3 days Ago By Paul Chi
On Tuesday evening, Charlotte Gainsbourg swaggered down the red carpet at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art for the premiere of her new ballet series, Étoile. The picture of effortless cool—much like her iconic parents, Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, before her—the British-French actress and singer wore a flirty gold polka-dot Saint Laurent minidress and sky-high stilettos. As she posed for the cameras, she tussled her brown locks with one hand while wielding sunglasses and a clutch.
“It’s easy to wear,” Gainsbourg told Vogue of her look. “It’s lovely and the shoes don’t hurt!” In Étoile , created by Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino—the award-winning couple behind Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel —Gainsbourg ushers viewers inside the cut-throat world of dance, as two renowned ballet companies in New York and Paris trade their most talented stars for a year in an attempt to save their storied institutions.
Gainsbourg plays Geneviève, an opinionated, no-nonsense, high-heel-wearing French ballet director willing to go to great lengths to get the public interested in dance again. Her performance in Étoile marks her English-language comedy debut. “People here see me only as a dramatic actress, but I was always looking for comedies as much as I could,” explains Gainsbourg, who is best known stateside for her work in provocative Lars von Trier films like Melancholia and Nymphomaniac .
“I enjoyed doing comedy in France. I’m not always serious. I like to have fun and laugh!” It’s no wonder, then, that Gainsbourg took such great pleasure in the chance to play a bold, over-the-top character like Geneviève.
“I love the way I was able to hide the depressed side of my character with her high heels, and then [become] a little more authentic when my character is by herself,” Gainsbourg says. “This duality was fun to play because it’s going to those extremes.” She also had a blast dropping F-bombs and reciting zingers from Étoile ’s whimsical, fast-paced script.
“The way Amy and Dan write is so funny, and once I discovered that it had to do with the pace and the rhythm, and understanding the words they choose, I understood what I had to aim for—and to swear as much as I can, it was so fun!” As it turns out, beyond having impeccable comic timing, Gainsbourg also has quite a natural talent for pratfalls. “She has this ethereal quality,” Sherman-Palladino says, “but the more we got to know her, we realized she’s an excellent physical comedian. Her face is very expressive and she reacts to everything.
Comedy can be daunting, and I never saw her sweat.” In a way, Gainsbourg’s facility with comedy runs in the family; Jane Birkin made a number of comedies over the course of her career, from Pierre Grimblat’s romantic satire Slogan in 1969 (her first film with Serge) to Alain Resnais’s com-dram Same Old Song from 1997. “She always loved to see me in comedies,” Gainsbourg says of her late mother.
“She thought she was not a serious actress because she was doing comedies and she wasn’t going to the chic award shows, but those films are so brilliant that she did to begin with. She was so funny. Even though she went to dramas afterwards, she knows how charming it is, and she was always happy that I did comedies in France.
So I think she would be happy with my work in Étoile .” Étoile debuts on Prime Video April 24..
