(I couldn't have done this translation without the help of Carine, who transcribed the interview in French. Thank you so much!!) Interviewer: Why so long an absence? Where were you? Vanessa: I made two children, which takes up not a little time, at least 18 months to make two of them separately, and worse I did an album and a tour, therefore I haven’t been unemployed, either! It’s like this: perhaps there weren’t scripts that gave me the desire to make films, and I love to make music and I love my children, therefore… you can’t do everything at once! Interviewer: What kind of roles did you refuse during your absence? Vanessa: I don’t know what kind of roles… all kinds… lovers, bitches, murderesses… it’s moments of my life where I have more desire to make music and I can’t make a film and at the same time, make music, I haven’t yet done both at the same time, unless the film is a musical comedy but that still hasn’t presented itself… I don’t have a career plan… Interviewer: What is your career today? Vanessa: C'est pas parce qu'on a l'habitude de faire du hachis-parmentier qu'on n'a pas le droit de faire de la choucroute! [the interviewer laughs] It’s a means of expression, it’s especially a pleasure… Me, I’ve had the pleasure of singing and acting, doing ads with Jean-Paul Goude or Karl Lagerfeld… it’s difference experiences… … I won’t define myself, huh! When I fill out the airline papers, I put “singer,” ok! [Then the interviewer goes back to what she said about making movies as a vacation… she explains again her point of view, that when you’re a singer, the attention is focused on you, you’re in the center of it all, which is not the case in film] Interviewer: Looking at your filmography, there are not many films but they are important. Noce Blanche, your 1st full-length film… Vanessa: Noce Blanche, with Bruno Cremer… it’s a good memory and a bad memory because Jean-Claude Brisseau is not an easy-going person – he was a professor, thus he kept all the authority of a professor – because the subject was a subject rather serious and dark… and because there are people who are not made to be the best of friends and I think Jean-Claude Brisseau and I, that was it… but he has made a very beautiful film and he gave me my first chance, he believed in me at a time where… Interviewer: And well, you were young at the time! Vanessa: Yes… but especially at the time where I was easily categorized, I was someone people were embarrassed of rather than someone people wanted to admire… Interviewer: What disturbed people, precisely? Vanessa: That, I don’t know… I think that when success comes very quickly, and it’s also as big as “Joe le Taxi” was, that disturbs people… if it’s represented by a young girl who’s 14 years old, who has the desire to resemble a woman, who puts a lot of makeup on, who dresses in a way that’s a little provocative or in any case, not in step with her age, and who doesn’t express herself very good, that doesn’t help the image… and then when you blast the same song on the radio 40 times a day, that ends up irritating you! Interviewer: Other people, other things, Jean Becker and Depardieu… Elisa. Vanessa: That was five years later and after having lived through a first shooting that was rather… rather difficult and not very gay, it was great! Interviewer: Elisa, it was 10 years ago. It was your last big big box office success. Do you miss having a big box-office success ? Vanessa: Of course when you make a film that makes you happy and what’s more, makes the public happy, it’s the cherry on the cake… and for the producers, it’s more than a cherry I have to say! Of course, it’s even better but… I can’t choose my films according to that… it’s like when you make music! You can never know! What do you have to do, is be true to yourself, and if you’re lucky to please the public, ok it’s great! Interviewer: There’s another very beautiful encounter, it’s with Jeanne Moreau, Manzor’s Witch Way Love. That was less of a success than Elisa… Vanessa: I have excellent memories of spending many months with Jeanne Moreau, now, I was… a little… disappointed with the films’ result… I didn’t have the desire to make the same film as him [Manzor], voila… Interviewer: Another film which unfortunately did not have box office success, Half a Chance, where you met Leconte, Belmondo, Delon… How do you find your place between Delon and Belmondo? Vanessa: Rather like a spectator! They were more teenaged that I on that film, I wasn’t a teenager but… they had gadgets everywhere, there were race cars, helicopters, motorcycles, they were like fishes in water, they were in their element… and then the dialogue was made so that they could mock themselves, so therefore they were given to hearty joy! I was very touched by… Alain Delon, who, a priori, which everyone will tell you about, is not someone who you’ll get along with easily at first, but he was very easygoing with me… he was absolutely charming, he was extremely protective of me, during filming and even afterwards… Interviewer: Another meeting, Daniel Auteuil, Girl on the Bridge and again Patrice Leconte… Vanessa: That’s one of my most beautiful memories… it’s being in total agreement with everything, everything that forms a film, it’s script, the director, my fellow actors, the locations, the crew, everyone… precisely, people speak of magic, there, it was there! [Photo time] Interviewer: Marilyn Monroe… Vanessa: Ah! My favorite! She’s a sublime actress but I don’t know, when I was 6 years old, I chance upon a book in my parents’ library, there were photos of her, there was something familiar, I don’t know… however I was little… when I see things about her, her films, her interviews, her photos, or objects that I can touch… Interviewer: Clothing that had belonged to her… Vanessa: I’ve been offered! Every time I open my heart, it makes me… I don’t know… it’s physical, it knocks me over, it makes me cry even! Interviewer: