In the city as on the screen, Charlotte Gainsbourg forms a couple with Yvan Attal, father of their three children. He signs “My stupid dog”, funny and overwhelming, where we discover Ben, their eldest son. A family story between reality and fiction.
In total black look, slimming liana, Charlotte Gainsbourg, 48, appears 15 less. On the top floor of a Parisian palace, in front of a cup of tea, the ex-shy expresses herself in a soft and confident voice on the occasion of the release of the film which she shares with her companion Yvan Attal .
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article-meeting with Yvan Attal
“My Stupid Dog” is taken from the novel by John Fante. The story of a dumped writer whose couple and four children are on the verge of a nervous breakdown when a dog arrives in their home. The opportunity for the daughter of Serge and Jane to tell us about her, about the generational divide that separated her from her parents as well as from Ben, her elder, also in the credits of this chiseled dramatic comedy.
– Could you have accepted this film about the passage of time, the wear and tear of the couple and the family without Yvan Attal?
– Charlotte Gainsbourg: Yes, because it was above all a high quality scenario. The tone is acerbic, I love the humor of John Fante’s book. The tenderness that emerges from it, I felt it when watching the film. I did not realize it during the shots. The character of Yvan is so touching. We see in the picture our twenty-eight years spent together and it’s moving. Yvan has fleshed out my character. Cécile hardly exists in the novel. And there is Ben (22), our eldest son. I understood that he wanted to be an actor, but he didn’t dare say it.
– He studied gastronomy and hotel management at Ferrandi.
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– Cooking is his passion. Ben has been looking for a long time. He is still looking for himself. He is complicated. He was a little rebellious. At 6 years old, he acted in “They got married and had many children” (d’Yvan Attal, 2004, editor’s note). I played it in 2017 in my clip “Ring-a-Ring O’Roses” – on the stages of existence – for the pleasure of filming it. He lent himself to the game, it enchanted him and I told Yvan.
– Sign of the times, his arms are covered with tattoos and he smokes joints in the film. The lived?
– (Smile.) In life, he made us see all the colors. He smoked joints, he was excessive. He got tattooed (on his chest and knuckles, note) but not like his character … In the image, these are not his. He had two to three hours of makeup when you saw his arms.
– We find him a good actor.
– I think we’ve known since he was a kid. I don’t want to give her bad luck (she crosses her fingers and touches wood). There is a story of luck with this job. He was always made for it and he discovers it today. I find myself very much in him. It was great for me to start young. I was 12 years old. I did not realize anything. I was having fun. I was adopted by cinema families. I hadn’t decided to be an actress. I went there dilettante.
– When did you get the click?
– At 19 years old. I had a drawing school after the bac and when I was asked: “What is your job?” I had to admit: “I want to be an actress.” It was painful and embarrassing to have to admit it because I was afraid it wouldn’t continue.
– “The shameless” upset a whole generation.
– I recently showed it to my two daughters, Alice (17) and Joe (8) – (she smiles) I wanted to show off a little – and I found myself catastrophic!
– At the time, you were speaking in a barely audible voice. Were you weakened?
– I spent a year in Switzerland, in Villars-sur-Ollon, in the canton of Vaud, at 13 years old. I found the Beau Soleil pension alone and decided to go there on my own initiative. It was a luxury boarding school for fried children. I had just filmed “Paroles et musique” by Elie Chouraqui (released in 1984, just like the song “Lemon Incest” with his scandalous father, editor’s note). I wanted to get away from Paris and my family, be away from everyone. I asked my father and he agreed. It was sad to see me go. It’s weird for a child to want to leave his family.
– What memory do you keep of it?
– A year of total independence. I fell in love with a boy older than me. I made a lot of discoveries, including skiing. I was doing a lot. As I did not return to Paris at the weekend, Elie Chouraqui, who lived in Switzerland, offered to welcome me on weekends. One day, Claude Miller came to see me to offer me L’effrontée and I went on to shoot.
– “My stupid dog” tackles the theme of the confrontation between children and parents. Were you rebellious?
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– I had a dream childhood, easy, idyllic. My sister Kate always told me that I embellished reality. For her, in her memories, we were pissed off (laughs). She was 4 years older. I liked everything. I had a difficult adolescence, however. I didn’t like myself physically, I had all the complexes of a teenager, the shyness that went with it. A palpable discomfort. Hence the idea to leave a year in pension.
