Charlotte Gainsbourg Biography

Charlotte Lucy Gainsbourg (born 21 July 1971) is a British-French actress and singer. She is the daughter of English actress Jane Birkin and French singer and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. After making her musical debut with her father on the song "Lemon Incest" at the age of twelve, she released an album with her father at the age of fifteen. More than twenty years passed before she released three albums as an adult (5:55, IRM and Stage Whisper) to commercial and critical success. Gainsbourg has also appeared in many films, including several directed by Lars von Trier, and has received both a Csar Award and the Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award.

Background

Gainsbourg was born in London, to English actress and singer Jane Birkin and French actor and singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. Gainsbourg was born at the height of her parents' fame; they had made headlines several years earlier with the sexually explicit song Je t'aime... moi non plus and by that point had become notorious for their turbulent relationship and multiple artistic collaborations. As a result, her birth and childhood were well publicized.

Her maternal grandmother was actress Judy Campbell, and her uncle is screenwriter Andrew Birkin, who directed her in The Cement Garden. She is a cousin of theatre and opera director Sophie Hunter. Her father was Jewish, and her mother is from a Protestant background. Gainsbourg attended cole Active Bilingue Jeannine Manuel in Paris and Collge Alpin International Beau Soleil in Switzerland. French is Gainsbourg's first language, but she is also fluent in English.

Gainsbourg was raised in Paris alongside her half-sister from her mother's marriage to composer John Barry, Kate Barry, who died in 2013 after an accidental fall out a window. According to Birkin, both parents were somewhat neglectful, often spending their nights going out to parties and drinking. She has a young brother, Lucien "Lulu" Gainsbourg, born in 1986 from her father's relationship with Bambou. On her father's side she also had two older siblings born from his second marriage to Franoise-Antoinette "Batrice" Pancrazzi.

By 1980, her parents' relationship had dissolved and her mother left her father for the director Jacques Doillon. Her half sister Lou Doillon was born in 1982 as a result of the union. Gainsbourg would go on to work with her stepfather in the film The Temptation of Isabelle in 1985 and later in Amoureuse in 1992, which also starred her spouse Yvan Attal.

In 1987 she was the target of a bungled kidnapping.

After her parents separated, Gainsbourg's father descended into alcoholism, eventually dying of a heart attack in 1991. Gainsbourg remained devoted to preserving his legacy and preserved his home, saying she hoped to eventually turn it into a museum. She eventually abandoned the project and decided to maintain the house as a private residence instead.

On 5 September 2007, Gainsbourg was rushed to a Paris hospital where she underwent surgery for a cerebral hemorrhage. She had been experiencing headaches since a waterskiing accident in the United States several weeks earlier.

Career

Acting

Gainsbourg grew up on film sets, as both of her parents were involved in the film industry. She stated that her mother had pushed her into acting, believing that she wanted to be an actress and encouraging her to make her motion picture debut playing Catherine Deneuve's daughter in the film Paroles et musique (1984).

In 1986, Gainsbourg won a Csar Award for "Most Promising Actress" for L'effronte. That same year Gainsbourg appeared in the film Charlotte for Ever about a man who develops incestuous desires for his teenage daughter after his wife dies. Written and directed by Gainsbourg's father Serge Gainsbourg, who also took the role of Gainsbourg's father on screen, the film heightened the controversy that had resulted from Gainsbourg's debut single Lemon Incest, which had similar themes and also was created and sung with her father Serge causing press speculation that the material was autobiographical.

In 1988 she appeared together with her mother in a set of films, Kung Fu Master and the documentary drama Jane B. by Agnes V., both directed by Agns Varda. In 1993, Gainsbourg made her English-speaking debut in The Cement Garden, written and directed by her uncle, Andrew Birkin. Her stage debut was in 1994, in David Mamet's Oleanna at the Thtre de la Gat-Montparnasse. In 1996, Gainsbourg starred as the title character in Jane Eyre, a film adaption of Charlotte Bront's 1847 novel. In 2000, she won the Csar Award for "Best Supporting Actress" for the film La Bche.

In 2003, Gainsbourg starred in 21 Grams, with Naomi Watts, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro. In 2006, Gainsbourg appeared alongside Gael Garca Bernal in Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep. In 2007, she appeared as Claire in the Todd Haynes-directed Bob Dylan biographical film I'm Not There, also contributing a cover version of the Dylan song "Just Like a Woman" to the film soundtrack. In 2009, she won the award for Best Actress at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for the film Antichrist. Gainsbourg starred in the French/Australian production, The Tree, released in 2010, and in Lars von Trier's science fiction disaster film, Melancholia. She was on the jury for the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in February 2012. In May 2012 Confession of a Child of the Century premiered, where she starred alongside the British musician Pete Doherty.

