Charlotte Gainsbourg

Charlotte Lucy Gainsbourg (born 21 July 1971) is an Anglo-French actress and singer. She is the daughter of English actress Jane Birkin and French singer and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. After making her musical debut with her father on the song "Lemon Incest" at the age of twelve, she released an album with her father at the age of fifteen. More than twenty years passed before she released three albums as an adult (5:55, IRM and Stage Whisper) to commercial and critical success. Gainsbourg has also appeared in many films, including several directed by Lars von Trier, and has received both a CÃ©sar Award and the Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award.

Background

Gainsbourg was born in London, to Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, and was raised in Paris. Her maternal grandmother was actress Judy Campbell and her uncle is the screenwriter Andrew Birkin, who directed her in The Cement Garden. Her father was Jewish and her mother is from a Protestant background. Gainsbourg attended Ã‰cole Active Bilingue Jeannine Manuel in Paris and CollÃ¨ge Alpin International Beau Soleil in Switzerland. French is Gainsbourg's first language, but she is also fluent in English.

On her mother's side she has two half sisters, fashion photographer Kate Barry (1967-2013) and singer Lou Doillon. She is a cousin of theatre and opera director Sophie Hunter.

In 1987 she was the object of a bungled kidnapping.

Gainsbourg's longtime partner is French-Israeli actor/director Yvan Attal, and together they have three children: a son, Ben (b. 1997) and daughters Alice (b. 2002) and Joe (b. 2011).

On 5 September 2007, Gainsbourg was rushed to a Paris hospital where she underwent surgery for a cerebral hemorrhage. She had been experiencing headaches since a minor waterskiing accident in the United States several weeks earlier. She is a cousin of theatre and opera director Sophie Hunter.

Career

Acting

Gainsbourg made her motion picture debut playing Catherine Deneuve's daughter in the film Paroles et musique (1984). In 1986, Gainsbourg won a CÃ©sar Award for "Most Promising Actress" for L'effrontÃ©e, and, in 2000, she won "Best Supporting Actress" for the film La BÃ»che. In 1993, Gainsbourg made her English speaking debut in The Cement Garden, written and directed by her uncle, Andrew Birkin. She made her stage debut in 1994 in David Mamet's Oleanna at the ThÃ©Ã¢tre de la GaÃ®tÃ©-Montparnasse. In 1996, Gainsbourg starred as the title character in Jane Eyre, a film adaption of Charlotte BrontÃ«'s 1847 novel.

In 2003, Gainsbourg starred in "21 Grams", with Naomi Watts, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro. In 2006, Gainsbourg appeared alongside Gael GarcÃa Bernal in Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep. In 2007, she appeared as Claire in the Todd Haynes-directed Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There, also contributing a cover of the Dylan song "Just Like a Woman" to the film soundtrack. In 2009, she won the award for Best Actress at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for the film Antichrist. Gainsbourg starred in the French/Australian production, The Tree, released in 2010, and in Lars von Trier's science fiction disaster film, Melancholia. She was on the jury for the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in February 2012. In May 2012 Confession of a Child of the Century premiered, where she starred alongside the British musician Pete Doherty.

Gainsbourg collaborated with von Trier once again on his 2013 film Nymphomaniac, in which she plays the lead character. The four-hour film depicts the life of a sex addict from youth to middle age. When asked about the nature of the role, Gainsbourg responded, "The sex scenes weren't so hard. For me it was all the masochistic scenes. Those were embarrassing and, yes, a little humiliating."

Music

Gainsbourg made her musical debut with her father on the song "Lemon Incest" in 1984. Two years later, she released her debut album Charlotte for Ever, which was produced by her father.

In 2000, Gainsbourg was featured on the Madonna album Music on the track "What It Feels Like For A Girl". There is a lengthy spoken intro by Gainsbourg, taken from the film The Cement Garden, which inspired the title of the song. The track was further remixed for the single version of this song in 2001, with Gainsbourg's The Cement Garden speech repeated during the song.

In 2004, she sang a duet with French pop star Ã‰tienne Daho on his single "If".

In 2006, Gainsbourg released her second album 5:55 to critical acclaim and commercial success, reaching the top spot on the French charts and achieving platinum status in the country. In the UK, the album was moderately successful, reaching #78 (The single "The Songs That We Sing" only made #129).

In late 2009, Gainsbourg released her third studio album, IRM, which was produced by Beck. One of the influential factors in the album's creative process was her time spent filming Antichrist. Gainsbourg's head injury in 2007 influenced the title of the album "IRM", an abbreviation for the French translation of "magnetic resonance imaging". While receiving a brain scan, she began to think about music. "When I was inside that machine," she said, "it was an escape to think about music. It's rhythm. It was very chaotic."

Her song "Heaven Can Wait" was chosen as the Starbucks iTunes Pick of the Week on 2 March 2010. Her song "Trick Pony" appeared at the beginning of the Grey's Anatomy episode "Perfect Little Accident" (Season 6, Episode 16/airdate: 25 February 2010), is featured on the FIFA 11 soundtrack and was used in the 2012 Teleflora Super Bowl advertisement featuring supermodel Adriana Lima.

In 2011, Gainsbourg released the double album Stage Whisper, a collection of unreleased songs from IRM and live tracks. In 2013, Gainsbourg released a cover version of the song "Hey Joe", recorded with Beck, for the soundtrack of the film Nymphomaniac, in which she is the lead actress.