Post by tamtam on Jul 4, 2013 20:31:45 GMT 1
Interviews
Vanessa Paradis
Before Johnny Depp, before Chanel, Vanessa Paradis’ first love was singing. As she releases her sixth album, she talks to Jude Rogers about love, Hollywood and why life is good – whatever the tabloids might have to say.
Vanessa Paradis, from the Red August Issue
By Jude Rogers
01 July 2013
So, your partner has left. A younger beauty snatched him away. All the gossip hounds see now is the lonely 40-year-old ex of a beautiful, bankable actor. Game over, Vanessa Paradis. Or that’s how it’s meant to be.
It’s a warm Sunday afternoon in Paris, at the opulent Park Hilton hotel. This is the city where 'Joe le Taxi' first plied his trade, 26 – 26! – years ago, in a song that brought instant fame to the gap-toothed, gorgeous teenager singing it. Since then, Vanessa Paradis has won acting awards, been Chanel’s muse, had a 14-year relationship with Johnny Depp and released five albums. I’m here today to talk about her sixth.
This stunning 20-song extravaganza has a title to get tongues wagging: Love Songs. After all, since 1998, Paradis has been a character in her own love story. Today, we’re only a few minutes walk from Hotel Costes, where Depp first laid eyes on Paradis, and invited her over to his table. From there grew one of the entertainment industry’s most solid relationships, and two children, Lily-Rose, 14, and Jack, 11.
Twitter wailed when their split was announced last year, and rumours about Depp and his new girlfriend (actress Amber Heard) have been escalating ever since: they’re getting married (when Paradis and Depp never did), and Heard could be pregnant…
Paradis is rumoured to be a self-possessed, cold character – and today, she is late. Waiting in an extravagant suite, I’m prepared for a rarified ice maiden. And then the door opens. What I did not expect was the bounciness. The feistiness. The warm hug, and the motherly charm. Three hours later, on the Eurostar home, I pick apart our time together. Paradis gave me a masterclass in charisma and playfulness. Not what I expected at all.
She says things like this, devilishly, ‘Love is not just about butterflies and fairy tales. People are like, “Oh, the album is called Love Songs but they’re such dark songs.”’ Her eyes sparkle as she speaks. ‘And I say, “What do you think love is?” We’re not in a fairy tale. Nobody lives in a fairy tale.’
Paradis is intelligent, funny, delivers her sentences with bite – and, yep, she looks incredible. Apologising for the traffic as she bounds into the room, she asks me how my train journey was, like a caring mum, and then perches on the sofa. She’s dressed in a black velvet jacket, baggy vest and blue cords. I would look studenty in it; on her, it’s sheer elegance. Her hair is down and tousled. I tell her I’ve been a fan of her music for years. ‘Not just Joe Le Taxi, I hope,’ she winks.
Born in a Parisian suburb just before Christmas 1972 (‘I could not live without being here,’ she says, slapping her seat for emphasis, ‘I could not’), Paradis didn’t have a particularly unusual childhood, she says. But then she started singing.
‘And now that’s been a source of joy for me for so long. It fills you with such amazing vibrations – you change a little, you grow, you get completely inhabited when you sing. And anyone can!’
Her enthusiasm as she speaks is enrapturing – it inhabits you, too.
When she was 14, her record-producer uncle, Didier Pain, recorded her first single. Joe Le Taxi spent 11 weeks at number one in France, but it raised people’s tempers, too. Someone painted ‘slut’ on her house and she was spat at in the street, even though the song wasn’t salacious, and she wore baggy clothes in the video. ‘It was a very surreal time,’ she says, breathing out. ‘To go from a very normal upbringing to suddenly being judged, and having to justify yourself when you don’t really know who you are yet.’
She shrugs. ‘But I learnt a lot, very young.’ Her success mushroomed quickly in other fields. At 17, she won a César (the French equivalent of an Oscar) for the film Noce Blanche.
At 18, she played a caged bird swinging on a trapeze in that famous Chanel Coco campaign.
At 19, she scored another international hit, the retro-pop Be My Baby. ‘I can’t complain,’ Paradis laughs, cackling through that famous gap in her front teeth. ‘But I worked hard for it, you know?’ And then, six years later, along came Johnny.
On paper, it looks like Paradis’ career took a back seat after that. His career rocketed with the Pirates Of The Caribbean series; she only managed a handful of albums and films. ‘There was a slowdown for me, yes, but there was never a break.’
Suddenly, you sense Paradis’ robustness. ‘When people say, “How come you don’t have a career in Hollywood?”, I say, first of all, that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve been fortunate since day one to be able to choose what I want to do in my work, and with whom I do it.’ She raises an eyebrow. ‘And there’s good and bad in Hollywood, you know.’