– What was forbidden to you?
– With my parents, we often went to restaurants. We didn’t choose what we ate and we were forbidden to speak. We had to put our wrists on the table. My father was very strict on manners, not at all on language as we know it, provocation, speaking cash. On the other hand, he was intractable on how to behave. The restaurant was a nightmare. Sometimes Kate and I were allowed to go to the bathroom to play. It was our moment of freedom.
– The children did not have the same place as today.
– I remember snacks at my grandmother’s: the children’s world was apart. There were no conversations with our parents. We had a nanny and the nursery was not part of the house. I was scared. The housekeepers martyred us. They were more cow with Kate than with me. We dared not tell the parents because we had the impression that they were going to put themselves on their side. In short, just the opposite of today.
– Did your parents loosen the vice later?
– They allowed me everything. I lied to my friends when I told them I had to come back at midnight. I went out as I wanted and my parents didn’t care. My sister, who had done some bullshit before me, was held more severely. At my father’s house, around 18, if he did not encourage me to smoke, he would prepare for me a packet of cigarettes, a box of Lexomil (anxiolytic, note) and an ashtray. It was the norm (laughs).
– When your parents separated, did you get closer to him?
– I think he saw me suffer, but he was helpless. We were really very, very close without needing to talk to each other.
– When you drive in the movie, you look like your mother.
– Ah! (Surprise.) It touches me, because I don’t correspond to him physically at all. I was so upset that I didn’t look like him. She made three daughters with three different men (John Barry, Serge Gainsbourg and Jacques Doillon, fathers of Kate, Charlotte and Lou, editor’s note) and the three resemble their father. That’s crazy!
– Your character says to her husband: “Do you find me too old?” Now you look very young. Is it a handicap to embody a mature woman?
– In the film, I find myself rather ugly, the face surrounded. It’s been fifteen years since Yvan had filmed me with a big role, I was anxious at the idea that he saw the passage of years. I think I’m going to jump straight from young girl to old lady without ever going through the women’s box. I have a very androgynous silhouette, it adds to youth.
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– What decade do you fear?
– Forties terrified me. Fortunately, I had a child a week before. I was still 39 years old and it allowed me to pass this course, my baby had become my priority. The 50 years, in my opinion, it will give me a blow.
– Yvan Attal has inserted family archive images. How do you feel about them?
– This passage has a lot of effect on me. Yvan wanted, more than in the book, to move from the tone of comedy to another more sentimental, melancholic. These are nostalgic images. Brad Mehldau’s music over it rips my heart out.
– In 2007, you had a cerebral hemorrhage. In 2013, after the death of your sister Kate, you went to live in New York. Is the family a refuge in these times?
– Oh yes… But if I went to New York, it was because I was skidding. I skidded despite my family. They were all there, we were very close, but I lost my foot completely. For me it was a necessary and very selfish start. I asked my kids. Ben did not agree at all. He lived in Bath, England, he now lives in Paris. Alice really wanted to. Yvan followed me in spite of himself. I forced my departure to save my family, my skin and that of my children too. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to stay sane.
– Is this feature film couple therapy?
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– No, it’s the opposite. It was a difficult shoot. The conditions were great in this house on the Basque coast. We had a great team, we had dinner every night together. There was a very strong family spirit. But on a shoot, Yvan is tough. Then he regrets it. It is almost not his fault. He is impulsive, impatient, that is his nature. Me, it stresses me when people speak to me harshly. I am not used to that. Afterwards, we accept it or not. I made the film, I’m not going to complain about it now.
– Certain scenes between Yvan and you are glaring with truth.
– It would have been impossible other than together. These bursts of reality – breaking up on the phone – experienced me much more than a nude scene in Lars von Trier for example, I am very proud of it. For the joint on the sofa scene, we both really laughed…
– The film is also a declaration of love. Did your parents say “I love you”?
– My parents not at all. My father did it through journalists interviewed. Or in song. You can’t make a declaration of love bigger than “Lemon Incest”. I want to tell my children that I love them all the time. Sometimes I’m embarrassed because we say it in all the sentences and it becomes almost a bit commonplace. But it is necessary. In any case, I believe in it.
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