“Even though I’ve been working in film for over 20 years, I still want to look beautiful on screen,” says Louis Garrel, speaking via video call from his bed on a boat off the coast of Corsica. The French film star is lying on his stomach, occasionally kicking up his bare legs, ruffling his curls, and running his thumbnail over his moustache. I think the person he sees on the laptop screen in front of him is me, but I’m pretty sure he’s flirting with his own reflection.
The attraction between the 43-year-old Paris-born actor and the camera tends to be mutual. With long limbs, tousled hair, and a chiselled nose, Garrel has spent his career on screen as French cinema’s favourite Adonis—the man directors turn to when they need an erotic wrecking ball to break up bourgeois couples and turn them into trembling ménages à trois.
His breakout role in 2003 was as a lustful student revolutionary who inserts himself into the sexual bond between his twin sister (Eva Green) and a visiting American student (Michael Pitt) in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers. Since then, he’s been reliably effective as smouldering sex symbols whose intense stare cuts across dancefloors—bewitching two friends in Canadian director Xavier Dolan’s 2010 film Heartbeats, enticing Angelina Jolie into a fling in the high-fashion drama Couture, or hawkishly pouncing on poor Yves Saint Laurent in the 2014 biopic Saint Laurent, where he played Karl Lagerfeld’s dandy companion Jacques de Bascher. “I fight against it because I know that good actors don’t care about looking good,” he excuses himself. “But I’m not such a good actor.”
That is false modesty of the highest order. He comes from a dynasty of actor-filmmakers that includes his mother Brigitte Sy, his father (and ex-lover of Velvet Underground singer Nico) Philippe Garrel, and his grandfather Maurice Garrel, on whose advice he applied to and graduated from Paris’s prestigious Conservatoire drama school. On screen, he has not just played dreamboats but also Alfred Dreyfus, King Louis XIII, Robespierre, and Jean-Luc Godard. And in his latest film, Garrel does something that only good actors can do: play magnificently against type.
In the comedy Just an Illusion, he is Yves, a former executive at a kitchen appliance firm who has recently lost his job but can’t bring himself to tell his family. Fitting the film’s 80s suburban Paris setting, Garrel’s hair here is bouffant rather than tousled, and the moustache is more Ron Burgundy than Alain Delon in The Leopard era. He wears a billowing beige trenchcoat that makes him look as befuddled as Monsieur Hulot, the comical everyman in Jacques Tati’s films.
In one scene, Yves is flipping through a magazine on the living room sofa while the apartment block’s caretaker Monsieur Berger (Pierre Lottin) shows Yves’ wife Sandrine (Camille Cottin, of Call My Agent fame) how to use her new desktop computer. As the mulleted Berger places his tattooed paw over Sandrine’s hand to guide the cursor, she giggles with delight. “If you go like this, Sandrine, it jerks.” “It jerks off all over the place,” she coos back. Yves, startled by echoes of the spark that has long vanished from his marriage, rushes to put out the flames and shows Berger the door. If reducing France’s go-to libertine to an anxiety-ridden third wheel isn’t a feat of acting, what is?
“When I was very young, a director told me that on screen you have to be like a gorilla,” Garrel says. “You have to be intense and fascinating to watch, but have absolutely no idea of yourself. When I’m playing a character like this one, I can do less, you know, modelling. I don’t care if I look good, and most of the time you are better on screen when you don’t care.”Photograph: Severine Brigeot/Hachette Premiere/Kushner-Locke Co/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock
A hit when it came out in France this spring, Just an Illusion is directed by the film-making duo Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, who have been a reliable box-office draw ever since Untouchable, which told the story of a wealthy quadriplegic and his home helper. Like that earlier film, their new one offers gentle, non-confrontational comedy and an openly sentimental emotional tone. But along the way, it touches on some surprisingly big political themes, including Franco-German reconciliation, the 1870 Crémieux Decree that gave Algerian Jews French citizenship, the rise of the Front National, and the anti-racism concerts organized in response. There’s also the story of a frustrated stay-at-home husband dealing with his wife starting a career. When Sandrine passes her computing exam and lands an executive job, Yves cries tears of joy with her.
