USA: Audrey Tautou talks about the complexity of playing style icon Coco Chanel at the New York premiere of her new biopic

Record ID: 219674

  • Title: USA: Audrey Tautou talks about the complexity of playing style icon Coco Chanel at the New York premiere of her new biopic
  • Date: 17th September 2009
  • Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (SEPTEMBER 15, 2009) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (French) ANNE FONTAINE, DIRECTOR OF "COCO BEFORE CHANEL" SAYING: "Chanel never wanted to be a victim. Chanel is a survivor. She is someone who always wanted to hide her wounds and to make them disappear even if they were there. She is very French, that is true. But she is a provincial Frenchwoman. She is very stubborn. Is the Frenchwoman more free? It's hard to say but it is said anyway, so maybe there is some truth in it." (*** FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY ***) CIARA, HIP HOP SINGER, POSING FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS CIARA, HIP HOP SINGER, WEARING CHANEL BELT PHOTOGRAPHERS MODEL HELENA CHRISTENSEN POSING FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS EXTERIOR OF MOVIE THEATER WHERE PREMIERE OCCURRED
  • Embargoed: 2nd October 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVA8ZAU7GS35N2LKJOAUQ6EKBEKQ
  • Story Text: Audrey Tautou hit the red carpet in New York on Tuesday (September 15) with a fashion-forward hairdo that seemed appropriate for the premiere of a movie about a woman known for defying convention. The film called "Coco Before Chanel" follows the groundbreaking designer in her early years before she became an internationally renowned couturier.
    Tautou who bears a striking resemblance to Chanel said she hopes audiences will emerge from the movie with a more intimate understanding of the hardship Chanel endured.
    "The most important thing for me is that people would be moved by the movie because that's why we made the movie," she said. "She had a very romanesque life and I think that different elements in her existence like love or the struggle and everything make this movie very moving."
    Chanel was a loner. She spent a good portion of her childhood in an orphanage after being left there by her father who never returned for her. The film chronicles the years after leaving the orphanage when she worked in a bar as a singer and a seamstress. She begins a liaison with a baron with money and connections who helps her with her career but her heart belongs to an English businessman.
    Playing Chanel in her early years provided some challenges for Tautou who said she felt pressure to capture what it was that made Chanel become the feminist and icon that we now know.
    "It was a role unlike anything I've ever played before because she's an icon - a woman that I'd say is a part of the French heritage. She was a brilliant woman, a very complex woman so it was a little strange for me to try to make her more human or at least to overcome the clichés that surround her," she said.
    Anne Fontaine, who directed the movie, said she chose Tautou to play Chanel because of their physical similarities but also because she captured Chanel's many dualities.
    "Underneath the strength there is vulnerability," said Fontaine. "She is insecure. She doesn't know how it's going to be. She wants to be somebody. She is very ambitious but she is also insecure and I always try to have this balance between strength and fragility."
    The French movie which was shot entirely in France has English subtitles and is being released in the United States, Japan and several European countries in September.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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