This week, I interviewed the delightful Audrey Tautou, who stars as the title character of the newly-released biopic Coco Before Chanel.  Tautou is famously tiny, but I swear that her gaze is intense enough to push furniture around a room; I suspect that Mademoiselle Chanel had the same self-possessed authority.

Our talk took place early in the morning (for me, anyway), but Tautou had already been up for hours, doing television interviews. She was curiously animated for someone who’d been subjected to such a barrage; she gestured broadly as she spoke, her El Greco-like hands as eloquent as she was. 

It must be quite a grind, speaking to dozens of nosy journalists like myself all day—but Tautou has found a most unexpected way to amuse herself.  When our interview was over and I was getting up to leave, she exclaimed, “Oh, stop!  Wait!”  From her jacket pocket, she pulled out a camera.  “I am taking a photograph of everyone who interviews me today,” she said impishly and asked me to pose.  Although taken aback, I obliged.

“How interesting,” she observed, examining the shot.  “You are the only one who did not look at the camera.” 

“I guess I’m better on paper than on camera,” I offered - and it’s true, too.  Unlike Tautou, not everyone is courageous enough to stare down the camera’s bald scrutiny.

In any case, I can’t tell you how much I adored this gesture.  Turning the camera back on the media - it was too divine.  Bravo, Audrey Tautou—and congratulations on a wonderful, rage-filled yet elegant performance.

- lmmb