of course, very much, because he he also it was done in Los Angeles so very much in his environment that I felt completely foreign to. And that's what I wanted. I wanted to be far away from home and to experience. Also, you know, his his folk writing, his his story, and and he was always talking about Los Angeles and how he had this love relationship to American not American culture, but Los Angeles culture. So it was very, very interesting and completely different.

Do you still live in Paris now?

No?

What, I moved to New York. So three years ago I moved to New York and I'm I'm going to live there a fourth year and then we'll see.

Yeah, you're enjoying it at the moment, I love it. Yeah, yeah. Is it similar to Paris in any way?

Not at all. That's what I was. That's what I was. Yeah. I was trying to escape all my references and all my memories. So it's a it's a great It made me curious again. It's such a beautiful, very photogenic city with quite simple in a way, because London scares me. I don't I was born here, and yet I don't know anything about these walls. And I used to know this posh area I grew up. Well, my grandparents used to live in Chelsea. But apart from the Kings Road.

It's literally just over there. I know that way, is it? I mean, I'm bad in this area, to be honest, I'm out of my comfort zone. But what I do.

I feel like a stranger, whereas in New York everybody's a stranger and it's all right, and everybody's welcome. It's it's a very easy welcoming when you when you have money, of course, and I live downtown, so I wouldn't be able to live uptown in that more stressful business like the.

Upper west Side near the park. So are you? I mean, I know New York a little bit, not much better than I know Kensington, to be honest.

But it was going to Chelsea because I moved from Saint Germain. I've I've always been in very nice, chic places. So I went from Saint Germain to the West Village.

Right okay, which just slumming it in the West.

Village, very London like. And then I went to Tribeca. That was a big change because the architecture is completely different and the feel is different. And then I just moved back to the West Village.

So when you're here, you kind of do you feel kind of like a tourist coming completely.

I used to go to my grandmother's house and feel at home there and that was the only reason to come to London. I hadn't started doing music again, so there was no and films never came to England, so I was never doing publicity here. There was only family and my uncle used to live here also so with his children, so it was very Yes, it was only seeing cousins and and going to people's houses, but never really never being a young adult discovering the city. Never.

Yeah, So it's got kind of a nostalgic.

Completely, very nostalgic. And well today especially yeah, very people are gone. So now I go to see my uncle in Wales, and my aunt's lives outside of London, so in Bushy Park, so it's it's never London.

So in terms of you're becoming a musician, did you always see yourself doing that or did it almost feel inevitable?

When I did it with my father, it was I didn't even ask myself a question of whether I could or not, whether it was a good idea or not. It was just normal. He made people sing, Yeah, that was his thing, and especially he made actresses sing. But I at that time I wasn't yet an actress. But so for Lemon And says, no consciousness of what is a singer if you know talent or no talent. It didn't really matter then when I when I did it when I was sixteen, maybe a bit more pressure, but

And you never thought to not do it. No, You're just like, yeah, I'll do that, because that's quite a confident thing in a way, because especially when you're a child, to like get up and sing in front of people be told.

But it wasn't in front of people. That's why. It was just me my father in a studio with his smile on his face, being happy about what I had just done. Little accidents that he was looking for, you know, not a very imperfect voice. That's all he liked. So pleasing him was the was the thing. And then refusing to do promotion and going on television shows was exactly that I hadn't. I didn't feel any obligation, so I wasn't shy about it, but it I was a very

Contradiction do you feel at home on the film set?

I do, I think, I think I do. I don't feel professional in the sense that again, it wasn't a dream of being becoming an actress or not a spoken out dream. It happened too soon for me to to have this aspiration, so I just had pleasure doing it and learning and getting different experiences. But I do feel comfortable now on a set. I think I still have. I'm still very nervous. I still doubt myself. I criticize everything I do, and I like being that way, but

Doing myself through? What made you? What made you push on and not kind of just give into that and think this is just too stressful for me to actually do this.

I think once a few weeks had gone by, I felt more comfortable. Some scenes I adored doing, and that was enough pleasure for me. But also I kept forgetting, like these first times, every film was the first time, so I kept forgetting if I would be able to do it or not. It was all very vague and the fact that I didn't know if I had the skill because I didn't go to an acting school, I didn't have a method.

It was always.

