Charlotte Gainsbourg

31:35Bella Freud:Because you're French, but with an English mother. And your English accent is quite, there's a sort of well-spoken, like a posh 60s accent, almost like Julie Christie or somebody. And you're very articulate and your use of language is very succinct. And are you a different personality in any way in English than when you're speaking French? I'm sure. I'm sure. I don't. The accent is fake. It's, I mean, I'm sure it's close to my family's accent. But for such a long time, I had a very strong French accent. And then my uncle asked me to do a film with him called The Cement Garden. And in order to do that part, to play that part, I had to work on the accent.

32:37and I had a wonderful boys coach and she really made me work hard and after that it was a question of continuing but I had that base but it still seemed like a fake base. So there's always a bit of fakeness with me, my English side and I struggle a little bit because I want it to be authentic but if I'm really truthful

33:21I'm more French and so when I speak French yes that's who I am it's

33:32Bella Freud:because when I first read that you'd said that I was like no no she's what she's one she's ours you know I wish and your English is is so English and the way you how you sing you know and that you don't Americanize it and it's so good it's oh I thought that was really not good oh no it's fantastic it's absolutely amazing it's so full of um singularity and it's so original yeah and that you're not it's the best english singers make it american well yeah they do except you and this is if you as you're going to be english sometimes it's a great place i just it's because i've been listening to a lot i mean I really like your music and I've seen you play and I've been listening to lots in preparation for you being here and it's really really um every time I was just thinking god this is genius this is it's like um it made me think again of you you know doing these things when you were very young and that's thing of somebody for some reason I'm thinking like the Spartans they used to put their babies on the side of a hill and if they survived they'd take them back and it's there's a bit of that this well this is how I speak so I'll do it and uh and in um in Nymphomaniac the your your version of hey joe is oh so good i did love doing it and it was with beck so it made it very special for me um yeah i forgot about that song but uh but singing for me is really uh more of a fraud than films today I feel as if

35:47I can not care which is I feel that's what what everyone needs yeah to not care and with the singing I'm not there yet because I'm still struggling with lyric writing trying to write in English not being certain of the words I choose and not writing my music so I'm not where I'd like to be and so there's still a part of me because I wrote the last album I was less of a fraud because because I was saying what I wanted to say and because it was also very much motivated by uh my sister's death yeah that was stronger than you know being good or not good enough or um so it made it possible that the album the previous album with Beck Like, I was in admiration of his work, of his words.

36:59So I was trying too hard. And trying too hard means that you lose some sincerity, some natural... Yeah, again, this thing of not caring too much.

37:29Bella Freud:But there's something to be said for caring a lot. And, you know, listening to you say it's a fraud, I'm thinking, well, that seems to have something going for it because it's good. And it's so weird, the roots, how one can get somewhere. And, yeah, it's... But it's this thing of, I've heard it many times of the imposter syndrome. and there was this wonderful French actor who used to say this all the time. He died not a long time ago, I forgot. He's in... What's he in? I'm not going to sing the song. I do. I have to find it. Can't you sing a tiny... Well, yeah, it's... God. Yes, yes. Ce n 'est pas une femme.

38:39Yeah. Yeah. So he's, of course, the wonderful actor. Jean-Louis Trintignant. Jean-Louis Trintignant. Oh. He really embraced this thing of being an imposter. And he was all about charm. Yeah.

39:00Bella Freud:But maybe it's being an imposter is occasionally the, you know, the magic carpet that you step on to get to the next place. And it's actually not being an imposter. It's just part of a getting from A to B over a tricky patch. And I think as long as you're fine with it, it took me a very long time. not being embarrassed or wanting to hide it. Now I think I'm at a point where it doesn't matter. I'm fine with being only what I am. It's okay. How did you feel about having so much of your father's attention? Was there ever any sense of rivalry between you and your mother? Oh, yeah, I think so. I wasn't really conscious of it, but I know that in a certain way, she was out of his private life um in 1980 when I was nine and and I think I had this second part of uh my childhood

40:41with my stepmother, who is incredible, and my father. And it's something that I didn't share with her. But she did have all the work that went on until the end, until he died. And then afterwards she took him everywhere because she sang his songs until her end. Yeah. so I think today I the thing I'm the most embarrassed and about and guilty about is having not shared my father with my sister with Kate my older sister because she did live 13 years with him and then not. And she went to her own father, John Barry. And I think my father was jealous. Right. And so it made everything so complicated.