“What strikes me when I watch modern movies these days is that everyone gets divorced or separated, and couples never stay together from start to finish,” says Garrel, who separated last year from his wife of eight years, the actor and model Laetitia Casta. “This movie shows one man and one woman who stay together without splitting up, which would have seemed bourgeois in the 1970s but now feels very punk.”
The main character of Just an Illusion isn’t Yves, but his younger son, 12-year-old Vincent (Simon Boublil), who has fallen hopelessly in love with a girl in his class. Vincent has caring parents, but the film’s central message is that at some point, every generation has to tell the previous one to back off, no matter how well-meaning they are. I wonder how that message resonated with Garrel, given that his career follows family tradition. Has he ever told his parents to back off? He answers in a way only someone whose family history is listed on IMDb can. “Of course I love Pasolini, of course I love Godard, of course I love Truffaut. But I want to be inspired by films that don’t show at the Cinémathèque Française. Like Lethal Weapon. That’s one of my favorite movies, I don’t care.” Okay, but has he ever told his parents to get lost? “It’s a small rebellion, I know, but that’s maybe my way to say fuck off.”
Just an Illusion is the 62nd film Garrel has acted in and his first role that really explores fatherhood. In real life, he has a five-year-old son from his relationship with Casta, and an 18-year-old adopted daughter, Oumy Bruni Garrel, from a previous relationship with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, sister of former French first lady Carla Bruni. Oumy has appeared in some films, but Garrel seems relaxed about the possibility that the acting dynasty bearing his name might end with his children. “She [Oumy] is a very talented actor, she has a gift. But I recently asked her, do you really want to become an actress? And she told me no, no, no, I don’t want that. So next year she’s going to study anthropology, sociology, and philosophy. I’m very proud of that.” Did he discourage her? “She doesn’t need discouraging, because she’s seen the kind of life that we have.”
‘It became like a real memory’: Louis Garrel on making a film aged five in which he found a man in bed with his mother
Read more
Seeing yourself through your own children’s eyes might make it harder to stay as in love with yourself as you were when you were young. But for an actor, it also makes it easier to not care and just act like a gorilla. Garrel seems to be developing a taste for that. Later this year, he’ll play the lead in It Will Happen Tonight, the new work by Nanni Moretti, one of Europe’s great comic film-makers.”I’m 43 years old, and the moments I value most as an actor now are when I’m in a screening room and I hear people laughing at me,” Garrel says. “It’s terrible. But that’s what I’m waiting for.”
Just an Illusion is released in UK and Irish cinemas on 11 September.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs based on the article topic ranging from beginner to advanced
General Fashion
1 Who is Louis Garrel
Louis Garrel is a famous French actor and filmmaker Hes often considered a heartthrob in French cinema and comes from a wellknown family of actors and directors
2 What is the article about
Its an interview with Louis Garrel where he talks about his new movie his relaxed attitude toward fashion and how he feels about being a dad
3 Does Louis Garrel actually care about fashion
No not really He says he doesnt care if he looks good He prefers comfort and practicality over trying to be stylish or trendy
4 What does radically dorky mean in the title
It means his new character looks very uncool nerdy or awkward on purpose Its radical because Garrel is known for being handsome and charming so playing a dorky character is a big change for him
5 What is his new movie about
The article focuses on his role in The Beloved In it he plays a very average ordinary man dealing with family life which is a contrast to his usual romantic lead roles
Fatherhood Family
6 How does fatherhood change his perspective
He says becoming a father made him less selfcentered He worries more about his kids than about his own image or career which is why he doesnt stress about looking good anymore
7 Is he a strict dad
He comes across as a relaxed and playful dad He likes spending time with his children and doesnt take himself too seriously at home
8 Does he want his kids to go into acting
He doesnt push them toward it He seems to want them to find their own path and hes more focused on them being happy than on them following the family tradition
The Character Acting
9 Why did he choose to play a dorky character
He was attracted to the challenge He wanted to play a normal unglamorous guy to prove he can do more than just be the handsome romantic lead It felt more real to him
