Charlotte Gainsbourg

Of Charlotte Gainsbourg, we thought we knew everything, or almost everything. The daughter of, the sister of, the mother of, the wife of, the actress of, the singer of — she has seemed to be part of our landscape ever since her very first steps, immortalized on glossy paper. And yet, we knew nothing, or so very little: clues scattered throughout a filmography that sketches an elusive portrait of the artist, secrets concealed in songs that piece together a certain idea of the muse, carrying on her shoulders a French mythology as an inheritance. Until now, everyone had their own vision of Charlotte — but no one had asked what hers might be.

“Maybe because my parents had done the complete opposite, I always kept everything secret,” she says. “Faced with the curiosity of the media, it was important not to give myself away. Since I had a very serious desire to start writing, I had made many attempts, but never a text I could truly claim as mine. Despite the encouragement of Beck or Connan Mockasin, I was very self-conscious. In front of my father, I didn’t even dare write in French. But when my sister died, I opened up without any restraint — nothing else mattered anymore. I was in a period of deep grief, and it became easier to bring certain things into the world.”