But it’s clear that three years ago, Paradis’ productivity shot up. She put together a Best Of album, and made two successful films: acclaimed romcom Heartbreaker and Café De Flore, in which she plays the mother of a child with Down’s syndrome. Then came French singer-songwriter/ producer Benjamin Biolay, his dark hair and dark eyes reminiscent of someone else in Paradis’ life. He sent her eight songs, and she ‘fell in love with them all… and then more kept coming… and now I have a double album because I could not get rid of one!’
What about that provocative title? It came last, she says, and from Biolay – but she will not be drawn on any of my hints about him. ‘It’s a great title. So simple, taking a phrase we all know, and turning it around. These are up-and-down love songs, because that’s what love is.’
Then I ask what it’s like to sing New Year, which was co-written by Depp. A song about change and time, it includes the lyric, ‘The scars will heal and then what will remain... a mysterious design. A beautiful reminder of the pain.’ ‘It was written years ago,’ Paradis says, matter-of-factly, then talks about how Lily-Rose made up the first line. Paradis loves being a mum, she adds, but the kids don’t listen to her music. Lily-Rose loves American chart-pop, while Jack prefers rap and rock’n’roll. She’ll say no more about her children.
So I try, foolishly perhaps, to bring things back to their father. I ask if it feels good to be releasing a record showing the world who Paradis is and what she can do, rather than being seen in the shadows of her former partner.
Her reply is a masterclass of evasion, but the sass in it floors me. ‘You’re a journalist, so you live very much in the world of what’s been written, and what’s been said about me. I don’t engage with that.’ She leans forward. ‘I can’t. First of all, I don’t want to pollute myself and also I don’t have enough time. I’m a singer, an actress, a mum, you know what I mean? It really doesn’t interest me.’ And then she laughs. ‘But also there’s nothing I can do, I can’t shut people’s mouths! So, enjoy yourselves, everyone. Have a ball with it.’
I think about this proclamation on the way home – how fuck-you it sounds, and how strong it makes her. ‘It’s not like I’m lacking or missing something in my life, either,’ she added, as our time raced to an end. ‘Look at my life.’ She has a point.
But what is love to her, though? ‘It’s something for families and friends and for lovers,’ she says. She delivers her final line like a bullet. ‘It’s the most powerful thing that we have.’
Love Songs by Vanessa Paradis is out 22nd July 2013.
Vanessa Paradis
Before Johnny Depp, before Chanel, Vanessa Paradis’ first love was singing. As she releases her sixth album, she talks to Jude Rogers about love, Hollywood and why life is good – whatever the tabloids might have to say.
Vanessa Paradis, from the Red August Issue
By Jude Rogers
01 July 2013
So, your partner has left. A younger beauty snatched him away. All the gossip hounds see now is the lonely 40-year-old ex of a beautiful, bankable actor. Game over, Vanessa Paradis. Or that’s how it’s meant to be.
It’s a warm Sunday afternoon in Paris, at the opulent Park Hilton hotel. This is the city where 'Joe le Taxi' first plied his trade, 26 – 26! – years ago, in a song that brought instant fame to the gap-toothed, gorgeous teenager singing it. Since then, Vanessa Paradis has won acting awards, been Chanel’s muse, had a 14-year relationship with Johnny Depp and released five albums. I’m here today to talk about her sixth.
This stunning 20-song extravaganza has a title to get tongues wagging: Love Songs. After all, since 1998, Paradis has been a character in her own love story. Today, we’re only a few minutes walk from Hotel Costes, where Depp first laid eyes on Paradis, and invited her over to his table. From there grew one of the entertainment industry’s most solid relationships, and two children, Lily-Rose, 14, and Jack, 11.
Twitter wailed when their split was announced last year, and rumours about Depp and his new girlfriend (actress Amber Heard) have been escalating ever since: they’re getting married (when Paradis and Depp never did), and Heard could be pregnant…
Paradis is rumoured to be a self-possessed, cold character – and today, she is late. Waiting in an extravagant suite, I’m prepared for a rarified ice maiden. And then the door opens. What I did not expect was the bounciness. The feistiness. The warm hug, and the motherly charm. Three hours later, on the Eurostar home, I pick apart our time together. Paradis gave me a masterclass in charisma and playfulness. Not what I expected at all.
She says things like this, devilishly, ‘Love is not just about butterflies and fairy tales. People are like, “Oh, the album is called Love Songs but they’re such dark songs.”’ Her eyes sparkle as she speaks. ‘And I say, “What do you think love is?” We’re not in a fairy tale. Nobody lives in a fairy tale.’