Win or loose for every scene, every moment. It's only when I started working with Last von Trier that I understood that this doubting place that I was always in, that that was the starting point for his kind of work. And I understood that that's what I loved, was to be in this uncomfortable place of not knowing if it would if I would be able to do a scene or not, if I would be able to be truthful in a moment or not, and just working on it. It's it's very I'm very passionate about it now.

Sure those the films that we've done with Blast, have you done the three?

I've done three yet three?

And I mean they're obviously very in terms of like being nervous on film sets or just being you know, being nervous I think can I do this or not? You've in a way you've made it very hard for yoursel You're not like like you've not done kind of I don't know if any film choice is an easy film to make, but you know you're not making kind of daft rom coms, they're all quite very challenging as.

It's on the contrary, those are easy to make. I think making a comedy of I don't know, a character that would be very sure of herself and outspoken. I don't know, I'm talking just like that, but that would be difficult. To put myself in a position of uncomfortable suffering is easier because it's because it's something you don't really question. And he put me in positions that I didn't have the time to to think. Well, I was miserable on some some days because I didn't know what

Yeah, is there a type of a type of film, a genre of film? Then in that case that you would be offered and be like, there's no way, that's my idea of that. The work job the worst acting job. I'm not comfort I wouldn't do that, but that would be a challenge.

So I would love to do that.

What if, say someone, what if it was a romantic comedy.

You you fixed exactly?

You and Hugh Grant. He's a foppish, awkward English guy in Paris and he meets a French lady who works in a bookshop. That's that's the offer you get given? Is that the kind of thing that like just intuitively like you just think that's just not for me.

No, I think i'd be I'd be taking it as a discovery, and even if I would resent the style, it's still no. No, I'm quite excited by.

Experience, by this job off.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, I'd love that film.

I think you'd be good opposite Hugrant. I love a Hugh Grant film. I do too. I like her. I've become quite a wimp when it comes to films. I think I've always been a whimp, to be honest. But I the darker the film, they really stay with me and they haunt me, which is I know that kind of meant to. But I'm too much of a wimp and I just can't do that. Anymore. I need I need to be watching things like La La Land.

Yeah.

Well, no, I I've come to a point where I'm I'm into different things now. I like documentaries, So it's not it's not I'm not that curious about films anymore.

You're do you do you watch many films?

No?

I like old films and and I like documentaries, and I don't have a lot of time. So yeah, the.

Snowma and your new film that opens this Friday here, right, were you aware of that? No?

No, And I haven't seen the film.

Yet, have you not?

How?

How off? How when should you have seen the film right now? Maybe if was there a screening that you missed or No, No, there just hasn't been one.

It's been a little hectic on the film. It's it's been a little last minute editing, and so no, it's it's normal that I haven't seen it. I'll see it.

Soon, Okay, you'll just see it in the cinema. Oh no, wha that sends you a that sends you a link to see it. Maybe maybe when a film is about to come out that you're in the fact that you didn't know it was opening. So we can probably answer this question, but I was going to say, what's that What is that process? Like, how does that compare to releasing an album and knowing that your album If your album was coming out on Friday, you're definitely yes, know about it.

An album is so personal. It's been on my mind for I don't know five years now, you know, from the first moment of trying with Connon to now when it's done and I can talk about it. It's a very very for me, always a very long process, and I've put very intimate things in it. In a film, you put intimate things but that are hidden, so and it's not your work. The director does everything. He edits you can be good or you can be bad. It's in his hands.

And there's lots of other people, I guess, to a lot of.

Other peoples in America. In England, the producers have a lot of importance. So I can't have the same relation to a film. But a French film that I did called Le Promes delb that's I don't know when it all come out or if it will come out here, but it's it's it's a very important film for me, and it'll come out in December and France. I will do as much as I can for that film because it means a lot. So some films sometimes, you you know,

Yeah, what is it about this? So what was the name of the le De?

It's the Promise of Dawn. It's an adaptation of Roma Gari and I got to play this wonderful mother character, wonderful and awful at the same time she's she's a monster. And I was able to to put on another body another you know, it's a different me. And at the same time, it's so close to my father and my grandmother on my father's side. Because I play this Russian Polish woman so with a very strong accent, I had to speak Polish. It was a big piece of work. Sure, that's why it means so much.

Okay, great, it doesn't sound like it's your Hugh Grant films. Slightly different vibe.