41:59But I never questioned. And I felt so guilty much later on. But thinking, I went to my father's house over the weekend and was this, you know, the only child and he took me everywhere and we went to the restaurant and did all these special things, being so spoiled. And I never once said, why isn't Kate here? I think I was so happy yeah that it in a very selfish child like way

42:47yeah that's that's something I I'm not I'm a bit ashamed of today I suppose someone

42:56Bella Freud:would say that wasn't your responsibility but sure it's still I completely get it. Yeah, because I think if it was the other way around, I think my sister would have said something. Because she was much more generous, much, much more... She liked people. But it's difficult when you're a child and you have a father who is... their love isn't always available not to go, you know, just to take what you can get. Yeah, true. And it does make you strong in some way that is especially for you.

43:48But it's hard, isn't it? Yeah. But also I have to remember, I mean, she had such a tough time that she went into drugs and it was a very painful route. So she had a tough, tough adolescence, which I couldn't really relate to. Yeah. I was too young. Yeah.

44:15Bella Freud:Because when you were talking about working and loving to work with Lars von Trier, you said I could see that he was in a bad state and that I had a reaction to his anxiety feeling very very normal and secure with who I was and you seem to be at home in the eye of the storm and what you described with your father in that way maybe that do you think that gave you that certainty about how to cope with this powerful man who's sort of disintegrating?

44:58Loss, you mean? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

45:05I was very scared that he would let go of the film and I wasn't, I wanted to do the film with him, not without him. And he was always saying, well, maybe I won't make it. Not dying, but maybe I won't be able to come on set and we'll just have to deal with it. So I was scared about that. But the violence, the storm, the depression, all of that, the anxiety I couldn't relate to. So I had to really fake it, imitating him. because I hadn't had that at the time since I maybe I've yeah I think I've I've gone there I've been there but um so that was uh very strange to to try and observe him as much as I could and he was very willing to share everything he was feeling and very open about his sickness, but yes, more of a sickness than a sadness.

46:41but I realized that I'm not sure I know how to cope with normality and when things are right and I find it easier to to know how to swim in deep waters yeah yeah and then suddenly you keep saying I I kept saying you know I want to escape in Paris I'm fed up I'm I'm drowning but then being in another environment where everything's okay you're so now what do you do I'm a bit lost

47:41Bella Freud:because he said such an interesting thing about him you said for me I was playing him in the sense that his vulnerability was what he was asking me to portray. And I had the impression that he was showing his fear of women and also putting women on a pedestal. Yes. And you seem very at home on that tightrope between men loving and hating women. Yeah, because I was asked that question of, is he a misogynistic man yeah does he hate women uh but i thought i was playing him so it made no difference this uh woman man uh and if there was a lot of hatred it was also against him so yeah it didn't make sense anyway to to talk of him as a misogynistic person.

48:52But then maybe I didn't want to go far into that prospect because maybe I wouldn't be comfortable there. I don't know. People are rarely all one thing anyway,

49:09Bella Freud:And a lot of one thing often suggests the opposite, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. But so kind of intelligent of you to spot that and go with that rather, you know, and to imagine playing him such a, I was very intrigued by you saying that. But I often feel that the, and that's why I keep going back to my father when I think of Lars, because my mother always told me that, and you can read it, but that my father wrote his lyrics talking about himself and made my mother sing them. so she was singing his voice um so there was a real link for me there yeah yeah because you also did sang one of your songs where you duetted with him but you you sing his part as well and I wondered what it felt like to to be him uh was it on on tour right um I think so you were talking about reprising one of the duets.