Fred Astaire! Vanessa: Fred Astair! But Gene Kelly especially! But obviously, Fred Astaire, what a genius! That was my first movie love, musical comedies! Interviewer: A young actor, “21 Jump Street”… Vanessa: A young actor that debuts! Interviewer: Johnny Depp of course… “21 Jump Street,” did you watch it at the time? Vanessa: No… not too much, no, but I remember seeing him for the first time in “Cry Baby” and completely melting for this young man… Interviewer: And then, there was the film with Polanski too, it’s at that time that you met, non? Vanessa: No, we’d known each other for a long time but it was then that we… concluded, all the same! This is not a woman in love who is speaking… it’s a sublime actor and I’m not at all surprised that directors are all fighting to have him… these days, I’m also impressed by him a little like one could be impressed by Brando 30/40 years ago… they are very close and it’s not random… it’s not random if Brando has total love and admiration for him… He is just so much! He doesn’t do the same thing twice, not the films but the character, I admire him! Interviewer: In fact he’s your favorite actor? Vanessa: Bah… yes… I… Interviewer: Do you think one day you will make a film with Johnny Depp? Do you want to make a film with him? Vanessa: No and moreover, he makes me laugh all the time, I’m not sure if I could act, I’m not sure if I could look at him… I can’t act opposite him, I can’t… to pretend while looking into each other’s eyes, that frightens us… Interviewer: There’s really the feeling that this is a big “atomic circus,” this film, it’s a little like that? Vanessa: There are only insane people in this film, and you’re not bad! [directed to Jean-Pierre Marielle, who plays her dad Bosco, who has joined them] JP: Me, it’s kind of a natural state so it’s not a composition… I didn’t realize it. Vanessa: Thierry and Didier Poiraud, they are incredible, they are electric… JP: Yes, they’re electric. You have the impression that they’re just doing whatever but really, it’s not like that at all! It’s very elaborate and very very intelligent work. On the set, they knew exactly what they wanted! Vanessa : They are secure! Me, it went further, because we had spent a long time preparing this film together, and they both always spoke at the same time, I didn’t understand anything they said to me… when, sometimes, I spoke with Benoit Poolvoerde, who is very friendly with them – because in the beginning I told myself, “But you’re stupid my poor girl, you understand nothing!” – and well he didn’t understand either, thus I was a little reassured… I was afraid for the film’s shoot, I told myself, “How will this be ok?” … I said, “Who will take the camera?” “Bah, sometimes, it’s me; sometimes, it’s him; sometimes, it’s the chief operator,” it was a little odd and then the first day on the set, all my worries were put to rest… They knew perfectly what they were doing, they are men of the earth, they are precise and then they improvise, they have ideas in just seconds! Sometimes, the day’s shoot would be stretched because they’d added on to it… JP: And then they are pleased when you have ideas! Interviewer: How to define this film? JP: Vanessa! Vanessa: Ah, bah, thanks a lot! JP: Yes, that wasn’t very nice of me… Vanessa: It’s a… “genre” film, as they say, and it’s a film of many genres! They love to talk about Ed Wood, the man, they really love to talk about Capra films… a bit of Hitchcock, for “The Birds”… JP: Yes, because they give the impression of being a little crazy but they’re not at all… Vanessa: Well, they are very crazy all the same! JP + Vanessa: But well-organized! Interviewer: What does JP bring to a film set? Vanessa: I don’t know anyone else like him! He just brings… himself! It’s not simple, there’s work, he’s searching on the set like we all do, but him, he is already entirely, he just has to speak for it to be… hmm… I can’t describe it, it’s very awkward! We were all like crazies, the directors, the actors, the crew, “Oh, we have JP!” … But you can’t know how we all danced in joy! JP: In any case, it’s a very good memory. I know it’s the same for the many spectators! Maria: In order to keep the joke, here’s a literal translation of the following, I’m sure you understand what they mean. Interviewer: It looks to be like a very inflated film! How do you explain that there are not more films like this in French cinema, JP? JP: Because there are too many deflated ones! [Vanessa laughs] There are inflated people, too! Interviewer: People aren’t used to seeing this kind of film… Vanessa: I agreed that this is new, this tone, this kind, and me, I find that it’ll do good! Interviewer: I was delighted, Vanessa Paradis, to spend this moment with you because I already find that one doesn’t often meet actresses who are a natural as you have been… No, it’s true! I have met a few but… Don’t change at all! Patrice Leconte says of you that you are “a fairy who makes people happy”… Vanessa: That’s nice… I don’t know… good humor can be contagious! That depends on the energy you distribute… you have share! Interviewer: Jeanne Moreau, I think, has said: “Angels accompany that child.” Fairies, angels, very mystical, no? Vanessa: Yes… Me, I don’t live in the mystic so I don’t know and then of course, I don’t try to analyze life… I lead it, I live it, I profit and I quarrel like everyone! Interviewer: It’s almost something that you release in spite of yourself. Vanessa: I don’t know… Me, I live with “me” every day… I release, I have smelly armpits sometimes too! Interviewer: [laughs] It’s rare to hear an actress say that! Vanessa: I don’t have smelly armpits all the time but I can have smelly armpits too… Interviewer: If Patrice Leconte says that you are a fairy that makes people happy, what is it that makes you happy? Vanessa: LOOOOOOOVE! [big grin] My children, my friends, and the people I work with are also my friends, that goes together.