Paradis is intelligent, funny, delivers her sentences with bite – and, yep, she looks incredible. Apologising for the traffic as she bounds into the room, she asks me how my train journey was, like a caring mum, and then perches on the sofa. She’s dressed in a black velvet jacket, baggy vest and blue cords. I would look studenty in it; on her, it’s sheer elegance. Her hair is down and tousled. I tell her I’ve been a fan of her music for years. ‘Not just Joe Le Taxi, I hope,’ she winks.
Born in a Parisian suburb just before Christmas 1972 (‘I could not live without being here,’ she says, slapping her seat for emphasis, ‘I could not’), Paradis didn’t have a particularly unusual childhood, she says. But then she started singing.
‘And now that’s been a source of joy for me for so long. It fills you with such amazing vibrations – you change a little, you grow, you get completely inhabited when you sing. And anyone can!’
Her enthusiasm as she speaks is enrapturing – it inhabits you, too.
When she was 14, her record-producer uncle, Didier Pain, recorded her first single. Joe Le Taxi spent 11 weeks at number one in France, but it raised people’s tempers, too. Someone painted ‘slut’ on her house and she was spat at in the street, even though the song wasn’t salacious, and she wore baggy clothes in the video. ‘It was a very surreal time,’ she says, breathing out. ‘To go from a very normal upbringing to suddenly being judged, and having to justify yourself when you don’t really know who you are yet.’
She shrugs. ‘But I learnt a lot, very young.’ Her success mushroomed quickly in other fields. At 17, she won a César (the French equivalent of an Oscar) for the film Noce Blanche.
At 18, she played a caged bird swinging on a trapeze in that famous Chanel Coco campaign.
At 19, she scored another international hit, the retro-pop Be My Baby. ‘I can’t complain,’ Paradis laughs, cackling through that famous gap in her front teeth. ‘But I worked hard for it, you know?’ And then, six years later, along came Johnny.
On paper, it looks like Paradis’ career took a back seat after that. His career rocketed with the Pirates Of The Caribbean series; she only managed a handful of albums and films. ‘There was a slowdown for me, yes, but there was never a break.’
Suddenly, you sense Paradis’ robustness. ‘When people say, “How come you don’t have a career in Hollywood?”, I say, first of all, that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve been fortunate since day one to be able to choose what I want to do in my work, and with whom I do it.’ She raises an eyebrow. ‘And there’s good and bad in Hollywood, you know.’
But it’s clear that three years ago, Paradis’ productivity shot up. She put together a Best Of album, and made two successful films: acclaimed romcom Heartbreaker and Café De Flore, in which she plays the mother of a child with Down’s syndrome. Then came French singer-songwriter/ producer Benjamin Biolay, his dark hair and dark eyes reminiscent of someone else in Paradis’ life. He sent her eight songs, and she ‘fell in love with them all… and then more kept coming… and now I have a double album because I could not get rid of one!’
What about that provocative title? It came last, she says, and from Biolay – but she will not be drawn on any of my hints about him. ‘It’s a great title. So simple, taking a phrase we all know, and turning it around. These are up-and-down love songs, because that’s what love is.’
Then I ask what it’s like to sing New Year, which was co-written by Depp. A song about change and time, it includes the lyric, ‘The scars will heal and then what will remain... a mysterious design. A beautiful reminder of the pain.’ ‘It was written years ago,’ Paradis says, matter-of-factly, then talks about how Lily-Rose made up the first line. Paradis loves being a mum, she adds, but the kids don’t listen to her music. Lily-Rose loves American chart-pop, while Jack prefers rap and rock’n’roll. She’ll say no more about her children.
So I try, foolishly perhaps, to bring things back to their father. I ask if it feels good to be releasing a record showing the world who Paradis is and what she can do, rather than being seen in the shadows of her former partner.
Her reply is a masterclass of evasion, but the sass in it floors me. ‘You’re a journalist, so you live very much in the world of what’s been written, and what’s been said about me. I don’t engage with that.’ She leans forward. ‘I can’t. First of all, I don’t want to pollute myself and also I don’t have enough time. I’m a singer, an actress, a mum, you know what I mean? It really doesn’t interest me.’ And then she laughs. ‘But also there’s nothing I can do, I can’t shut people’s mouths! So, enjoy yourselves, everyone. Have a ball with it.’
I think about this proclamation on the way home – how fuck-you it sounds, and how strong it makes her. ‘It’s not like I’m lacking or missing something in my life, either,’ she added, as our time raced to an end. ‘Look at my life.’ She has a point.
But what is love to her, though? ‘It’s something for families and friends and for lovers,’ she says. She delivers her final line like a bullet. ‘It’s the most powerful thing that we have.’
Love Songs by Vanessa Paradis is out 22nd July 2013.
