- Can you talk about how you feel right now?
- I'm trusting you.
I'm waiting for giving all that you want for me to give.
I rarely do makeup at 11 in the morning.
I'm really a bird of the night.
- Can you talk a little bit about...
- The character.
- The character and how it came to be
and why it's a part of you?
- Since I'm very young, I love to put costumes
and I create my first character, kind of this one,
who is called Corrine.
I feel it like a clown.
And a clown is a character that you have for all your life.
Actually, when I'm like that I can do all that I want
and that I cannot do when I'm in Sebastien.
- You can know Sebastien more intimately through Corrine?
- Actually, yeah.
- How old were you when you had began this interest?
- Maybe three, four years, five years.
It was not especially feminine things
but it was to transform myself.
I never fuck with that character,
with someone in that character, I never...
It's after, at the moment, I finish my work,
and I put off my makeup and it's finished.
I put Corrine in a bag and, shooop, go.
I don't want to be a woman.
I'm good in my body of man.
- Can you take off your shoes?
- Yes.
- Can you talk about who your
biggest inspiration is in your life?
- When I was young there was a street theater festival
and so I begin to see shows when I was 11, 12.
There was a kind of master of ceremony.
A big boy like that.
And he said, "Hey, hello,
"what are you doing?
"Yeah, you love circus?
"Okay, come on."
And "okay, you want to have the afternoon with us?
"Yeah, yes, stay with us."
And after he propose me to go in a supermarket,
something like that, to buy things.
And on the way, stop at a moment, and begins to touch me
and all that, and after I go.
I saw that that circus was not a life for me.
And after I met a street theater company
with which I worked for 17 years.
I meet people who can give me their knowledge
and who can show me things, artistic things,
or can open my brain.
They help me to make what I am now.
With my family, we never went to cinema,
we never went to theater.
It was even, still I was in my family,
in that town I was not gay, actually.
- What has been your biggest struggle?
- Multiple sclerosis.
It's one of my great fights now.
When I was 23 years old, I had a big car crash
with two people die and all that.
And I lost my left foot for maybe six years.
I'm like a miracle, little bit,
because it was really dead
and for one year I stay in a bed,
for two years I stay in a chaise roulante?
- Wheelchair.
- Yes, wheelchair, yeah.
And small and small, small, small
the nerves grow, grow, grow again.
And now I can move again my foot.
So it was one of my first fights
because I was 23 years old,
I've chosen to leave my family,
to live from my work and all that.
And I was really full of energy and (exploding).
- And the people that died, two people died?
- The people, it was in the other car.
Yeah, it was a father with a daughter, yeah.
But it was really not our fault, you know?
And my friend was driving had absolutely nothing.
- Is there a connection, do you think,
between that car crash and the multiple sclerosis?
- The big problem with that fucking disease
is they cannot say where does it come from.
No one can say that.
No one.
Maybe you can die in two months, in two minutes,
or so go, go fight, go to live, and go to have fun
and do what you need to do in your fucking life.
- What do you want to take off now?
- That.
Okay (laughs).
- Was it hard for you when you came out of the closet?
- I never did my coming out with my family.
My family, I only see them once a year or twice a year.
It's always for Christmas,
and it's always one or two days maximum.
I don't find the moment to say that to them.
Actually, I think I can say that to them
when I will present them someone.
Corrine is a name of the (laughs), of my
brother's wife.
I came to that town for the wedding,
and on the way to go from the train station
to the place where the wedding was,
I told my other brother that I was gay,
and he stopped the car and wanted to fight me.
Say, "What a loss.
"Not possible."
(growling)
- And what did you say?
- I don't really remember (laughs).
- Was it upsetting to you?
- Of course, of course, of course.
It make me sure that I've made the good decision
to no more live in that fucking town with my parents.
Okay, it was a shock.
I do the good choices in my life, yeah.
I leave the real family,
but I found just after the friend's family.
- You found a new family?
- Yeah, yeah.
I create, not--
- You create, you created a new family.
- Yeah, it's family you've chosen.
- So you said that you would tell your parents
that you were gay if you had someone to present to them.
Does that mean that you've never had someone
that you wanted to present to them?
- We were very close, but no.
It was not possible.
I've met someone performing in Russia,
and for two years we try to make him come to live here.
It was very difficult because of papers,
because of all things.
But at the end, we had made it.
We lived together for two years.
It was no more possible to live together, and so--
- Why?
Because of papers?
- No, because of brain, because of (laughs),
because we are not exactly,
we were not exactly the same.
- Compatible. - Yeah, on the same plane.
I don't know.
- The connection was lost.
- Yes, exactly, yes.
- Can you talk about something in your life
that you feel ashamed about?
- No, I have no regrets and I have no shame.
No, it's a secret of life too.
Why I didn't die in that fucking car crash?
Why I had that at 23 years old?
Why I lost my left foot
when I was beginning to have a career?
Why? I cannot explain all.
It's a magic of life.
And actually, I know that maybe tomorrow
it's totally finished.
You can find another way to live
and to find peace in your brain.
Both.
- Can you maybe, do you think you could drop the fan or--
- Or the pants.
- Okay, I can put the both at the same time?
- Can you do one at a time?
- Okay, I will, that and that at the same time.
I've got my underwear under.
- Can you do just this?
- Just this?
Yeah, of course.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Okay, because you have more question?
- Yeah (laughs).
- Okay, okay (laughs).
- When is the last time you cried?
(laughs)
- Okay, I don't cry because I am sad,
I'm working a lot by night.
And when I go back after a night of DJing
or a night of singing, after it's 5 o'clock in the morning,
you're on your own, and, okay (sighing),
you just go into the bathroom to have a face clean,
and I listen music.
And always I listen to special tracks
who gave me sensation, gave me feelings.
Often I'm crying at that moment,
but it can be a pleasure to cry, you know?
Can be a pleasure.
Of course, I think to not especially good things,
and to things that can break my heart or things like that,
but it's always the same;
things which can break your heart can be positive, too.
So, okay, I cry,
but it's not because I will (laughs) stop my life, no.
It's to make a point to where I am at that moment
and to maybe, to--
- Release?
- To clean your brain and your heart, too.
- When do you feel the most beautiful?
- I think when I'm in love,
when people give me love--
- When you feel connection you feel--
- Of course, I feel beautiful, that's normal.
- Yeah. - That's normal.
- Yeah (laughs).
- We need love.
- We do.
- Just hair, I go?
- Yeah, yeah (laughs). - All right.
- What do you think it means, self-acceptance?
- It's a work of life, yeah?
I think it's even in 30 years
I will not totally self-accept me.
I hope so.
- Why, in your body, in your skin,
why is it a good place to be?
- The fact that I'm an artist, actually.
I'm really, really, really proud of that
and really, and I'm really proud to have chosen
to go in that way and not in that way.
But I think that even if I was a baker, I don't know what,
maybe I could be very happy to be, to do the beautiful cakes
and maybe I could be an artist
even as a work,
something like that?
- Perfect.
- Thank you so much.
That was so, so, so beautiful.
We're really moved, deeply moved.
- Great!
- And you did, (laughing)
you really, you didn't have one bit of problems
with language or expressing yourself at all.
- Stop it, I will cry, too.
- But I'm going to take pictures.
(laughing)
I'm going to take a picture of you now.
- Okay.
- And how do you feel right now?
- I know that because of my English
and because I didn't know if I can give you
all that I feel with only the few words
that I have in English, it's not so easy.
But I'm sure that even in French
it's not so easy (laughs) to say all that, too.
- I'm going to give you a hug.
- Yeah (laughs).
- Thank you.