50:36Bella Freud:Yeah, I think it was Lemon Incest again. Right, right. Yeah. And I couldn't help but hearing him. So it was very moving to take his voice.

50:56and then people have imitated him a lot so I was always scared that I would end up imitating him or in any case his wording yeah it's a good idea

51:17Bella Freud:I think I I remember going to this, doing this sort of therapeutic week once, and one of the exercises was to sit next to your B12 and sit next to your parent, who was also 12. And I just started making stuff up. but it was felt so outrageous to to have you know to think anything or to put words in his mouth but it was actually quite interesting and um but you had to you had to put yourself in a 12 year old in your 12 year old yeah well I had to be 12 sitting next to him being 12 how funny and I for some reason was sitting on the harbor and he was sitting next to me and our legs were dangling over god knows i don't i didn't really know much about his childhood because he didn't talk a lot he'd said this thing once about running away and joining the navy when he was a teenager and then the ship in front being bombed and all the body parts falling onto his ship.

52:42Bella Freud:What? Really? So heavy. And then he managed to get, he got himself smuggled onto the ship and then he got himself smuggled off. But I... And so away from his parents, of course. Yeah. Yeah, but when you described singing your father's part, I imagined something kind of sort of binding him to you in some way. Yeah, my father always did talk a lot about his childhood. Really? Yeah, because it was during the war. And exactly, I think, 11, 12 and up to 15, 16 and hiding. But they always, all my family on his side escaping and they never talked about it in a dramatic way. It was always nearly fun. And he was off in the forest one night and terrified, but talking about it, it was so exciting.

54:04It was something. But so I would never be able to put my teenage years next to his

54:18because the comparison is so weak on my behalf. But it's surprising what you come out with

54:32Bella Freud:when you just have to, it's like being in a skit or something and then these things come out and they're, you know, they're not, you know in the end I invented them but it did something I didn't it was really unexpected and because and you you talked about not having self-confidence and I and about that changing and I wondered if there are certain clothes that make you feel better if you're feeling low it's true this confidence thing is such a big deal for me because I remember being so strong and and fierceful and not you don't say fierceful you said you say fearful fearful fearful yeah um fierceful is almost what you're going towards of feeling fierce yeah um and I really think from tiny age until maybe 10, 9, 10, I had no problem.

55:51I was

55:56very daring and, well, in fact, I had terrible nightmares. So maybe not that not that strong but what I remember of me is being very confident and so I'm always looking for that that lost lost confidence and so through clothes

56:36Bella Freud:maybe a coat it's interesting you say a coat so covering because I think what I I love um how you use your legs and you wear these short skirts and you have these fantastic legs and I don't think so oh my god you you have no idea your legs are literally coveted by no women around the world um heels help I've I was always longing for those legs with little calves and tiny ankles my grandmother used to say that was the the real delicatess with small ankles and I have huge ankles and big cuffs like a footballer and so with heels it of course it helps and the muscles are they're good to have but in any case so I can't wear flat shoes if you if you according to those rules but yeah well yeah I um I like how you you the act the way you use your clothes and um there's a sort of soldiery thing that you do with your elegance and uh but it's because i don't have and i was never able to embrace any femininity femininity femininity femininity femininity um i had to I had to be more of a boy so I couldn't take poses of what I like to see you know that I love looking at women in skirts and very feminine and and, you know, taking care of the way that they took poses.

59:04I have to be more straightforward. There's something that's... And so I don't care. again I it's it's good for me not to care and to there's I don't have many possibilities and I love the uniform I love the yeah that not always soldier like but something that you that gives you the posture yeah yeah and then you play around it maybe yeah that's a good it's good something to do with courage really isn't it that kind of gets you out of the door and but i know that now uh i've said this it's not the first time i think about it but my sister um became a photographer and she used me as a model early when she was starting and made me wear couture clothes really yeah and I wasn't I really wasn't into fashion at all and taking poses but in in Brittany in bitter cold and it was always extreme there was something yeah extreme about uh those photo shoots which meant that i didn't have the time to be embarrassed or it was just do it quickly and having so much fun with her that she made me

1:00:59play with my body, play with makeup, that I was never able to do that when I should have done it as a teenager. I did it so late. And so I didn't explore anything about myself when I should have done that. The only exploration was through films and costumes that I had to wear inside a film, yet not for myself.

