Audrey Tautou reveals her photographic work in a book

Emerging from the camera body like a curious person spying over a low wall, a pair of eyes observe us. This mischievous lookwhich almost in spite of itself invites the spectator into a complicit game through a clever mirror effect, is one of the most famous in French cinema. However, it is far from the cameras and film sets thatAudrey Tautou (born in 1976) is now paving her way. The actress, who put her career on hold in 2017, explore new pathsstarting with photography. A happy coincidence if ever there was one: the same year, she presented her first exhibition at the Rencontres d’Arlesentitled “Superfacial”.

Superfacialit is also the title of the beautiful book that she has just published by Fisheye, in which she dissects, in texts and images, her relationship with notoriety. Thus revealing to the public eye this other facet of his creativityremained for more than 20 years in the shadow of the successful actress. “When I was young, I dreamed of being a wildlife photographer and imagined myself as a French Dian Fossey, in the jungle with my camera,” recalls Audrey Tautou, whose attraction to photography dates back to childhood.

Propelled to the forefront at the age of 25 with the global success of Fabulous destiny of Amélie Poulain (directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet in 2001), this pure autodidact – “a real galley slave! », she jokes with a burst of laughter – then found in photography a way to tame this sudden glory and, undoubtedly, not to lose ground: “It’s a book which addresses the adventure I experienced in becoming someone in the public eye from one day to the next. At the time, I needed this support to better cope with what was happening to me, without having the plan of doing something about it one day. »

Behind the scenes of fame

“I have some sort of obsessions, repetitive impulses that push me, despite myself, to take on a certain type of photography. »

The years pass and, with them, these accumulated images gradually take on a “coherent form”. It is then necessary a radical decisionwhich undoubtedly surprised more than one. “Putting my acting career on hold allowed me to finally give myself time and mental space to bring to life all the ideas I had in mindbut which I had difficulty bringing to fruition until then,” explains Audrey Toutou. And to recognize: “I was not mature enough to do it earlier”, before ironically about his “great age”.

Meditation on celebrity and the relationship to image, Superfacial blurs the lines between reality and fiction. After warning the reader – “Madam, sir, hold on tight, I am a star. But a real one. Yes yes. […] » –, Audrey Tautou gives him her “logbooks”a sort of diary written over the days on set and systematically photographed, revealing her aspirations and anxieties as a young actress. A dive behind the scenes larger than life: “It’s strict authenticity, with the spelling mistakes that go with it! », she laughs. Followed by colorful series devoted to letters sent by his fans to his press officer (often very funny) or an astonishing group of film journalists.

“I have some sort of obsessions, repetitive impulses that push me, despite myself, to launch into a certain type of photography,” recognizes Audrey Tautou, who thus transforms the promotion of films (a performance in itself!) into a photographic exercise in its own right, by carrying out the portrait of all the journalists she receives for interviews according to strict protocol. On each photo, the actress conscientiously specifies the date and time of the shooting, as well as the film concerned: “I wanted to keep track of the time spent with all these strangers that I would probably never see again. It’s a documentation work which shows that behind the media coverage hide all these people, all these looks… All this is not anonymous. »

See without being seen

“What matters to me in all this is being able to observe people without having to suffer their gaze. »

Of course, photography is nothing more than a matter of looking. Incognito, Audrey Tautou also begins to photograph strangers from behindmet all over the world. Like that, casually, on the sly. “What matters to me in all this is being able to observe people without having to endure their gaze and to slip into their perspective, ask me about what they see. » Seeing without being seen is a game that particularly suits the actress.

But photography is also for her a tremendous lever of emancipation : “It allows me to be the captain of my ship. I am not here to satisfy or fulfill the wish of another, but to serve my imagination” By theself-portraitAudrey Tautou shapes your own image in stagings which, although they may seem spontaneous at first glance, are in reality carefully thought out by the one who “leaves nothing to chance”. We could see this as a way of reclaiming one’s body and one’s appearance. For the actress, it is above all a question ofsatisfy your thirst for creativity – and it must be said that there is no shortage of them. She plans to soon return to cinema by bringing to the screen a children’s story that she wrote. Should we expect a new photo exhibition? Only time will tell. At Audrey Tautou, it is even fully part of the creative process: “Better late than never: I think I embody this maxim well,” admits the actress-photographer.