And there's Laetitia Casta, sitting in a 1970s-decorated office during a break from a long photo shoot on a cold, sunny day in March outside Paris, signaling that the interview can begin.
"Let's get closer, otherwise it will look like Vladimir Putin's table," she says before her, remembering the five-meter table where in February, before starting the invasion of Ukraine, Putin received French President Emmanuel Macron.
Everyone arrives with ideas in their heads about Laetitia Casta (Pont-Audemer, 43 years old).
She was the precocious model who broke into a fashion world dominated by supermodels in the nineties.
The woman who embodied Marianne, symbol of the French Republic and the ideals of
liberté, égalité, fraternité
.
The actress who had a hard time being taken seriously, but over the years she has consolidated a respected career in the cinema since she premiered with the popular
Asterix and Obelix against César
, and also in the theater.
Laetitia Casta wears a black knit bodysuit, a black leather trench coat, black leather shoes, metal and resin earrings, and a gold geometric bracelet, all by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello.
Her rings are hers. photography by Nico Bustos / styling by Alba Melendo
She doesn't like to define herself by any of these labels.
“I have never felt like a mannequin, I have never felt like an actress, I have never known where I was,” she ditches with a slight accent that is not from Paris, a hint perhaps of the Corsica where she partly grew up (although she was born in Normandy).
“I like that nothing defines me.
Because if someone or a place or an identity defines me, I have the impression of dying”.
The photo session looks like the shooting of a movie, or a
theatrical
performance .
A dozen people surround the star as she poses, the poodle runs and jumps.
Between shot and shot, she wraps herself in a gigantic golden feather that reaches to her feet.
She is the boss there, everything revolves around her, but at the same time she spends all her time receiving orders and strictly follows them.
It doesn't change so much for her that she's posing for a magazine or shooting a movie —the most recent is
The Crusade,
directed and co-starring by Louis Garrel, her husband—, or that she gets on stage like she did with
Clara Haskil, prelude and Escape,
the play by Serge Kribus in which the model and actress plays the great Swiss pianist of Romanian origin of whom Charles Chaplin said: “I have met three geniuses in my life: Einstein, Churchill and Clara Haskil”.
“When you act you are going to look for something of yourself, but you exacerbate it, you multiply it”, says Laetitia Casta.
In this image, she is wearing a black dress encrusted with rhinestones and gold safety pins by Versace, heels by Dolce & Gabbana and a Triple Layer bracelet in vermeil silver by Suot Studio. photography by Nico Bustos / styling by Alba Melendo
There is no difference, then, between her trades, that of a mannequin and that of an actress.
“For me it has always been the same thing.
I always have the impression of entering a story, a universe, of transporting myself to another place than reality, ”she says.
And there is always something of her in her characters, also in the one in this photo shoot and this character who "could be a killer or a superheroine."
“This woman,” she affirms, “she is a part of me.
When you act you are going to look for something of yourself, but you exacerbate it, you multiply it, as if you were opening a parachute that unfolds”.
Jacket, pants, top and sandals, all by Alexander McQueen.
The earrings are from Alaïa.Nico Bustos
It is another world, no longer the flash of lights and dresses, but the recollection of the scene, the theatrical monologue and a life of the 20th century, but there is something in common, he says, between Clara Haskil, born in Romania in 1895, and who died in Brussels after falling down some stairs in 1960, and Laetitia Casta.
“Like her, I started very young, at 14 years old.
She left her family very early.
I also.
I was in an adult world where people looked at you as a mutant.
She too: in competitions, when going on stage, when she acted.
And then work, work, work.
All my life I have worked.
And I have a private life.
When I see my children it is not the same life”.
Hers was the life of a teenager who started working as a model at the age of 14, who rose to fame shortly after, who dropped out of school and was immersed in a frenetic life of hotels, planes, parades,
flashes...
“You had to be 200% perfect,” she recalls.
“You had to understand what people wanted and do something absolutely divine.
It is like entering a church.
A bit mystical.
You had to be touched by grace."
All that could have ended badly, very badly: the story of the broken toys of fame occupies entire volumes in the newspaper archives.
Laetitia Casta, who was a protégé of Yves Saint Laurent, grew up between Normandy and Corsica.
She wears a black top by MM6, trousers by Givenchy, platform shoes by Philosophy Di Lorenzo Serafini, vintage earrings and belt by Zana Bayne. photography by Nico Bustos / styling by Alba Melendo
This was not the case, and the explanation he proposes is challenging.
A paradox.
"I was lucky to be extremely innocent," she says.
“I was a girl who did not know what fire is.
Danger passed by me, but I saw nothing.
She was protected by something which is, I think, innocence”.
Undoubtedly, his family education helped him, a point of balance in the face of a deranged world.
And he found mentors.