1:01:32Bella Freud:Because you have this great hair, this messy, sexy hair, and I wondered... Can I say I hate it? Of course you're going to say that. Everything I love about you, you say, oh, I hate it. But it's really great, and I wondered if you ever brush it or it just goes like that. I can't. There's nothing to brush. The thing is, as soon as I try and be neat, it doesn't suit me. Yeah, I know. So it has to be a bit messy, but then when it's too messy, it's ugly. So the balance, it would take too much effort to study. And so I like, I had all these white hairs. And coming to London, I didn't know anyone that could help.

1:02:30So I just didn't look at myself for weeks. And then I had to go back to Paris to do the défilé, the fashion show of Saint Laurent. And I was in a panic. But then I thought, ah, so I went through three weeks of really not looking at myself. And it was great. It was great. And you can. I mean, so the messiness, I couldn't care less.

1:03:29Bella Freud:podcast app to automatically receive new episodes every Thursday. And if you fancy someone and don't like what they're wearing, does it kill your attraction to them? No. And I realized that I'm not a good observer because I just look at the face and I can't remember what people were wearing. that's also something I really am ashamed of because having spent so many years looking at myself because I was unhappy and not liking who I was it took such a long time what a waste of time and it was also a big waste of time I'm not looking at other people. So, of course, hopefully I have observed to play parts that are not only me.

1:04:39But I wish I had opened my eyes a bit sooner. and I guess when my sister died I realized who she was really I knew who she was but the realm of her generosity the time she took for other people gift to have her in your life. And so I understood that. And then I left for New York to escape the sadness and the weight. And being in New York, nobody recognized me. So I was able to look at people and to talk and suddenly I saw this a part of me that I didn't know and it was a real breath of fresh air but I can't remember what we were talking about at the beginning yeah that's so interesting though

1:05:50Bella Freud:just we were I asked you if you fancy someone and don't like something they're wearing yeah no but so but that makes really not but but as i said i i don't i i without looking at you i see your face um and i see your tie yeah and your shirt but that's it so i i only focus on here there's a lot going on here yes and uh i made a i made a jumper about 20 years ago probably as an homage to your mother um with jatame jane embroidered on it and um because i i had made a jumper that said ginsburg is god and then i got a message I think maybe from her agent saying Jane Birkin would like one of your Gansborgers God jumpers and I thought oh my what am I going to do I can't just say everyone's God and then I kind of I thought I went into my I sort of went inside myself and thought of how at school we had these wooden desks and I'd write mess love messages to people and I thought okay so this is je tamed jane and the jane was in a kind of embroidered thing and uh and then i tried to send her a jumper or a couple of jumpers and she actually left me a message on my answer machine saying i couldn't possibly wear a jumper saying i love me and maybe my daughters no they couldn't possibly say no yes and she was she was so beautiful and and seemed quite self-effacing and how did you handle that well the fact that she uh she was so modest yeah but more than that so sort of you know self you know there was no question that she could have any you know anything as kind of celebrated I mean I know that sounds a bit cheesy but you know but she was so self you have you have to help me on the self-deprecating yeah self-deprecating deprecating uh since I was little I can only remember that she said she was a bad actress but she sang better in the end.

1:08:41I think it's completely not true but I love the fact that she sang the way she was and there's a charm also in the beginning but she hated her accent And she told us all the time. So that's also, that was part of my education, was to think that you can't say that you're good at anything. My father was not modest, but he sort of made it very clear that he knew that he was very good at what he did, but they were only pop songs. So he wasn't a real poet. He wasn't a real classical music writer. So in a way, he was exactly like her. And it made it very difficult to believe in anything. you know things had to happen but you couldn't look look into you as an artist artist was sort of a banished word yeah so pretentious nobody was an artist um so So, I mean, I still hear my mother saying how ugly she was when she did all that makeup in the 60s and that all the girls looked the same.

