Actress Audrey Tautou who plays Coco Chanel in Coco Before Chanel.

Glam: How did this role come to you?

Audrey: It came to me because Anne met me to propose me the part without having written anything. Without even knowing it, she found in Chanel’s life a moment interesting enough to make a movie. Not a movie about clothes or fashion. To make a real movie you know? Also, I really like her cinema, her other movies. They’re very clever, very subtle. So I thought, for me, she was the right person to do something about Chanel.

Glam: Are you very familiar with Chanel?

Audrey: I was not familiar. In fact, I realized very quickly that I didn’t know that much and that my idea of her was kind of false. I knew the icon she was, that she had created a new style, how elegant and strong, commanding and authoritative she was. But, I thought she was coming from the height of Bourgeoisie and that everything had been easy. So I was very surprised to realize where she came from. In fact, her vocation was not something that she was born with but it was the elements, and her unpredictable talent, and her meeting with Boy which put her on this road.

Glam: You’re also the face of Chanel No. 5. Did this help you at all in your role in the film?

Audrey: I realized that this perfume, Chanel No. 5, was revolutionary. Everything was completely out of the fashion at that moment. It wasn’t fashionable at all-the smell, the packaging, the name. Everything was exactly the opposite from what everybody else was doing. It’s amazing that she could be so modern and ahead of her time because today it’s still the most selling perfume and it’s very modern. It’s not old fashioned at all.

Glam: Now that you’re more familiar with Chanel’s life, what questions would you like to ask her if she were alive today?

Audrey: First, I would take a lot of precautions because she was such a character! I don’t know. Maybe what she liked the most in her life? For her, what was her greatest achievement?

Glam: You know more about Chanel than ever before, but is there still something about her that is a big mystery to you?

Audrey: Oh yes! There’s many things. I don’t understand how somebody, a woman that is so proud and independent, could bare to be a lover, a mistress. I don’t really understand why she worked so hard to hide her past because I don’t think there’s a reason to be ashamed of it.

Glam: How much of a factor do you feel loneliness was in defining her?

Audrey: Loneliness was her constant companion. She was born a century too soon. Of course she had this feeling because she was an abandoned child and also because she was feeling so different from the other women. Also she was so bright. When you are a rebel, you suffer. You fight, you’re determined but you suffer because you don’t know if you’re going to succeed. It’s so much easier to accept the rules. This isolated her.  I really think this mix of strength and vulnerability was important.

Glam: How important do you think the love story was between Coco and Boy?

Audrey: He was the one who revealed to her that her singularity was her strength and that she had this talent that she had to be confident with and trust. He was the first man. At this time, this was important because without a man, a woman was nothing. He was the first one to consider her and financially invest in her so that’s very important. It was a real love. If he had married her, and she would have loved to get married with him instead of the other English woman, we don’t know if she would have worked and been creative. She said that when she was in love, she really didn’t want to go to work. It was something very…not boring but she didn’t have the same passion for it. She was a real lover in a way. So that’s incredible to realize how her destiny was on a thread. Life is always like that for amazing destinies.

Glam: Was she ambitious?

Audrey: Oh yes. I read in Edmonde Charles-Roux’s biography, that she had defined a woman who had seen Chanel when she was singing in the cabaret. She was describing her as having a shy ambition. The adjective of shy was something that I wouldn’t have thought about. When you think about Chanel, you think strength, you think determination, ambition. I realized that she couldn’t match these clichéd ideas because you create with your doubts, your suffering. You don’t create if you are confident and comfortable in a seat. I think that she was a genius so she was much more complex than that.

Glam: Do you see any parallels between yourself, stylistically or emotionally, and Coco Chanel?

Audrey: Me, I’m not modern at all. I don’t like the Parisian show business. It’s not my cup of tea. And in my style, she created the masculine/feminine, and I think that is something I share with her; I’m not a girly girl!

~Maria Denardo

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