Charlotte Lucy Gainsbourg 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 to commercial and
critical success.
Gainsbourg has also appeared in many films, including several directed by Lars von Trier,
and has received both a César Award and the Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award.
Personal life
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 École Active Bilingue Jeannine Manuel in Paris and Collège 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 and singer
Lou Doillon.
Gainsbourg's longtime partner is French-Israeli actor/director Yvan Attal, and together they
have three children: a son, Ben and daughters Alice and Joe.
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.
Career
Acting
Gainsbourg made her motion picture debut playing Catherine Deneuve's daughter in the film Paroles
et musique.
In 1986, Gainsbourg won a César Award for "Most Promising Actress" for L'effrontée,
and, in 2000, she won "Best Supporting Actress" for the film La Bûche.
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 Théâtre de la Gaîté-Montparnasse.
In 1996, Gainsbourg starred as the title character in Jane Eyre, a film adaption of Charlotte
Brontë'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 García 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 Étienne 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.
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", 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.
Filmography Discography
References
External links Official website
Charlotte Gainsbourg's Interviews in English Charlotte Gainsbourg at the Internet Movie
Database Interview with Jean-Paul Enthoven, L'Officiel,
September 2001