On TikTok, there are videos in which fans compile Sylvie Grateau's best matings and most beautiful looks — the hashtag #sylvieemilyinparis even has 1.7 million views!
Because Gen Z was not mistaken: the real star of the Netflix hit is not the nice Emily (Lily Collins, 34), but her uncompromising boss, the fifty-something Sylvie, played by Philippine Leroy- Beaulieu.
Sexy as hell, smoking outrageously in the faces of her collaborators, the actress (and her perfect English) has been breaking the small screen for three seasons already.
As a result, like her fictional double, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu has transformed into a true fashion icon, raising the temperature in the front row of Parisian fashion shows in transparent dresses or total Schiaparelli couture looks.
Everyone is chasing the actress, who has become a certain incarnation of the Parisienne—chic and chic.
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In real life, however, the woman is astonishingly simple.
Nestled in her black turtleneck, on the bench of a café on the Left Bank where she is a regular, she laughs at the mention of her young fans on social networks: “
If the youngest love Sylvie so much, it’s is because they want to
age
like her.
We all have the right to be fabulous
!
» This thunderous comeback, the actress is discreetly savoring it after a long eclipse which kept her away from film sets.
In the 2010s, it was the international success of the series
Dix pour cent
(in which she played the wife of the star agent played by Thibault de Montalembert) which put her back in the saddle.
The profession then rediscovered the rich range of acting of the woman who was nominated for a César for one of her first films (
Three Men
and a Bassinet
, by Coline Serreau).
It was in 1986, she was 20 years old at the time.
Today, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, who celebrated her 60th birthday last year, no longer denies herself anything – and especially not from being free.
Meet a luminous woman with a strong character.
Madame Figaro. –
At the start of the year, you are filming season 4 of Emily in Paris.
Are you happy to find your character Sylvie again, after such a long break
?
Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu.–
Sylvie, I adore her, but she exhausts me!
When the end of filming comes, at first I miss her terribly... And then, I'm happy to no longer have her inside me.
It was a great meeting, it taught me a lot of things.
The characters are encounters with oneself in places where one has never been.
What is there about you in Sylvie
?
Sylvie, I had it somewhere inside me without knowing it.
Inside, I have as much vulnerability as I have confidence.
Jung says: “
Our
unconscious is our back
”, we do not see what others see.
Darren Star (
the showrunner of the series, Editor's note
) saw it.
He told me after the first season.
This is what interested him about Sylvie.
And he incorporated it into his writing.
The Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu style
In images, in pictures
See the slideshow06 photos
See the slideshow06 photos
Sylvie is a powerful woman, sure of herself and her sexuality, a bit like Samantha in Sex and the City, the other cult series written by Darren Starr...
Darren has a long history with female characters: the woman in him understands a lot of things about us... He writes characters who are very complete and not stereotyped.
And he really trusts the actors.
He doesn't shower us with explanations, he waits for our intelligence to start working on its own.
I hadn't seen
Sex and the City
when it came out.
But well after.
It’s a very keen look at that era.
On another note, I just rewatched all four seasons of
Succession
in a row.
It's Shakespearean, of high quality writing.
What I like is that the cursor is pushed very far into the madness of the characters.
The truth is not necessarily realistic.
French cinema, I find, has a very realistic outlook and takes it very well.
On the other hand, it is more difficult to force the line.
I wonder if that's not why he has a weakness when it comes to female roles.
He cannot consider them outside of a well-defined framework.
However, French women are great characters!
Sylvie in
Emily in Paris
, I love her, but she exhausts me!
Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu
Sylvie is also a look, sexy and powerful at the same time. How did you work on this look
?
I come across Sylvies very often!
It can be a detail in an outfit or a silhouette... But more often, it comes from within.
I talk a lot with Marilyn Fitoussi, who designs the costumes for the series.
We have created a real bond over time.
When she offers me a piece of clothing, I quickly see how I'm going to move with it.
Because Sylvie has her own way of moving.
Like a caged animal.
There is impatience and acuteness.
The costume brings that.
The tight waist, the heels, the big overcoats… The polished side.
You grew up in Rome, in a cultured family, with an actor father idolized in Italy. how did this influence you?
I spent the first ten years of my life in Rome.
My father (
Philippe Leroy, Editor's note
) was in fact a well-known actor in Italy;
my mother did not yet work at Dior (
she was artistic director at the time Marc Bohan, Editor's note
), she was a very beautiful woman, very inspired, very creative, in love with beauty.
They were strong personalities.
We grow up in the light of our parents, and, at the same time, we must be able to develop our own.
Rome, in the 1960s, had exciting figures, abundant cinema, incredible fantasy... The city played a fundamental role for me.
When my parents divorced, I attended an American school.
I had an art history teacher who took us to discover the most beautiful places in the city.
The different strata of the city – Byzantine, Etruscan, Roman… All these eras colliding, that stuck with me.
Rome also has a unique patina on monuments.
At the Villa Medici, for example, when you get closer to the walls, you realize that there are lots of colors, like pointillism — it was Balthus who signed the restoration (
the painter was director of the institution from 1961 to 1977, Editor's note
).
For me, Italy is Giotto.
I can't tell you why.
Perhaps this sacred naivety.
Paris is very different.
More angular.
More “
ripolined. ”
»
You experienced success very young, in your twenties, with Coline Serreau's film, and then you branched off...
Coline Serreau is my cinema mom.
Afterwards, I worked in the theater with Roger Planchon, whom I consider to be my theater dad.
Then with Andrzej Wajda in an adaptation of Dostoyevsky.
I understood that I should never do the same thing again.
At the risk of doing less well.
After a strong start to your career, you choose the eclipse, why?
I wanted to fully experience other things, particularly my motherhood.
I needed to write a personal journey.
I worked a lot on myself.
I had something to resolve, like discovering my demons to better keep them in check!
It was a very rich period.
I went to Brazil for a long time, and elsewhere.
Cinema forgot me a little but I needed to experience that.
It wasn't always easy, I had a child — I wasn't supported by anyone — and needed to earn my living.
I had to roll up my sleeves.
Perfection is evil, we must abandon this idea
Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu
Does this comeback have a taste of revenge
?
You are now in high demand.
On the other hand…, I don’t like that word!
Let's say that, when I was young, I already didn't like feeling like an object of desire.
Today, it's even stronger, I want to be in a collaborative relationship much more.
Fortunately, the times have changed, young actresses allow themselves more things, they are in a more emancipated relationship.
Well done to them!
For many women, you embody a model of emancipation in relation to age-related dictates. how do you take it?
Diktats are not my story.
I hate being told what to think, ever since I was a child.
Neither my mother nor my father managed to have intellectual authority over me, moreover.
I feel an instinctive distrust of any form of indoctrination, I have always preferred to think for myself.
Obviously, freeing yourself from this hypnosis is constant work.
Words are generators of reality, and when we free ourselves from the injunctions which are at the very heart of language, in the way we name things, we are already much freer.
The obligation of perfection is diabolical, we must abandon this idea.
Nobody is perfect.
We chase perfection and suffer from being fallible.
To live in fullness, you have to let go of that.
Over time I understood that it was hurting those around me and myself.
To live is to confront reality, and life is not easy, obviously.
But bumps in the road make us grow and teach us something about our courage.
I am convinced that you have to stay in life.
It is our duty when things are at their worst, it is at that moment that we must draw within ourselves the strength to put light on the table.
I make it an everyday bet: it’s my driving force.
Emily in Paris
, season 4, at the end of the year on Netflix.