1:10:30I understand what she was. She did say that she found herself later on with no makeup and the way, the beauty she was, of course. but you can't say that she was ugly I mean how dare she say she was ugly in the 60s

1:10:52Bella Freud:I know or ever I mean but it seems like a message that it's a train you know I mean it's been well yeah to be modest was really they I think they were so scared when I started with films and because uh the film i did when i was 14 the impotent girl was a big success um i think they were terrified that i would become pretentious or so they kept telling me you know you're here one day and the next you'll fall here so don't don't think you've achieved anything um i'm glad they did because i do hate uh pretentious people i think it's the worst thing but then i'd love to be able to not be content but just uh have some satisfaction yeah that you know it does happen sometimes but then it goes away really quickly because um your documentary that you made about your mother jane yeah charlotte which is so interesting and wonderful and um she talks a lot about guilt and you're so gentle and validating of with her and she talks about your sister kate and um and and also she said this thing which was so touching about her death when she dies and then she did die after your film was made saying that she wouldn't be there to comfort you when your anything happens to you and was incredibly moving indeed and uh and you said it's much clearer to you now how you love her and I wondered what's clearer um

1:13:13that I embrace all her mistakes or not mistakes really but the just finding a way through her life it wasn't that she didn't have it easy yeah so I think I acknowledged this so late and maybe doing the film. At first I started,

1:13:53the film started and I said I wanted to do a documentary on her and did she accept? And she said yes, but I think she thought that I was going to do a documentary about her professional life. and she felt trapped when I first interviewed her in Japan when we started and and she then said okay stop I'm not doing this it's I hated it and so I realized that she took it so personally and maybe I was asking questions just to to get answers or just maybe not to get answers but for her to hear the question and to understand that that was all I needed, was just to ask the question.

1:14:45Bella Freud:Yeah. And so I was doing the film for me as much as I was doing it for her.

1:14:56And so when she accepted to start again two years later, she was so generous with her answers and because I was in a really bad state she was trying to support me trying to pull me and put me back on my legs and yeah uh really very very touching and moving and yeah and then I realized that she didn't know how much I loved her because I never told her maybe or she thought that and that was doing interviews after the film was released and she said that I was always talking about my father that it was only about him because I lost him when I was 19. It was, of course, so devastating that my mother was still there.

1:16:03So why would I, you know, I don't know.

1:16:11And so that I'm so happy that I was able to make her understand how much I needed her, how much I loved her. but it came very late really really late well it's great that you could that it happened I yeah because she said I wish I had done it with my mother really yeah yeah I think she did have a long period of time with her mother one-to-one which was great because it was always to do with her father because he was sick and she loved taking care of him. And when he died, she shifted to her mother and had maybe 15 years or something like that with just her.

1:17:04Bella Freud:It's interesting that she allowed you to tell her in the end because it's quite difficult, especially with the mother I found with my mother to let them know you love them and they just keep you at an arm's length and it yeah it's you know it just messes up you you think oh this is so simple and then it doesn't seem to work and it all goes wrong so and that the whole

1:17:40the fact that the touching was never easy but I took it as something I mean I I never hugged my father in those days you it wasn't it wasn't part of what you did to hug but there was something very intense in the fact that we would kiss a la russe on the mouth right very uh you know nothing wrong with that but it was so the love was so uh there that no question with my mother there was something that became awkward that became that shifted uh And in the end, I was really sad about thinking there was a time where you blew my nose. And I was scruffy and I was a part of you. I was your skin. And why does that go away?