Gainsbourg collaborated with von Trier once again on his 2013 film Nymphomaniac, in which she played the title role. The 5-hour film depicts the life of a sex addict from youth to middle age. When asked about the nature of the role, Gainsbourg responded, "The sex scenes weren't so hard. For me, it was all the masochistic scenes. Those were embarrassing and, yes, a little humiliating."

Music

Gainsbourg made her musical debut on the controversial song "Lemon Incest" in 1984. Sung by Gainsbourg and her real father Serge, the lyrics implied a pedophiliac relationship between a father and daughter and led people to believe that the material was autobiographical. Gainsbourg, who was 13 at the time of the song's release, later stated that she had just begun boarding school and was therefore unaware of the controversy regarding the song until she was much older.

In 1986 she released her debut album Charlotte for Ever, which was produced by her father. In 2000, Gainsbourg was featured on the Madonna album Music on the track "What It Feels Like for a Girl". The lengthy spoken introduction by Gainsbourg is taken from the film The Cement Garden, which inspired the title of the song. The track was further remixed for a single version in 2001, with Gainsbourg's The Cement Garden speech repeated during the song.

In 2004, she sang a duet with French pop star tienne Daho on his single "If". In 2006, Gainsbourg released her second album 5:55 to critical acclaim and commercial success, reaching the top spot on the French charts and achieving platinum status in the country. In the UK, the album was moderately successful, reaching No. 78 (The single "The Songs That We Sing" only achieved No. 129). Gainsbourg attributed the twenty-year break between her debut album and 5:55 to her father's death and her reluctance to explore a musical career without him.

In late 2009, Gainsbourg released her third studio album, IRM, which was produced by Beck. One of the influential factors in the album's creative process was her time spent filming Antichrist. Gainsbourg's head injury in 2007 influenced the title of the album "IRM", an abbreviation for the French translation of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). During her brain scan, she began to think about music. "When I was inside that machine," she said, "it was an escape to think about music. It's rhythm. It was very chaotic."

Her song "Heaven Can Wait" was chosen as the Starbucks iTunes Pick of the Week on 2 March 2010. Her song "Trick Pony" appeared at the beginning of the Grey's Anatomy episode "Perfect Little Accident" (Season 6, Episode 16/airdate: 25 February 2010), is featured on the FIFA 11 soundtrack and was used in the 2012 Teleflora Super Bowl advertisement featuring supermodel Adriana Lima.

In 2011, Gainsbourg released the double album Stage Whisper, a collection of unreleased songs from IRM and live tracks. In 2013, Gainsbourg released a cover version of the song "Hey Joe", recorded with Beck, for the soundtrack of the film Nymphomaniac, in which she was the lead actress. Her music influenced artists such as Tove Lo, who cited the simplicity and quirky lyrical content of Charlotte's IRM as the main inspiration behind her career in music and said that it "opened a new world" for her as regards sound.

Since 2014, Gainsbourg has been supporting the Hear the World Foundation as ambassador. In her role she advocates for equal opportunities and a better quality of life for people with hearing loss. She was featured in the Hear the World Calendar 2014, the proceeds of which were to benefit the foundation"?s projects.

Personal life

Gainsbourg's longtime partner is French-Israeli actor/director Yvan Attal, whom she met on the set of the 1991 film Aux yeux du monde. Gainsbourg and Attal are not formally married, and Gainsbourg has attributed her reluctance to marry to the fact that her parents never married. Attal publicly proposed to Gainsbourg on 19 June 2013 during an awards ceremony when he received the French National Order of Merit. However, in April 2014 Attal confirmed that they were still unwed, with no plans to officially marry. Together they have three children: a son, Ben (b. 1997), and daughters Alice (b. 2002) and Joe (b. 2011).