Well, yes, no, the romantic strike is not there, but there's a lot of humor.

Okay, Yeah, that's it. I'm waiting for the drum com I'm going to once I leave him, I'm going to try and make some calls. I'm saying that as if I know anyone in film. I don't, but I feel we can maybe someone will hear this. That off, Well, we'll turn up back to your album, back to rest. Another person you collaborated with on this one was Paul McCartney song that song you can You can hear Paul McCartney in that song like in the in the melody of the song. I feel yes, How did that come about?

It was maybe six and a half, Well, I know it was exactly six and a half years ago because I was very pregnant with my little girl, and and so we I asked if I could meet him. Of course, there was this idea of work. But I was very impressed and very intimate, intimidated by this encounter in a restaurant in London. So I made the trip from Paris, and it was a little surreal, and I I just by the end of the lunch we had talked about

Throughout the meal that you're having, were you thinking I need to get this question in And when am I going to say it? Did you say you were running out the door?

Yeah, it was close to close to standing, But no, I wasn't that nervous, and that I didn't feel pushy in any way.

It was it just.

It was embarrassing. But at the same time I knew that he was understanding where you know, where I was.

He gets it.

I think he's not so, but I didn't think he would respond. He was very sweet, really, as so simple and welcoming, and but I didn't think he would he would send me anything. And a few weeks later he did. He sent this demo with the lyrics attached. And I had this song by Paul McCartney, and I didn't know what to do with it because I hadn't started on the album yet, so I didn't want to do just

Nervous about that. We're kind of thinking, I've changed a lot of this. Yeah, I don't want him.

To be I didn't want him to be offended exactly, and especially you know, five years later, it had taken such a long time. I wanted him to, I don't know, to feel that he had been respected. And anyway, he liked, liked it and came and joined us in New York in a studio and recorded instruments on the track and it was wonderful, just a wonderful experience.

Yeah, your meal with him must have gone very well.

Because I don't know if you remember.

Because he would have because it's one thing for him to like follow up and actually do the song and send it to you, That's that's one thing. But for them for him to come and then play, Yeah, that's quite huge, isn't it. It was because I'm sure there's must be loads of people where he kind of writes the song and then that maybe you'd never hear from him again. Maybe.

But I didn't even dare ask him where this song came from. Was it an old song? Was it something he sought about after we met. I don't know what, And I was too shy to ask him because when we when he came in the studio and stayed with us for a few hours, we all pretend it is if it was.

So normal, soul, could you make me a tea? Paul?

Yeah, I felt I felt very lucky.

He probably likes that. The last thing he probably wants is for people to be kind of, you know, worshiping him or being super fantic towards him.

Yeah, But also like many geniuses.

He he he's very simple, very I don't know, very normal, and it's always surprising when you know, of course what he's done, you expect, I don't know, you expect some some mass.

Another diva, yes, maybe maybe a big superstar or you fear for that. And I know he was perfectly sweet.

He gets like a bit of a bad rap over here.

Really, I don't.

We're like because he's too nice, Like it's very it's a very British. Oh yes, And we don't like the fact that he's like happy and nice. He's not gone mad. It's like he's kind of two together. I'm I'm grew up with the Beatles. I'm a really big Beatles fan, and I spent a lot of time sticking up form. I've done it on this podcast before. I'm sure i'll

Oh god, no, no, no, that's too too nasty.

Yeah, I think it's a British thing. I think in France he's probably loved.

Well. Maybe I've become a little bit American in that because they're french.

Shire sort of.

No, they're very respectful but sort of stubborn and grumpy, and so talking about Paul McCartney, maybe in a French way you could, you could not be in total awe, but so I feel very American.

You've been living there too, that's it. Do you think your tool this album because you've only done the one tour so far? Right?

I did too. I did one with with Beck, I mean not with Beck, but with his band, and so it was touring IRRM. But then we released a live for irma Cool Stage Whispers, and then on that album we did new songs, so it meant it was nearly a new album. And I toured again with Connin Moccason, this time doing those new songs and the old ones too. So I did two tours, but this time, if Sebastian agrees to come with me, I'll do it, okay, his presence, Yeah, I need.

So if he's listening, yeah to this podcast now. We need to get you a film with you Grant and a tour with Sebastian. And it's been worthwhile, completely worth while.

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