may 13, 2014 - THE TIMES
Vanessa Paradis:
Those you love
hurt you the most
INTERVIEW
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EXTRACT FROM THE TIMES INTERVIEW - FULL VERSION VIA THE LINK BELOW:
It is Paradis’s first English-language film and her performance — a series of longing, questioning glances and whispered phrases — isn’t a million miles away from her yearning, breathy recitation of Joe le Taxi, the 1987 French pop song that made her famous when she was 14. She still sings as well as acts, releasing an album last year called Love Songs. But for a long time Paradis was most conspicuous as Johnny Depp’s partner. They split in 2012 after 14 years and two children (Lily Rose, 15, and Jack, 11), never having married. Depp, 50, is now engaged to the bisexual actress Amber Heard, 28.
Paradis has denied that Love Songs was personal (she didn’t write the songs herself) and tells me: “Love songs are made for everyone. Everyone relates to them whatever generation you are part of.” There are conflicting reports that Paradis is perfectly fine with Depp’s engagement to Heard, while others whisper that it is an (understandable) source of family tension. Depp recently said of Paradis: “We see each other all the time and giggle and hang out just like we always did. She’s a wonderful woman. I love her and she loves me and she’s a great mommy. I have nothing bad to say, ever.”
For her part, Paradis has never bad-mouthed Depp and appears to have moved on. She was reported to be in a relationship with the French singer Benjamin Biolay (who once dated Carla Bruni, the wife of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and was previously married to French actress Chiara Mastroianni, daughter of Catherine Deneuve), but rumours now swirl that she is involved with French hair stylist John Nollet, who cut Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow dreads in Pirates of the Caribbean and may also be responsible for Vanessa’s new urchin haircut.
I ask if she is in love now. “Oh, that is none of your business,” she says merrily. “That is my business.” She doesn’t know if she’d like more children. “I am more secretive than out there. I think I have always been like that. Growing up in the public eye teaches you to keep your mouth shut to protect yourself. People want to know about everything; it’s never about your art. I am nostalgic for the old days where cinema and everything was beautifully lit and presented and everything else should be private.”
But still she has to promote her work — films she believes in — through interviews with newspapers. Of this apparent contradiction, she says: “You get a private life. You don’t tell everything to your boss. You’re not going to give out your deep, intimate emotions. Talking about everything is too precious.” Well, I say, she did have a relationship with Johnny Depp and when two famous people get together there will always be interest in that. “For sure,” Paradis concedes.
And, I say, when that couple breaks up, similarly . . . “Anything I am going to tell you will be returned against me,” says Paradis forcefully. “Everything I tell you, whether I speak from my heart, it’s never going to . . . You can never be right. A lot of people are judging something they have no clue about. Everyone is commenting, making funny jokes, when talking about people’s divorce. I mean, people forget we are human beings, we have kids. How could you be so light, given the fact you have no idea what’s going on? You have no idea how un-respectful and how hurtful . . . so . . . you know . . . I don’t know . . . That’s all I want to say about that,” she trails off.
Depp is said to have bought his former partner a $4.4 million (about £2.6 million) home in Los Angeles, where their children attend school. So Paradis divides her time between LA and Paris. She shot Fading Gigolo in the aftermath of 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, which she says showed “how much solidarity there was between New Yorkers”. Like Avigal, her character in the film, she is discreet rather than effusive, with an enigmatic, conversation-shutting-down smile. She speaks English softly, with sporadic French-ifying.
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