“Yves Saint Laurent was like a father to me.
He protected me.
He valued me.
He respected me,” he says.
“He taught me that nothing is external.
Nothing is superficial.
It all comes from something very very very deep.
And everything goes from there.
Laughing, he told me: 'I don't like mannequins'.
Actually, what he meant was that he didn't like what was manufactured.
The mannequins were the girls who did this trade only as a representation, something that corresponded only to external beauty.
And he loved women with character."
In 1999, Casta embodied the character of Marianne, symbol of the French woman.
She wears a black 'tweed' ensemble with gold trim, a bodysuit, shoes and jewelry, all by Chanel.
The black plastic glasses are from Gigi Studios.
Nico Busts
For Laetitia Casta, being a mannequin —a real mannequin— is something else.
"It goes beyond appearance," she says.
“It means being inhabited by something, having a thought about things, a vision of fashion;
that is, to convey something through the photo that makes people feel something.
It's not just being pretty: it's much stronger than that."
And she adds: “I don't like people looking at me for looking.
I am not an exhibitionist.
The question is why they look at you, that they look at you for what you really are.
But for this you have to be seen.
And this is the hard part.
In this trade you have to find the projects that allow you to be seen, that make you honest, sincere, fragile.
Often it all depends on where you are and with whom.
Over time I have learned to choose the projects that resemble me”.
The transition from fashion to cinema was not easy.
“In fashion, women are at the forefront, more than men.
When you start, you start very low.
Getting there is very difficult, it's like athletes, you have to have a lot of stamina, adapt to situations, always be available..., and when you get to the level where you're recognized for what you do and respected for what you do, then you're a goddess.
Women are often better paid than men in fashion.
I started my life like this, in a place where women are
women
”.
Dolce & Gabbana dress and Serpenti bracelet in rose gold set with mother-of-pearl inserts and two brilliant-cut pear and pavé diamonds, by Bulgari.Nico Bustos
But the cinema was something else —for women in general and for one who was famous as a model— and she discovered it right away.
“When I started I was amazed at the difference.
The salaries are different.
I had to make myself respected as an actress, because she came from fashion and it was thought that I would not know how to act because she was beautiful.
People thought he had nothing to say.
But no!
If in fashion I always had something to say, in the cinema I would also have something to say”.
As an actress, she has worked with directors such as Raúl Ruiz, Patrice Leconte, the Taviani brothers and Tsai Ming-liang.
And in 2016 she presented the short film En moi
at the Critics' Week at the Cannes Film Festival
, her only incursion as a director.
In addition to Yves Saint Laurent, there is another mythological figure from contemporary France whose fate intersected with that of Laetitia Casta.
It is Brigitte Bardot, whom she played in the film
Gainsbourg (heroic life)
by Joann Sfar.
To prepare the role, Laetitia Casta interviewed for hours with BB Both LC and BB have represented, each in their time, a certain idea of the French woman.
"We don't have the same political ideas," she points out at the outset, alluding to the far-right sympathies of the 1960s star.
“But in Brigitte Bardot,” she adds, “I found that, for her time, she was an extremely free woman, incredibly modern.
I think this woman suffered a lot for this freedom because of this very unique desire, like a child saying, 'I want to do this, this, this.'
She had no limits on her appetites.”
And according to the actress and model, there is something in common between them, "something intuitive, animal, spontaneous...".
For Laetitia Casta, being a model goes beyond appearance: “It means transmitting something through the photo that makes people feel something”.
She is wearing a Louis Vuitton dress;
Super Cleo sandals in black leather and crystals, by René Caovilla;
Swarovski earrings and 'vintage' bracelets. photography by Nico Bustos / styling by Alba Melendo
ALL THE PHOTOS OF THE SESSION WITH LAETITIA CASTA HERE
Spontaneous, fragile, imperfect: Laetitia Casta repeats these adjectives several times during the conversation, as if she wanted to claim this particular identity of the model who was out of the norm in her time, smaller —1.70 meters— and perhaps out of the cannons.
Today, she says, everything fits into identified groups: rappers who play gangsters, petardas who star in
reality shows...
“Now”, she argues, “through style you recognize who you belong to;
It is no longer the idea of the unique, with its defects, its fragility, doubts, fear, imperfection”.
It's been more than half an hour.
Laetitia Casta only has a few minutes left for lunch before climbing back onto the roof of the car park sandwiched between factories, buildings under construction and the Senate building.
The conversation ends.
Before saying goodbye, we talked about Vladimir Putin, about the war that is returning to Europe.
“All this because a man, in his fantasy that Ukraine is Russia, kills people both in his country and Ukrainians.
He is criminal”, she is indignant.
“And the worst thing, as a human being and as an artist, is not being able to do anything.
Do yo want me to tell you something?
It's something that drives you crazy."
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