Audrey Tautou Interview, Coco Before Chanel

MoviesOnline sat down recently with French actress Audrey Tautou (The Da Vinci Code, Amelie) to talk about her new movie, Coco Before Chanel.

Coco Before Chanel is the story of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, who began her life as a headstrong orphan, and through an extraordinary journey became the legendary couturier who embodied the modern woman and became a timeless symbol of success, freedom and style. The film portrays the formative years of Chanel's life, the years Chanel spent discovering and inventing herself.

Coco Before Chanel is directed by Anne Fontaine (La Fille de Monaco/ The Girl From Monaco) from a screenplay by Anne Fontaine and Camille Fontaine, with the collaboration of Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons), loosely based on L'irrégulière (Chanel and Her World: Friends, Fashion, and Fame) by Edmonde Charles-Roux.

More than 40 biographies have been written about this extraordinary fashion designer and her legendary life. Chanel’s experience in the 20th century was full of audacity, love, turmoil and allure, and her story reads like a lesson on life, a novel bursting with adventure.

Tautou was likewise fascinated by Chanel, and though the prospect of the role had long been hovering around her, she was captivated by Fontaine’s vision. “I was secretly hoping to get an offer with a particular point of view because the modernity of this character – her spirit, and the position she gave women – fascinates me,” says Tautou. “In addition, when Anne Fontaine explained how she intended to treat the subject, I immediately agreed.”

“Anne has allowed me to develop the nature of Chanel by searching different aspects of this role, by shading the emotions, being fragile and sweet and, at the same time, commanding and proud,” the actress continues. “The fact that a woman directs this movie is already a great advantage to express how difficult it was to be of ‘the weaker sex’ at that time. The intelligence of Anne Fontaine, her finesse, her global vision of the character and the story have been of utmost importance in her direction of the film.”

Audrey Tautou is a fascinating actress and we really appreciated her time. Here’s more of what she had to tell us about “Coco Before Chanel”:

Q: This film focuses on Coco Chanel before she became a famous fashion designer. Was it challenging to find information about the early beginnings of her life?
 
AUDREY TAUTOU: Because of the part of her life that was chosen to be depicted in this film, there was actually not a lot of information out there. And also, what she said about this period was often full of lies and she wanted to hide a lot of the facts. So, one of the instrumental pieces was the biography written by Edmonde Charles-Roux who had done an exhaustive investigation for 5 years to get to the bottom of who Coco Chanel was in this period. And then, there were other books that Audrey read about this period and she could tell from the different books who believed in the lies that Coco spread about herself and who didn’t. And, in the case of Edmonde who wrote the definitive biography, she dispelled many of the lies that Coco herself was trying to set out.
 
Q: Audrey, since you were playing an actual person, how did you approach this role compared to roles that are fictional?
 
AUDREY TAUTOU: Yes, playing somebody who has a celebrity quotient or people know about adds extra pressure because in the public’s mind they already have preconceptions or they think they know that person. But, based on the research that Audrey did, both watching videos and seeing a lot of photographs and also reading the novels, it informed the way she wanted to interpret this person and that actually gave her a lot of freedom to inject her own self, her own colors, into this character.
 
Q: Do you feel more liberated working with fictional characters than with this real character?
 
AUDREY TAUTOU: I don’t feel liberated or constrained in the way that you asked the question and there’s actually some comfort in playing somebody who has, you know, who’s existed and has a psychology that’s already there. But, where I worked was on the border, that frontier between interpreting the character and finding, exploring this part of her life that not a lot of people knew about, and then, the other side, the mimétisme, or the imitation, but trying to recreate the part that was the public. So, it’s really the work on that border between the fictional and then the persona that people knew about.
 
Q: What was it about Anne Fontaine’s vision that attracted you to the project and resonated with you?
 
AUDREY TAUTOU: I think the attraction was that the film actually was focusing on a short period of her life and not a sprawling epic biography and that this was a study of that character at that point in time and the fact that Anne Fontaine is a woman and, as the director, she had a very keen perception of the psychology of the character and she had an understanding of what it means to function in a man’s world and to advance and to make breakthroughs in that and the fact that she… This is not a movie about clothing. This is a movie about somebody who is advancing and that the fashion is part of that journey, but it’s not the end in and of itself.
 
Q: She had a really special vision and she broke the rules of fashion at that time. Do you personally have a special view toward fashion and can you talk about that?
 
AUDREY TAUTOU: I would say that she breaks the rules in fashion because she also breaks the rules as a woman. Behave yourself. So, I think clothes for her were not superficial. It was the expression of her spirit. That’s the reason why her style is still so present, you know, today and so fashionable. You know, I would say it’s not about… Chanel’s style is almost not about fashion. That’s why, you know, it’s so unfashionable. I do not personally like to follow fads in fashion or things change and where your personality isn’t really expressed. You know, you accept whatever the new fad is just because that’s the thing of the moment. That’s not what I gravitate to. I prefer the clothing, and I do like clothing, but it is more just a personal expression but not following something.
 
Q: Would you be interested in continuing with Coco’s life? I think it would have been interesting to see a sequel of what happened after because she had massive success and quite a few lovers.
 
AUDREY TAUTOU: If you’re interested in the rest of her life, it’s in part because this film explored the mystery of who she was and she lived 80 plus years. It would have been too reductive to try to cover every chapter in her life. It’s true that she had such a rich life that you could make 10 movies about her because she had an amazing love life, very Romanesque, full of hope and tragedies, and men were very important for her and she creates so many amazing things, you know, not only about the style but if I talk about the perfume and Chanel No. 5, it’s amazing. Everything was revolutionary. Today it seems so normal and modern. It’s really not old fashioned today. But, at that time, it was just completely new for many, many things. So, Chanel is such an interesting and unique personality that I think that’s the reason why, for me, this character deserved to be treated deeply, you know.
 
Q: Are there other elements of her life that you would have loved to make a part of this movie or perhaps would like to explore in a sequel?
 
AUDREY TAUTOU: Well, I think that I am interested in -- I’m very moved by the very final chapter of Coco Chanel when she was at the end of her life. For so many decades, she was ahead of the times and there is a part towards the end where society not only caught up with her but then surpassed her and she changed. She lived in incredible solitude at the end after having a life full of people and lovers. She lived in a deep solitude although she still worked and she was functional and she always kept the sense of the repartee, the joy of the verbal joust and a sense of humor. The last little thing, which is the way she wanted to keep control of her life, and an anecdote which is true, and she said, because she was living in the Ritz at the end of her life, and she saw the receptionist of the hotel that she knew and she said, “I’m going to die in 7 minutes” and she died 8 minutes after.
 
Q: That is control.
 
AUDREY TAUTOU: That’s amazing, yeah.
 
Q: Audrey, you’ve worked with male directors and now you’ve worked with Anne Fontaine, did you see any difference particularly where your characters are strong female characters in your films?
 
AUDREY TAUTOU: No, I don’t really see any difference, in fact, you know. I have no idea also because I don’t really like to analyze my work and my relationship with a director. I don’t like to have distance with the part I’m playing or, you know, the project I’m on or the story we are telling. When I’m involved, I don’t look at it objectively or from a distance. But, again, I really think that it was very essential when treating such a character that it be directed by a woman. You know, Chanel was so feminine and special that a man can understand her but a woman can feel her.
 
“Coco Before Chanel” opens in theaters on September 25th.