1:18:55but in fact with my own children it's the same so I tried to push it and force it but there's an age where there's a barrier and I'm not sure I don't know the moment you feel awkward it's that's the end you can't go back i suppose you can go through because there's something in the film as well that where she says i wish i'd you know i went

1:19:35Bella Freud:out all the time and left you alone and you said me say normal and i i knew i mean i thought think I knew what you were doing you were you were saying it so you know it's all right we're here you know I'm yeah and uh I really I thought about that a lot and I remember when my mother was dying she died really fast suddenly got diagnosed with cancer and died 10 days later oh god and she said I wish I could have showed you more love and I wish what I wish I could have shown you more love and I said oh but you did but now she's dead I think oh I'm so glad you said that because I felt like she loved me but she didn't seem to know how to show it and yeah so that thing she said and when you reassured your mother and said it so you know it's normal and it it doesn't matter if it was normal or not but somehow it was very um it was very such a lovely thing and I was so struck by how you you kind of took care of her in that in that but because she was consumed by guilt and I mean she was also feeding off guilt yeah yeah that was the way I don't know if it was I don't think it was the way she was brought up but in any case that was her way of dealing with things yeah and uh so i couldn't put more on her shoulders and i do love the fact that my parents loved each other yeah so deeply so passionately and that the fact that they went off and had fun and just those incredible nights in the 70s in Paris it's just a dream I do I don't because I used to say to Kate because we had that same childhood Lou had a my younger sister had a different childhood with a mother that was much more present because she had pushed all that life away and wanted to be a mother at home and cooking and all that but so I used to say to Kate oh the childhood we had with Normandy and how what a dream it was and and she said but how can you say this it was so boring and they were never there and she had such a different view so So, yeah, I guess I love the fact that she left us.

1:22:57And then my daughter said something about guilt because I have a tendency to feel guilty quite easily. And she told me, but you know it's a way of bringing stuff to you again, being in the center. She was not saying it against me. She was saying it against my mum. Right, yeah. I mean, you know, not just to make me feel better. But then I thought, oh, she's telling me something.

1:23:31Bella Freud:But it's quite infectious, someone's path. It's very hard not to take them on. But that's so sweet of her, your daughter, to, you know, reassure you as well. it's lovely when it can go yeah back and forth yeah well thank you so much for being on fashion neurosis i've loved talking and have so much identification with you i said um so so interesting to hear you you talk about your life and you know i bought a book is he your grandfather or your great-grandfather great-grandfather Sigmund yeah yeah got a book on my uh how do you call this a oh yes living room table yeah sort of we would just an autumn I this is an autumn and I call it just because it's covered in leather but yeah and I bought it because it's about um grief oh and uh uh yeah the loss and grief um and I do this very often I buy a lot of books and I don't read them so it's there yes I open it and I close it yeah I have to confess I haven't read any of his books either except for this comic book which is brilliant here a guide to Freud and that is tells you all about somebody did it about him but it it compresses it's really have it I'll get I no no no go on take it um yeah yeah no I mean there's millions of them out there and I read that and that was my way in and I've I've read things about him like there's a a script that Jean-Paul Sartre wrote for John Huston for his film about Freud and I read that I mean they never used it because he um uh John Huston said oh it's great but it's a bit long can you um can you shorten it and he went away and came back and it was even longer he knew what was gonna happen so those are those things are good i hope one day i'll be able to read some but that's great it's very the drawings are brilliant and it's terribly interesting

1:26:08Bella Freud:well like some of the things you were saying you know my my sense was you do not ever capitalize or feel that you have something that you haven't earned no one ever said that but I think watching my father working he never talked about anything apart from work it was about you know that was what mattered so his example was a very that I decided on that and but did he he take he would take you into his work Yeah, so I used to sit for him. That was my version of Lemon Incest, you know, doing, sitting for him. And yeah, that's how we got to know each other. But talking also? Yeah, he would talk. Yeah, he was great.

1:26:59You could chat away.

1:27:01Bella Freud:I mean, as long as he wasn't painting your mouth or you weren't too animated. But I knew exactly what to do. because my father made one drawing, no, two drawings of me and I remember sitting there and taking it so seriously I was six but I knew that the little times he would take with me for his work was special it felt good didn't it? a world that I was suddenly invited. Yeah, yeah, no, very strengthening. Thank you.

1:28:05Thank you.