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1984	Paroles et musique	Charlotte Marker
1985	La tentation d'Isabelle	L'enfant
1985	L'Effronte	Charlotte Castang	Csar Award for Most Promising Actress
1986	Charlotte for Ever	Charlotte
1988	Le Petit Amour	Lucy	aka Kung-fu master!
1988	Jane B. par Agns V.	La fille de J.	Agns Varda film
1988	The Little Thief	Janine Castang	aka La petite voleuse Nominated "? Csar Award for Best Actress
1990	Il sole anche di notte	Matilda
1991	Merci la vie	Camille Pelleveau
1991	Aux yeux du monde	Juliette Mangin	ric Rochant film
1992	Amoureuse	Marie	aka The Lover
1993	The Cement Garden	Julie
1994	Grosse Fatigue	Herself	aka Dead Tired
1996	Jane Eyre	Jane Eyre
1996	Anna Oz	Anna Oz	ric Rochant film
1996	Love, etc.	Marie	Marion Vernoux film Nominated "? Csar Award for Best Actress
1999	The Intruder	Catherine Girard
1999	La Bche	Milla Robin	aka Season's Beatings Csar Award for Best Supporting Actress
2000	Passionnment	Alice Almeida	aka Passionately
2000	Nuremberg	Marie Claude Vaillant-Couturier	Miniseries
2000	Les Misrables	Fantine	Miniseries
2001	Flix et Lola	Lola	Patrice Leconte film
2001	My Wife Is an Actress	Charlotte	aka Ma Femme est une actrice
2002	La merveilleuse odysse de l'idiot Toboggan	Voice
2003	21 Grams	Mary Rivers
2004	Une star internationale	Herself	Short film
2004	Ils Se Marirent et Eurent Beaucoup d'Enfants	Gabrielle	aka ...And They Lived Happily Ever After
2005	L'un reste, l'autre part	Judith	aka One Stays, the Other Leaves
2005	Lemming	Bndicte Getty
2006	Nuovomondo	Lucy Reed	aka The Golden Door
2006	Prte-moi ta main	Emma	aka I Do/Rent a Wife Nominated "? Csar Award for Best Actress Nominated "? Globes de Cristal Award for Best Actress
2006	La Science des rves	Stphanie	aka The Science of Sleep
2007	I'm Not There	Claire
2008	The City of Your Final Destination	Arden Langdon
2009	Antichrist	She	Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award Bodil Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Sant Jordi Award for Best Foreign Actress Nominated "? Scream Award for Best Actress Nominated "? European Film Award for Best Actress Nominated "? Robert Festival for Best Actress
2009	Perscution	Sonia
2010	The Tree	Dawn	Nominated "? Csar Award for Best Actress
2011	Melancholia	Claire	Robert Festival for Best Supporting Actress Nominated "? Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated "? Bodil Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated "? European Film Award for Best Actress
2012	Confession of a Child of the Century	Brigitte
2013	Nymphomaniac	Joe	Bodil Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated "? European Film Award for Best Actress
2014	Jacky in Women's Kingdom	La colonelle
2014	Every Thing Will Be Fine	Kate
2014	Samba	Alice	Nominated"?Lumires Award for Best Actress
2014	Three Hearts	Sylvie	Nominated"?Lumires Award for Best Actress
2014	Incompresa	Madre
2016	Independence Day: Resurgence	Dr. Catherine Marceaux
2016	True Crimes	Kasia	Filming
2017	The Snowman		Filming
2017	Oppenheimer Strategies		Filming

Discography

Year	Album details	Peak chart positions										Certifications (sales thresholds)
		FRA	AUT	BE (Vl)	BE (Wa)	GER	NLD	SWE	SWI	UK	US
1986	Charlotte for Ever Released: 1986 Label: Phonogram/Mercury (Re-release)	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2006	5:55 Released: 28 August 2006 Label: Because Music/Atlantic/Vice	1	41	15	2	38	99	57	12	-	196	FRA: Platinum
2009	IRM Released: 4 December 2009 Label: Because Music/Elektra	4	-	35	8	-	-	46	28	62	69
2011	Stage Whisper Released: 13 December 2011 Label: Because Music/Elektra	84	-	-	98	89	-	-	-	-	-

Awards and nominations

Csar Award

Year	Category	Nominated work	Result
1985	Most Promising Actress	L'Effronte
1988	Best Actress	The Little Thief
1996	Best Actress	Love, etc.
2000	Best Supporting Actress	La Bche
2006	Best Actress	Prte-moi ta main

Year	Awards	Category	Recipient	Outcome
2009	Cannes Film Festival	Best Actress	Antichrist
	Bodil Award	Best Actress
	Sant Jordi Award	Best Foreign Actress
	Scream Award	Best Actress
	European Film Award	Best Actress
	Robert Awards	Best Actress
2010	Csar Awards	Best Actress	The Tree
	Robert Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Melancholia
2011	Saturn Awards	Best Supporting Actress
	Bodil Award	Best Supporting Actress
	European Film Award	Best Actress
2013	European Film Award	Best Actress	Nymphomaniac
	Bodil Awards	Best Actress
2015	Lumires Award	Best Actress	Samba/Three Hearts

Decorations

• Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters (2016)