Lou Doillon Takes the Stage

April 23, 2016 | Filed in: Woman of the Week

Lou Doillon is many things to many people: daughter to singer-icon Jane Birkin and director Jacques Doillon, stepdaughter to the late Serge Gainsbourg, sister to actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, and “It girl” to droves of style-conscious women from Paris (her hometown) to New York. Professionally, she’s been an actress, a model, and is now making her mark as a singer-songwriter (she’s about to embark on a U.S. tour for her second album, Lay Low).

In true ampersand woman style, Lou fully embodies each of these roles with humor, intelligence, authenticity, and a deep sense of cool. She plays by her own rules, as evidenced by her offbeat personal style and the fact that she still uses a typewriter (“not because I find it romantic, but because my computer breaks whenever I touch it”). But perhaps the coolest thing about her is that she is impossible to fully pin down, and in her perpetual state of becoming, she is thoroughly (and thoughtfully) enjoying the ride.

We recently caught up with her at the Standard Hotel in New York’s East Village. A few highlights below.

On Not Over-planning

I never know what I want to do, but I know what I don’t want to do. That’s the way I function. I’m always terrified by those modern trendy books about “what’s your ambition?” or “find what you want to do.” I have no idea! Growing up, I was surrounded by loads of people doing exciting things, but sometimes, they didn’t seem as happy as one would expect. I realized that I was only going to live once, and I had to find a way to be thrilled about being alive. I’m a trooper for pretty much anything.

On Her Accidental Musical Career

I always sang at home but I had this idea that real singers sing high, and I have this gravely low voice. So I just sang for myself in my kitchen, but then my girlfriends would show up and say, “Can you sing that song again about your dog being better than your boyfriend?” Then there would be 10 people in the kitchen, then 15 people in the kitchen, then a producer in my kitchen. He liked my songs, so we recorded them over 10 days in a cheap studio by my place. The next thing we knew, we were releasing an album [Places, 2012] and it was a huge success in France. Suddenly I was touring. But if you’d told me this would happen two years before, I wouldn’t have believed it.

On Faking It ‘til You Make It

The first time I got on stage, it was a full house of 600 people who already knew the lyrics to my album that had come out a month before. So I thought, “Well, if they think that I’m a singer, I’ve gotta do everything I can to be one.”

On Feeling Like a Rock Star…

On my first tour, I played this one huge festival—Les Francofolies in La Rochelle. I found myself in front of 20,000 people and I was just singing and waving my arms, and then suddenly 20,000 people were waving their arms. I felt that terrible rock-star thrill, where you’re a step away from being a dictator. You think, “I can ask them to sit down, or stand back up, and they’ll do it.” It freaked me out because I realized how you can get a kick out of this. You have to be really careful for it not to go to your head. But, for sure, I need that thrill. As a kid, I saw my mom go on stage nearly every night, and that “raaaahhh” from the crowd always fascinated me. It’s a bit of a drug.

…But Not Partying Like One

You have so much energy when you get off stage. I hang out and drink with my band, but I’m always thinking of the next day—I don’t know if it’s related to the fact that I’m a Virgo. I could never say “fuck it” and get wasted and then not have a voice the next day. I’m too moved by the fact that people pay to come and see me.

On her Creative Process

It’s a three-year process. I spend a year writing by myself in my house, being absolutely non-social. Then I spend a year looking for the people I want to work with, and that gets me out of my bubble. I love working with people and searching for the sound, searching for the song. Then the third year, I tour the world and meet hundreds of people every day. That’s what I’m doing now, but I’m happy because I know that in three months, I’ll be back in the house and I’ll re-lock the door—and the typewriter is waiting. In August, a little depression will come from not traveling every day, and that will give fuel to start the process all over again.

Photo by Zelie Noreda

On Growing up in a Famous Family

There was so much attention around me when I hadn’t even asked for it yet. But you have to deal with it, so you either collapse or you become quite bold. I wouldn’t consider myself a confident person, but I’m strong. I’ve gone through lots of dark things, whether it’s personal or public. Sometimes it hurts; sometimes it’s painful. It’s really strange to be in the public eye. But I always think, “What’s going to happen at worst? They can’t kill you.”

On Being Multidimensional

I’ve always had that affect where people react to me. That’s the upside and the downside of fame: I meet people who have already “met” me one way or the other, so they see in me what they want to see in me. That’s what’s funny. When I’m working in the fashion business, people are surprised to learn that I’m obsessed by history or obsessed by poetry. And then I can be with all my intellectual friends who come from independent theater, and they don’t even know I do modeling. I’ve got people who still think of me as an actress because of movies I did 15 years ago, and they have no idea that I’m doing music. So people will think what they want to think of you. That’s why I love Instagram. I get to be the media and tell my own story.

On Getting Dressed vs. Dressing Up

In French, we have different words for “dressing up” versus putting clothes on. Dressing up is what an actor or a clown would do, and putting clothes on is what you do every morning. I guess I’ve always been on the side of dressing up. When I was 23, I lived in New York and I used to dress like Dorothy Parker to go to Starbucks. I never just put something on. It’s always based on what’s going to make me laugh. I started wearing vintage hats 15 years ago when women weren’t wearing them. It would really crack up the grandparents, because they were from the generation where people did wear hats. You could see they were a bit baffled by the idea of a woman wearing a man’s hat. I don’t want to impress people; I want to move them. And I love to make the grandpas smile on the street.

On Speed Shopping

I freak people out because I have a very strange way of shopping. I go very fast, and I never try things. The salespeople get frustrated with me because they’re like, “Hey, can I help you?” And I’m like, “Get away! I don’t need you.” I’ll go to vintage stores with my band, and they’ll spend hours trying on bloody T-shirts. I can’t do more than seven minutes in a store. 30 percent of what I buy doesn’t fit or wasn’t what I thought it would be, but I never return anything. I’ve got an army of sisters, so I just give it to them.

On America & American Women

There’s definitely an American look that inspires many French women. That model look of being dressed all in black with a little backpack—the young generation of French women are always trying to look like that. And this idea of being a strong, powerful businesswoman with the attitude and the work ethic. This idea of, “In the morning I wake up, run with the dog, then do something else, then go to the office.” There’s a sense of empowerment here that doesn’t really exist in France. There’s also an innocence. I think of America as being very “teenager,” as opposed to Europe being very old. There’s this mad-puppy side to things here, this sense of, “Let’s just try. Let’s do it and see what happens.”