No one ever expected Charlotte Gainsbourg to make another record. Since the release of Charlotte for Ever in 1986 -- an album written for her by her adoring father, France's songwriting genius and provocateur Serge Gainsbourg -- Charlotte has enjoyed a successful film career, avoiding the music question completely, particularly after Serge's death in 1991. Unlike her mother, the actress and singer Jane Birkin, who regularly performs Serge's songs in concert alongside her own, Charlotte was loath to go near anything that might bring up emotions about her father, singing only occasionally for charity events or the odd TV show, and usually in a duet. Then she met Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel of Air at a Radiohead concert. A year later, she recorded an eleven-track album, 5:55 (Because Music/Vice/Atlantic), for which she assembled a distinguished crew -- Air, Jarvis Cocker, Neil Hannon, drummer Tony Allen and producer Nigel Godrich -- to make her irresistible, otherworldly meditation inspired by that early hour of the morning. Released in September, it went straight to No. 1 in France, reaching platinum sales.
For her latest film, the hit comedy Prête-Moi Ta Main, she has been nominated, a third time, for a Best Actress César (the equivalent of an Oscar). At 15, she had already appeared in two films and won a César for Most Promising Actress in Claude Miller's L'Effrontée, a story about blossoming teenage sexuality; at 22, her uncle, Andrew Birkin, chose her to play Julie in his adaptation of Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden, about four children whose parents die and whose two older siblings, Jack and Julie, assume the role of parents (yes, including consummation) to the little ones. In 1996, Franco Zeffirelli cast her as Jane Eyre opposite William Hurt. Charlotte has made movies with her longtime live-in partner, Yvan Attal (with whom she has two children), who wrote and directed two semi-biographical comedies in which the two both star: My Wife Is an Actress and They Lived Happily Ever After. Her role as the obscure object of desire has carried her appeal overseas: She appeared in Alejandro González Iñárrittu's 21 Grams, Dominik Moll's Lemming and Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep. She just wrapped Todd Haynes's new film, a Bob Dylan biopic entitled I'm Not There, in which she stars as Dylan's wife opposite Heath Ledger.
Despite her steady output, Charlotte is famously private and discreet -- she is not a socialite ("I like not being trendy, not really knowing what's happening," she says). A perfect composite of both her parents' standout qualities, she exudes the androgynous femininity of her mother and the intelligence of her father. Her voice is soft and childlike; she is reticent and shy; her eyes dart all around a crowded room, but she smiles constantly and will speak her mind. At the PAPER photo shoot, between lighting changes, she would stand confidently alone, smoking a cigarette, and when the stylist gave her clothes to try on, she did not use a mirror. Considering this atypical allure and unaffected nature, it is easy to see why she has played muse to fashion designers (such as Balenciaga), musicians and, in particular, film directors.
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