It is far from France, on the other side of the Mediterranean, that Valérie Mairesse grew up. Indeed, she spent a large part of her childhood in Casablanca, Morocco, where her father was appointed bank director. “Dreaming since the age of 5 of becoming an actress…Marilyn Monroe!“, she declared to our colleagues at Our Time in March 2020. This is how her dream led her to Paris, where she was hired in the Splendid troupe, thus meeting, among others, the late Michel Blanc. Today, it is located nearly 500 kilometers from the capital.
Valérie Mairesse found her haven of peace in La Rochellecoastal town in the southwest of France, in Charente-Maritime. It is also the most populated commune in the department, ahead of Saintes, Rochefort and Royan. It was in 2014, after years in Paris, that the actress gave up everything to settle here, “in a small, gentle but sufficiently lively town, located below the Loire for the climate and on the edge of the Ocean“, as she confided to Our Time. In La Rochelle, there was no question of locking herself in an apartment for the actress separated from Thierry Lhermitte: she offered herself a house with a garden in the Pallice district, one of the most dynamic in the city, very close to the port.
Bike rides and cultural visits, Valérie Mairesse has found her rhythm in La Rochelle
Before settling there, Valérie Mairesse first discovered the charming city years earlier. She had the opportunity to visit it during an artistic residency. And since then, she had only one thing in mind: to come back, for good this time. “Totally in love, I feel like I’m from La Rochelle at heart“, confided the resident of Big Heads. She even has her own little habits now: she rides her bike, enjoys the cultural richness of the city and has discovered some good little places of her own. Like for example the aquarium “where I like to take my little daughter Scarlett and recharge my batteries alone, outside of busy times“, she explained. Despite going back and forth between Paris and La Rochelle as part of her work, she seems to have found her rhythm!
