Lou Doillon (born 4 September 1982 in Neuilly sur Seine) is a French singer-songwriter, artist, actress and model.
Luckily, I was raised by a kind of gypsy family, which is why I always get along better with people who worked in circuses than with kids of other actors. My mom was so carefree with us in a beautiful way. We were used to sleeping anywhere.
I think I was pretty much hated in France. The French press ignored me. There was a movement when the children of celebrities faced strong animosity.
It took me so long to get to the music, where that was what I wanted to do all my life. It took me so long to realise that it wasn't really movies that I wanted to do, but to be on stage singing.
Singing is the rawest thing. Having been naked in films or naked in photo shoots, it's nothing compared to singing. It's absolute nakedness. You are stripped bare! It's very strange. Acting seems much easier, in fact, because you are putting on a costume - whereas here you are taking everything off.
My mother always spoke to me in English, so it's technically my maternal language, and it became a kind of private language - I was happy that I could speak in English to my mum and the majority of people wouldn't understand it.
I listen to a variety of music. The only common point is strong lyrics; I'm more obsessed with lyrics than music. I need to hear a form of truth, and if it's a hard truth, even better.
I always lived with guitarists. When they would leave, I would just pick up their acoustic guitars and start doing finger picking and write.
I like costumes. I am always dressing up - I'm very English like that.
Yeah, you always have to be there and remind people of you. It's complicated when you do music, or when you do anything in general. You need time. I don't know if it's because of the weather or what, but [Canadians] seem to have a relationship to time that I like very much.
It's true that the biggest value of life is that it's going to stop. I was thinking when I was in New York the last time that all that we see that has importance is man-made. It isn't nature-made. And when I was looking through the window, looking at New York, I was so moved by humanity's desire for immortality-because that's what it is.
There's something I find highly embarrassing about it. As soon as I think I've written something smart, the next day I've got nausea, thinking, "Don't even try to be smart, it's absurd. "
I've always found that fashion is, first of all, mainly for yourself. So my two icons are, on one side, Little Edie from 'Grey Gardens' and, of course, like all my generation, I'm influenced by Kate Moss.
There's so many good books, but I'm always like, "I'm sorry, I have five more Faulkners to read, I can't be bothered. " Most of the time when you try, you fall on the wrong one.
Music came as the best thing for me at home, where no one can tell you anything. For years I was so closed, wanting to do it exactly like I had it in my head, because this would be the only place that was superpersonal.
I'm horrified most of the time. I wish it was more complicated, but at the same time, each time I try to complicate it I hate it because I hate the idea of writing to impress.
The whole process of music for me is something absolutely honest and really naked and bare, so I never forced myself to write in French.
I love acting; I love movie sets and movies, but, at the same time, there's something about the position of women in that world that frightens me a lot. I find it nearly inhuman to be an actress.
As soon as it's behind computers and machines, which the majority of the planet loves, I find it cold. I need to hear breathing. I like the idea of the mic being a captation of everything that's happening around.
There is a thing where I get scared watching other people, and really realize, My God, their happy lives are going to stop. Sometimes you feel that people have 19 jokers in their back pocket and, because of the way they're living, you're like, Do you know that this is not going to happen over and over again forever?
What I realized is that the desire for making 'Places' came from the fact that I've got this strange situation with having been born in the glitter, born on the other side of the mirror that everyone fantasizes about.